We met and gained a few lifetime boater friends while anchored for a week off the Isle of Pines.  One of our first excursions was with Sue and John from Storyteller and Mike, Tracey, Amanda and Gavin from Peregrin (we've known Sue and John since the start of the rally, but the Peregrin crew was new for us).  We took a mini-bus (no tourist trucks here!  only posh mini-buses with nicely upholstered seats and air conditioning) to a nearby bay where we then boarded a traditional sailing outrigger canoe (called a pirogue) that had been fitted with a couple of benches to handle about twelve tourists.  These are the small, but graceful vessels with a triangular sail you might have seen on a Discovery Channel program at some point along the way.  As we perched on the benches and enjoyed the incredibly calm, downwind sail through a narrow, long bay protected on three sides by islands and reefs, we wondered why it was that eight sailors chose to spend a day, yup, sailing.  Can't get enough, I guess.  Picture 1 is a lovely view of the raised coral rocks in the turquoise bay and a few other pirogues that were sailing nearby as we floated along. 

 

Our pilot was a native Melanesian who spoke only French, so there wasn't much in the way of conversation between he and the eight of us.  However, at the end of the one-way trip, he did give us a fairly lengthy speech, which seemed to be some kind of warning.  At that point, he had anchored the small craft out from the water's edge and he indicated that we should exit off the back, into the water and wade to shore.  When we stepped down from the boat's stern into the water and our feet sunk deep into ankle sucking, sandy, smelly, clayish, slippery muck, we figured out what he was warning us about.  Aside from Sue momentarily losing one of her Crocs in the ankle sucking, sandy, smelly, clayish, slippery muck, we made it out alive.

 

Once on shore, we followed a trail through a fern lined forest to a sandy inlet surrounded by the trees the Isle of Pines is famous for (picture 2).  We followed the sandy inlet to the southwest side of the island and eventually found a place to have lunch.  Our first restaurant choice, which boasted handmade picnic tables, an open-air thatch covered dining area and freshly caught lobster, could only have fed us if we had made a reservation the day before (they had no refrigeration and would only catch the exact number of lobsters needed to cover each day's reservations).  Eventually, after eating lunch at our third and last choice, we caught the fancy mini-bus back to Kuto Bay and back to our own, slightly more spacious boats.

 

Not too far from Kuto Bay, there was a small bakery where French baguette and if you were really lucky (and got up really early) croissants could be found.  Don and I rented a white roller-skate car (in slightly better shape than the blue roller-skate Sue and John rented on Lifou, but a roller-skate none-the-less) and I took the girls - Sue from Storyteller, Juliet from Reflections and Claire and Fiona from Sa'vahn (means 'Heaven' in the language spoken by the people of Laos) - to the bakery, fresh produce market and the two tiny grocery stores where most of the goods were behind the counter so you had to ask the clerk to fetch them for you (not easy for non-French speakers, although sign language and butchered French seemed to do the trick). 

 

First the bakery.  Juliet, famous for her fourteen year voyage on Reflections, is so tuned in to the needs of boaters that she sewed bread bags for all of us for the sole purpose of carrying the long, skinny baguette loaves from the bakery to the boat.  Normally, to get the bread from the bakery to an anchored boat, the bread would either be carried by hand (no bag) or partly carried in a bag that was too short for it, laid on the dinghy floor (yes, very sanitary), then the boat deck (also very sanitary), until it was safely deposited on the counter in the galley.  Juliet, having experienced this bread carrying dilemma herself in the past, devised a suitable baguette bag pattern and has sewed countless numbers, leaving a wake of perfectly sized fabric bread bags wherever Reflections has roamed.  She even had the forethought to make the bag wide enough for not just the skinny baguette, but the double-wide variety as well.  Where was she when we needed her in the Marquesas where we were faced with transporting giant bread from the main town on Hiva Oa back to our anchored boats?  Picture 3 is the girls on market day with our blue bread bags.  On the left is Fiona and Claire, standing next to me is Juliet holding the patterned bread bag and Sue is on the end to the right.  Our white roller-skate is in the background.

 

Next the fresh produce market.  We got there early, but it is a small island and there wasn't much for sale.  However, the heads of leafy lettuce caused much excitement among the five of us and we all went away happy.  Later, over pizza on Storyteller, we decided that it will be really strange to go home and be faced with a supermarket filled with an endless array of produce given that we currently get overexcited about a few heads of lettuce.

 

Later that same day, Don (who aside from the almost-cow-hitting-torrential-rain-ride to dinner on Lifou hadn't driven in almost a year) drove John, Sue and I around the island to see the sights.  It was a glorious day, the sky a most marvelous corn-flower blue, and these palm trees (picture 4) seemed to be enjoying the breeze as much as we were.

 

Living the life that we do, it seemed appropriate that we should bring a picnic lunch with us on our road trip around the island.  We chose a grassy spot just off the beach on the southeastern side of the island, and were entertained by a flock of seagulls (the birds, not the '80's band).  Picture 5 shows Don wearing his official Tilley hat, John and Sue in our picnic spot.

 

After lunch we stopped to see one of the largest caves on the island (picture 6).  According to our guide book, the Melanesian queen used to nap here.  We didn't think it was all that inviting, but it was dark and quiet.

 

A few days after our roller-skate car island tour, the four of us hiked up the tallest peak on the island (don't get too excited - it was less than 1,000 feet, but high enough to knock the wind out of us sea-faring folk).  Picture 7 is what we felt was the best view - showing Kuto Bay, the anchored boats and the surrounding islands and reefs in the ten-shades-of-blue water.

 

The week we spent in the Isle of Pines was one we won't soon forget.  It wasn't the cultural experience of the northern islands of Vanuatu, but it was one of the most beautiful and relatively untouched, undeveloped islands we've seen.  There were very few hotels and all of them small.  The perfect, white sand Kuto Bay beach is almost a mile long and aside from a few boaters and hotel guests, completely deserted.  It's the first place we've been since leaving the rally where we've met so many other boaters - all living their version of the sailing dream, all overflowing with stories to tell.  It seems fitting that the last picture is a sunset - viewed while enjoying happy hour at the only restaurant on Kuto Bay beach (from the left is Sue, John and Don).  Given the financial upheaval going on at home that we keep hearing snippets about on Australian radio, we absolutely have nothing to complain about at this end of the world with our new lifetime boater friends.

 

Anne