Waiting out the winds in Vanuatu.

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  Port Villa, Vanuatu
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Hi all,

We had a great month in Fiji. I highly recommend that if you've not yet been to Fiji you go, and if you've already been go again! The people are very friendly and the country is stunning, with some of the best coral I've ever seen.

We spent our last few days in Fiji at Robinson Crusoe Island, a backpacker's resort with a really relaxed atmosphere. They put on an amazing fire dance one evening, which impressed us all. I definitely recommend staying at the island if you are travelling through Fiji.

It took us three and a half days to sail from Fiji to Port Villa on Efate, Vanuatu. It was quite a frustrating sail as the wind would pick up for several hours and we would be reefed making 8kts average, then within half an hour the wind would drop, we'd get all the sails out and only be making 3.5 to 4kts; damn wind

Matt behind the van on the mountain board

!

Port Villa is the capital of Vanuatu and is very well organised for visiting yachts. It has an Anglo/French feel to it from when Vanuatu was under British/French administration until the 1980s. This has resulted in some great restaurants and patisseries but correspondingly high prices. Apart from fresh fruit and veg from the market which is cheap, everthing else here is a similar price to England!

Joe and I met up with two guys we met in Fiji, Matt and Cam, and two guys studying in Australia, Ben and Chris, and had a good night at the annual Vanuatu music festival, which was reggae on the night we went. After a few cups of Cava (mashed up root mixed with water that tastes like an old puddle but is drank widely by islanders) and beers we had a great night out with the locals. The next day we all met up with surf boards and my mountain board and jumped in a taxi that took us to the eastern side of the island in search of a good surf break. We found the beach but there was very little swell so we took it in turns to be towed behind the taxi on the mountain board; a lot of fun, especially when we drove through villages and were giving out high-fives from the board! We hired some dive gear the following day and took the yacht on to a mooring where we dived on some great coral heads and a 35m coral drop off

Surf spot Vanuatu (poor surf that day)

. It was great to do it from the boat rather than with an organised outfit and it only cost us 10 pounds each for a 40 minute dive; a lot cheaper than through a dive shop.

We are planning on sailing the 100 miles south to the island of Tanna, home to Mount Yasur, which is one of the most accessible active volcanoes in the world where you can get to within 150m of the crater rim by 4x4. Unfortunately we have 30-40kts of wind in the direction if Tanna until next week so there is no way of getting there till the wind dies so we are hanging out in Port Villa waiting on the weather.

I hope all is well in your part of the world and I'm missing you all loads.

Lots of Love

Tom xxx

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