Super yachts and village life
Storyteller
Sat 23 Aug 2008 04:43
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Port Vila 17.44S 168.18E
One of the highlights of our time in Vanuatu has
been the couple of days we spent at Asanvari, a village on the island of Maewo.
On the way south from Santo we spent a night anchored off the island of Ambae,
the fabled Bali Hai of James Michener's Tales of the South
Pacific.
As we sailed into Asanvari, we saw at anchor Squall
one of the biggest super yachts we have seen anywhere. To start with we were
annoyed by the noise of all their toys--jet ski, water skiing, the lot. However
our view changed when the english skipper came over in their very glamorous
tender to donate us some beautiful yellow fin tuna. Surrounded by coral reefs
and with a glorious waterfall, grass huts and lovely gardens is an idyllic spot.
There are no roads, no cars and people live in grass huts eating pretty much
what they grow--taro, yams, bannas and papayas.Being such a lovely anchorage and
with a rather entrepreneurial chief, Nelson and his son, Nixon,
Asanvari has been 'adopted' by cruising yachties who have helped install a
simple hydroelectric scheme and some moorings and navigation marks. They
even have a simple shop selling the lovely bags woven by the local women. The
villages with anchorages are so much better off than most villages, as
yachties are pretty generous in donating rice, flour and other basics. We also
trade clothes for fruit and vegetables. Along with the super yacht owners,
guests and crew, we were invited ashore to watch the men and boys kastom
dancing, followed by a roast pig feast. We were amused to see chief Nelson
leading the dancing in full traditional dress plus a cap from some yacht. The
preferred footwear for the dancers was Crocs, most off them very well worn. We
had to take our own cutlery,glasses and 'white man kava'. There was plenty of
real kava available, and the next day Nelson, the chief, was seen being
transported out to Squall in great style to conduct a private kava
ceremony. The village picaninnies spend all their free time in the sea using
anything available as a vessel, including polystyrene boxes and lids. Irene from
Southern Princess took some plastic toy trucks ashore, probably the first the
kids had ever seen. We were quite impressed to see the rather austere owners of
Squall joining in the dancing and offering chocolate mousse to the locals.
The chef was a very nice young Kiwi, and we plan to have a big night out in Vila
with the crew when the Swiss owners have departed after their four weeks on
board. They told us that their night on shore with us was their first time
off the yacht in weeks and that they work a 17-hour day, 7days a
week.
Next morning, with Bob Colbert and an 11
year old village boy as our guide, we trekked up to a village at a much
higher level. We visited the local school and were thrilled to see in a
classroom some of the materials we had published. The level of school work on
the blackboard was quite impressive. I'd been talking with some of the local
women and hadn't quite realised that our tour included an incredibly steep
jungle trek to the waterfall. Unfortunately it had rained during the night,
and all I can compare it to was a couple of hours on the Kokoda Track. We also
discovered that Crocs are not suitable footwear for jungle trekking. We
slipped and slid down the narrow, muddy track, desperately
clinging to any roots or branches, dreading what the consequences would be if we
went over the side of the hill. After crossing mountain streams, we
finally clambered over some slippery boulders down to the base of the waterfall.
Have taken a tumble and bleeding from grazed elbows and knees,I found
that the beauty of the scene somewhat escaped me. Next time I'll ask a few
more questions before going with Bob on a mountain trek! Fortunately
we were able to take a much easier track along the shore back to the dinghy.
That night we ate ashore again, this time on coconut crab, served with a
delicious green papaya curry. It was very hard to avoid comparing the opulence
of Squall with the subsistence lifestyle of the villagers. The villagers would
ask us if we were from the big yacht, but we would say 'No, from the small
ones'. It's all relative.
We'd planned to spend several days on the trip
south to Port Vila, including a couple of days on Epi, which we had flown out to
on our last visit to Vanuatu. What should have been a lovely protected anchorage
became more and more rolly, and as the surf started to build on the shore and
all the other yachts pulled up their anchors, we decided that we too should head
south before the forecast 30 plus knot winds built up a very big sea. After
a couple of very day rough trips back to Port Vila it was rather a
relief to be tied up on the sea wall again, close to the great music in the
local Waterfront Grill and Bar and the brioches and croissants of the nearby
patisserie.
For more about our time at Asanvari, see
the Southern Princess blog as John Hunt took some wonderful photos of
the children, the feast and the dancing. With any luck he has not included
any of me covered in mud and blood.
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