Down days
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Fri 24 Sep 2010 09:25
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Friday September 24th 1934 Local 0834
UTC
17:44.33S 168:18.49E
Back in Port Vila!
Just after I last wrote on Tuesday morning I
had to nip ashore to fix Chief Johnson's electrics. He has a solar panel and
a two small batteries one charging up and one to power the one small light
he has in his hut. The whole jobe needed as rewire as it was not morking but it
was just a case of terminations and new connections and re assembling the old
light fitting. While doing this word had got round the village and when I came
out from the hut there was a queue building. Fist was a chain saw, which needeed
no more than petrol then off up the hill to another hut to try to fix an
inverter which converted the battery voltage to 220v. I tried but could not
repair it. Anyway the efforts were rewarded with Chief Johnson and his wife
Jenny waving us a long farewell from the top of the hill as we hauled
anchor. They were still waving till we lost sight of them!
Later that day we arrived at Pentecost. The island
famous for the land divers. I enlisted the help of a couple of young villagers
to take me to the site of one of the towers. It was very interesting but
not as high as I had expected. The jumping "season" is April - June after
the yam harvest, as a form of exuberant celebration and men and boys proving
their courage.
The next morning at 0400 I hauled anchor and set
off dead down wind sixty odd miles to Santo. The town of Luganville
was much smaller than Vila and really didn't hold any attraction for us so we
decided to move on again the next day. That evening though we decided to head up
out of the town to get something to eat and we stumbled into a Kastom
dance performance by men and boys from the Banks islands. It was very
impressive.
Every island has its own customs and rituals and in
fact its own languages. The island we anchored overnight at the following
evening was Malekula and that island has over thirty seperate languages!
Malekula is the second biggest island in Vanuatu and was the last to give up
cannibalism. Chief Johnson told me he had to visit one chiefs house there with
the police. He said he was very frightened to vist and when in
the chiefs house he said there were human skulls and bones hanging all
around! They apparently only changed their diet forty years ago.
During the week Trish felt really down one of the
days. Missing family and friends and missing home in general. I think the huge
challenge of this trip is probably lost in all this writing of the adventurous
travels we are having. Trish finds the passages really arduous and really
misses the children and friends as well as home generally.
For me the challenges are different. I do all the
sailing trying to make things as comfortable as possible for Trish. I really
don't mind this at all and I don't have a problem with the limited sleep on
passages. I have a huge amount of maintenance, not to mention repairs that go
with a circumnavigation, far less doing it in a new boat and a new model at
that! I haven't really written much about this but it is never
ending.
However for me the biggest challenge has been
trying to keep a constructive involvement in the business. This is difficult to
say the least but most of all I find it incredibly frustrating. These are not
whinges but it occured to me that any reader of the blog may just
think this is a gentle luxury cruise around the world with no associated
hardships.
Today I read a book about someone who had sailed
round Scotland. It is a very impressive feat and the book goes into detail
about everything involved in accomplishing such an achievement. It's a
good read, but perhaps I thought we are selling ourselves short in terms of the
scale of the challenge we have taken on and are dealing with and don't
really convey that to the reader. I was reminded by the book just how much
work goes into the preparation of a voyage like this, including sailing round
Britain and Ireland via St Kilda, Muckle Flugga and the Scillies and all that
that in itself entailed.
Anyway as a special treat for Trish to try and snap
her out of feeling a little down we had a 90 mile beat today. A leeward
rail trailing in the water, pitching kind of beat. Hard on the wind. From
0500 to 1900. That way when she gets up tomorrow and we don't have to sail
anywhere she will feel really good.
If you don't have bad days how would you recognise
a good day. A long hard night makes that sunrise all the more wonderful.
Everything in life is relative. Three hairs on your head is not enough, but
three hairs in your soup is too much. A down day is only really one that is less
up!
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