After a couple of nice nights at the Awai anchorage we headed around to Avoch Island.  On the way we decided to drop into the beach at Sakao for a spot of snorkelling which was very nice with areas of healthy coral and a good supply of fish.  This is a marine reserve and hence well known as a good place for a snorkel.  Next stop is Avoch (total travelled for the day is all of 6nm) which is the second largest village in the Maskelyne Islands.  We soon have a few dug outs paddle by to say g’day including Chief Kaiser who is going to take us on a tour around the village in the afternoon. 

 

The village pretty much takes up the whole of the small island but is very tidy as most of the villages seem to be in Vanuatu.  We see a couple of new dug outs in work – every family seems to have at least 1 dug out as these are the main form of transport to either the village gardens, which are all on the big island, or out for a fish on the nearby reefs.  Through the assistance of some aussie’s the island have made up 3 x 4 tonne concrete blocks which are to be dropped in the bay for mooring’s.  They are hoping that these will be ready for use by visiting yachts in 2014.  As the bottom is all low coral or coral rubble it will certainly make anchoring a lot easier and also give the coral a better chance to grow.

 

In order to engross ourselves a bit more in Ni Vanuatu life we decide to head in for the church service on Sunday morning.   At 9.15am the first bell goes which means that everyone is to get ready.  About 9.30 the masses start wandering into the church (including the 2 white visitors) for the pre-service singing.  The second bell goes at 10 and the service begins.  Although we were not able to understand it all as most of it was in Bislama we got the general gist of things and even got to sing a few hymn's (in Bislama of course).  We think the locals got a bit of a kick about having a couple of visitors in the congregation and we even had to get up and introduce ourselves and shake hands with all 100 people of the congregation!  Following on from the service Chief Kaiser came out to visit us on Sal and he even brought us some of the local Lap Lap for lunch (yams and fish wrapped in banana leaves) which was actually quite tasty!

 

Monday and we are off to Port Sandwich (named after Earl Sandwich).  We take the NE passage out of the Maskelyne’s which is rather narrow but all OK and head north to PS.  Again it is a short hop of around 13nm so we are anchored well and truly before lunch.  Apparently swimming is off while we are in Port Sandwich as there have been shark attacks in the area so looks like it will be bucket baths for the next few days.

 

Mustang Sally’s position in Port Sandwich is “16:26.41S 167:47.05E”.

Port Sandwich is a lovely quiet anchorage and very well protected so comfort levels are very good on board.  We went and met a few of the locals at the Rainbow Store on our first afternoon here before going for a bit of a walk to stretch the legs.  Again there is spring water available on tap here so looks like there will be some more washing and filling of tanks before we leave.

 

On Tuesday morning we head off early to Lamap – the main village in the southern part of Malakula.  The road runs along the coast so it is a really pretty walk and the village seems more like a big suburb than a village so we get to meet lots of locals on the way to the centre of town.  Much to Mark’s delight the main store bakes baguettes daily so it looks like we will have fresh bread for lunch.  On the way back to the boat we meet Lyn from Rireana (the Kiwi boat in the anchorage) – they have been out in Vanuatu for a few years now providing some medical assistance to some of the villages.  It is great to meet so many people out here trying to help!.