Northern Vanuatu to the Banks Group
Off to the Banks
The distance to Gaua from Pt Olry is about 50NM. This would take a long day if the winds were light, and could mean arriving in the dark, so we decided to do an 'overnighter' so it wouldn't matter what time we arrived in the morning. We had an early dinner and prepared to leave at 8pm. We couldn't move - the anchor was stuck! We tried going forward, backward, round one way, then the other to no avail. So we had no choice but to delay our departure. The next morning, Sean from "Black Billy" came over to find out why we were still there. He brought his snorkel gear and found the anchor had been wedged in a crevasse - he pulled it out with no problem.
The winds were very light the next day so we decided to leave at 5:30pm while it was still light. There was no wind at all so we motored for the next three hours until a breeze sprung up. We were travelling nicely at 4kts which would get us there around 6am, except the wind kept increasing in strength until we were doing 6kts. Too fast! so we pulled in the headsail and eased the mainsheet to slow down. As it was we arrived at the southern tip of Gaua around 5am, so we tootled in slowly until we reached Lakona Bay at 6am. There we were met by Chief John-star and his grand-daughter.
Lakona Bay
We spent a few enjoyable days here, visiting both villages. William and his family were particularly welcoming. A visit to the school on Sunday showed there wasn't much in the way of resources, and the volleyball net was broken. We offered to fix it so took it back to Meridian. It was quite a tricky task to sew the tape back along the top, and patch the many holes with fishing line. When we returned it (along with books, pens, pencils and other teaching aides, we were disappointed to find that there were no children! The teacher was 'sick' and had sent them home.
That afternoon we had a performance of Water Music. This was performed by 5 women in a creek near the beach. They made the music by clapping their hands under water and on the top - quite hard to describe the sound - a sort of deep whooshing sound followed by the slapping sound. Anyway it was fascinating to watch and hear.
We planned leaving the next morning at 9 am but we had made a promise to take a family photo of William and his tribe. It hadn't happened on Monday so it had to be before we left. This meant rounding them all up, taking the photos, back to the boat to print them off, then deliver them. This was all done by 10:30am, not too bad as we only had about 25NM to go to Vanua Lava island.
Vureas Bay
A good breeze once we left the shelter of Gaua gave us a good sail up to Vureas Bay. We were soon visited by Patrick, then his father Chief Godfrey who welcomed us and invited us to a welcome party the next day. The next morning we sent ashore to meet the rest of the family, including daughter-in-law Christina. She guided us to the main village of Veteboso, up the hill where there are stores. It took us about 30 minutes to get there. The store had a reasonable supply of basics including rice, flour and sugar.
The welcome party was very nice, mainly traditional dishes of rice, manioc, taro and yam. A few fresh water prawns added some protein. We planned to go up to Waterfall Bay to meet up with Peter and Donna on "Two Up" and found out that the official opening of the yacht club was happening on Friday and Saturday. We then got an email from Peter relaying a request from Chief Kerely to Chief Godfrey: could he arrange with Chief Graham to get the tam-tam (big log drum), headdresses, bongos, tea chest base and kava together for US to transport to Waterfall Bay. The message was passed on and the process set in motion. Luckily for us, "Two Up" was talked into an early fishing trip which brought them to Vureas Bay. Just as well, because there was no way that we could have carried it all. The tam-tam alone was about 2m long, some of the headdresses were about 1m wide and there were 9 of them!
We then found out that as transport was available, the dancers and musicians would come with us too! There was a problem with the headdresses - the boys who came down with Two Up couldn't travel with them, so they had to come with us. "Two Up" carried 18, we had 11.
Waterfall Bay
When we arrived (in rain) we then had to unload this lot. The dinghy landing was pretty tricky but the passage through the reef was marked with floats so we got most of them ashore without too much drama. The rain got heavier so we had three men left - Roy, Ham and Johnnie. After coffee, bread and honey the conversation lagged a bit. I pulled out my guitar and asked if they could play. Roy and Johnnie had a go and were quite good - better than me. Finally the rain stopped and we got them ashore.
Official Opening
The original program started at 8am (Friday)! Well of course it was around 10:15 when things finally got under way. One of the reasons for the delay was that the Official opener, the Assistant Secretary-General of the Torba Provincial Government hadn't arrived. He was walking in from Sola, a three hour trek.
The proceedings went like this: a parade of yachties (3 boats, 8 people) carrying flags, followed by all and sundry, raising of national flags, speeches (40 minutes!), Official Opening, kastom dances, string band performances. This brought us up to lunch time so if we had started at 8am, we would have been too early. After lunch we had more dances and string band. To round out the day, there was a BYO 'cocktail party' in the yacht club with the inevitable string band and the villagers. Much dancing and merriment had by all.
Saturday was supposed to start at 9 but again it was after 10. More
dances, more string band ... Z-z-z-z-z. A Nature Walk up and down some pretty slippery
slopes took us to the waterfall. This was followed by lunch in the Yacht
Club. The program was supposed to wind up after lunch, but we were treated
to MORE dances and string band, until 5pm! A bit too much of a good thing.
View more photos and video at
Return to Sender
Of course all of the people and musical instruments, grass skirts, etc had to be returned to Vureas Bay didn't they? So on Sunday afternoon, Two Up loaded all of the paraphernalia on board in preparation for an early departure Monday morning. They took 11 people while we took 14. It was a bit of a bouncy ride into wind and waves - some didn't handle it too well. We got them all ashore at Vureas Bay without drama, and prepared to rest. We thought a day or two, then we would head for Sola on the east side of Vanua Lava, but the weather stubbornly refused to cooperate. Each day the strong wind warnings were posted, and the anticipated easing was put back another day. We had our Farewell Party with Chief Godfrey and his family on Wednesday evening before our planned departure on Thursday. Well we finally took off on Sunday, still a strong wind warning current with 20-25kt winds and 2.5m seas. At least it wasn't raining, but it was still a bit of a slog, so we motor-sailed all the way.
Let's Clear Out of here!
Sola is the administrative centre for Torba Province (TORres BAnks) with Customs and Immigration officers, a Bank/Post Office and several small stores. They also have electricity 4 days/week, for 2 hours. No meters, each residence pays VT1000 ($12)/month. After topping up our supplies, we completed formalities for departure to the Solomon Islands.