Tanna Island, Vanuatu
Vega
Hugh and Annie
Tue 7 Aug 2018 10:01
Today we arrived at Port Resolution which is a bay on the south east of Tanna Island, our first stop in Vanuatu, and landfall of and named by Captain James Cook. At least I am assuming we will have as this is being written on passage the night before arrival! In fact it should have been written and sent from Vuda (pronounced Vunda) marina in Fiji but all the planned tasks on Vega went so well I ran out of time to write a post.
While in the Fijian capital Suva, Ian (from Nautilus and who had arrived with Steph from NZ the day before) and I took a taxi out to a chandlery for some planned and as ever, unplanned boat parts. Whilst there I came across the solution to our planing difficulties with the dinghy. It was in the form of a hydrofoil that is bolted to the cavity plate on the outboard motor to create lift (like a wing), reduce turbulence and generally improve everything from steering to planing to fuel consumption. I had seen the equivalent on several motors including an identical and also brand new Tohatsu 9.8hp. Although our dinghy will now plane fast with two of us on board, it won’t with the addition of two sets of dive gear. The other Tohatsu is on a larger dinghy that with two people and dive gear left us standing as it zoomed off on the plane. Maybe a larger dinghy has a larger floor area on which to plane but then there is additional weight and drag. The other obvious difference was that their outboard had a hydrofoil fitted. Mark had fitted it simply because it had been on his old motor and he thought he would keep it and so had no “before and after” experience to relay. Anyway, there was this hydrofoil in the chandlery that looked the same and was for all outboards and so it became my largest purchase along with a few other essentials. A few days later we were at anchor and I had the urge to fit the hydrofoil and so lugged the outboard into the cockpit where our binnacle also serves as a brilliant outboard holder for maintenance etc. At this point I discovered that the hydrofoil mounting bolts were too far apart to fit the rather narrow cavitation plate of the Tohatsu. So much for fitting all outboards. A phone call to the chandlery revealed that they did have a smaller version and that they could get it over to their Vuda Marina shop to exchange when we arrived.
Not only was the alternative hydrofoil waiting for us (in fact it is two separate wings and so perfect for our motor) but no sooner had I walked into the shop than my eyes alighted upon the solution to all our anchoring problems - a bow roller for the snubbing line that would fit alongside the forestay bow fitting and do away with the need for two snubbing lines to form a bridle. Things were definitely looking up! Two days later and the hydrofoil was fitted, the bow roller fitted and we had collected and fitted the replacement port bow navigation light that had been sent up from NZ. This necessitated a trip to the post office and seemingly endless formalities but no duty was payable and the shiny new light was remarkably easy to fit (we mangled the old one on a mooring post in NZ although with the aid of tape and a plastic bag it was still working perfectly! Loupan now has the old lamp as an extremely stylish red cockpit light mounted on a bottle). Another package of spare parts from the UK had come direct to the marina via DHL. I will update you on each of the new items as and when we come to test them............
On passage to Vanuatu we have eaten royally. When buying meat to barbecue in Fiji we also found frozen curries but it transpires they should have come with a health and safety warning. One was goat, the other chicken and in each case the meat was chopped pieces, bones and all. Chomping your way through a curry with needle sharp pieces of bone throughout has to be undertaken carefully. Fingers are the best handling tools and this seems to be the Fijian way. We have seen fish heads and bones sucked of all flesh, skin, eyes etc using fingers. In fact the fish heads are considered a delicacy which is fortunate when sharing a meal because you can eat the flesh of the fish from the body, leaving the delicacies for your host! Our decks have needed to be cleared of discarded bone shards that didn’t quite make it over the side. We have also had fresh tuna caught by Annie as we left Fiji. Delicious with fried vegetables and teriyaki sauce after marinating the tuna with lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, ginger and dangerously hot local chilli.
We had one technical hitch on the way over when the third from top mainsail batten became detached from the slider that holds it to the mast. The retaining bolt had fallen out. By cannibalising the bolt from the bottom batten we can use the mainsail with two reefs (which is how it is a lot of the time anyway). I did find the fallen bolt nestling on the top of the dinghy so will refit it while at anchor here. The sliders, I have now noticed, can be fitted either way up and if upside down the bolt can fall out(!). I also noticed the starboard (at the time leeward) forward lower shroud on the mast wobbling when the boat hit a wave or in the bigger gusts when the mast flexed. We had the same trouble with the port lower on the way up from NZ and this has been an issue in the past, until our Dartmouth rigger tensioned everything up before we left the UK. I now suspect that removing the forestay in NZ has altered the shroud tensions. I will tighten the lower but despite downloading the Selden mast tuning guide cannot figure out how these forward and rear lowers should be tensioned correctly (or even exactly what they do!)....................
And I can now confirm that we are indeed in Port Resolution. Several of the Vanuatu islands are actively volcanic, including this one and this is one of the reasons we wanted to come here. You can go up to the crater above the anchorage and bask in the glow of molten lava whilst dodging the showers of rock and lava that are ejected every few minutes. We just have to hope that things aren’t quite as active as on another of the islands, Ambrym, that has recently erupted. All 11,000 inhabitants have been evacuated, probably permanently. Ash from the eruption was carried east in the jet stream and fell on boats in Fiji.
Some places have to cope with frequent natural disasters and this is one of them. When not volcanoes it is tropical cyclones. Nevertheless yachties are welcomed and catered for by the locals (in contrast to the situation in Tonga and Fiji). It is stunningly beautiful, interesting, quirky and surprisingly accessible. This really might just be tropical paradise.