16:43.661S 168:08.668E

Friday 6 th August

We left Port Vila early Thursday morning and sailed 70 miles dropping our anchor at Revolieu Bay, Epi late afternoon. Three boys in a dugout canoe soon joined us; they introduced themselves as Timmy, Roger and Bernard. They came on board and were fascinated with the pilot and guidebooks I had been looking at. They enjoyed having their photo taken and Paul printed off copies for them.                                 

Timmy while looking through the pilot book finds a picture he connects with

We also gave them a Mars bar and a cold can of Coca cola. Timmy hadn’t had a cold can of drink before and he kept passing it from hand to hand and when he had a drink it made him shudder.                                     

It was getting dark when they left and they promised to return the following morning with some Pamplemousse.

Early next morning Timmy paddled out as promised with four pamplemousse and three of his sisters, Eileen, Kathy and Lamas. He helped the little girls onto the boat and asked if we would take their photos.                                    

Sadly they don’t go to school, as their parents can’t afford it, all families have to pay for their children’s education. They were very inquisitive and spent some time exploring the boat; they eventually left with pens, pencils, colouring books and chocolate.                                     

Later that afternoon we moved along the coast to Lamen Bay at the top of the Island.  There were a lot of boats already at anchor in the bay, we were only staying for the afternoon so dropped our anchor and got our snorkel and masks out.

The bay is home to massive sea turtles and several dugong (sea cows). We swam with two huge turtles and a dugong; he moved along the seabed sending up clouds of sand searching for food… Big ugly things they are.                                

There was a hive of activity ashore as sports day was taking place in the village with canoe racing in the bay, tug of war and football matches. Simanderal were anchored in the bay and we caught up with Michael and Ger ashore before heading off later that evening.