Aradonna's blog

We have been away from our floating home for 5 weeks, having a ball in Europe! On the way we stopped in Auckland for a couple of nights where Heather's family officially welcomed Karl into the family - even decorating the spare bedroom up into the Honeymoon Suite! On arrival in Holland, Karl's family went the extra mile to welcome Heather into the family. We had many family gatherings with brothers and sisters and in laws and nieces and nephews - with so many laughs and so much warmth. We loved life in the camper van, for 2 weeks touring through Holland, Belgium, France and Luxembourg. Heathers friends in France put on a special wedding lunch for the newlyweds! We discovered that France is an esay place to travel in a camper with loads of free parking spots and camper friendly places along the way. Karl introduced Heather to many of his old friends in Holland and we had a fabulous time - Karl caught up on all the news from the last 35 years and Heather got to meet so many wonderful p eople that had been part of Karl's life when he lived in Holland. For the second half of our stay in Europe we shared a house with Karl's sister and brother-in-law who had travelled from Canada to join the family gatherings. It was very special to spend time with the family and to see all of the family together again after so many years. Karl had been a bit worried that he had forgotten how to speak Dutch after such a long time away, but it didn't take long before he was back into the swing of things. Heather has been learning Dutch for the last two years and was finally able to put this to good use, following along with conversations and even managing to speak some Dutch! Heather experienced the true meaning of the Dutch word 'gezellig' which translates to English as 'cosy' but really means so much more. The fun, the laughter, the warmth, the closeness of the family as we chatted around the table - that was gezellig! As Heather was clearly a tourist in Holland, various friends and family members became tour guides on different days, each showing us interesting places and explaining some history and fascinating facts along the way. It was truly a wonderful time, with so many experiences that will last forever in our memories and too many stories to tell here! The one highlight we will share here however is our visit to Amsterdam during "Sail Amsterdam". Every 5 years the old tall ships visit Amsterdam, along with replicas of ancient vessels. We were lucky enough to be there at the right time and our tour on a canal boat through the city ended up in the harbour amongst all the grand old tall ships as they were circling the harbour getting ready to depart! On shore the waterfront was packed with people and here we were on a boat in the harbour with the whole fleet around us! Awesome!! On the way to and from Europe we spent a few days in Tokyo and enjoyed experiencing the vastly different culture, the ultra modern city, intermingled with ancient shrines and temples - and the delicacies of Japanese cuisine. Surprising to see so many rice fields and vegetable crops and mountains and lakes just 45 minutes out of the city centre. We were also very lucky with the weather. In our 5 weeks away we had beautiful weather almost every day - only two rainy days in 5 weeks!! Temperatures ranged from 35 degrees one day in Tokyo down to about 20 degrees one day in Europe, but most of the time we enjoyed very pleasant mid to late twenties which was just about perfect.
On return to our floating home on Saturday, all was well with our yacht, apart from a missing outboard motor. Our new 8hp Yamaha had been padlocked on the the back of the yacht but someone must have been determined to have it. So it appears we have made another donation to the people of Vanuatu, albeit unintended. Last year we lost our 80hp main engine and now this year we have lost our 8hp outboard - so it feels like an improvement on last year's effort!

On Saturday we will be flying out of Vanuatu, we will briefly touchdown in Auckland before flying to Tokyo for a few days stop over and then on to Amsterdam. We are picking up a campervan and touring through The Netherlands, Belgium and France, meeting up with several friends along the way. Karl will introduce his new bride to his family in The Netherlands. There will be a family reunion as Karl's two brothers plus his sister from Toronto and respective partners will all be getting together. This will be the first time that all the siblings have been together in 11 years, so it is a very special occasion. We will have some adjustments to make as we leave our yacht behind for 5 weeks and adapt to life in Europe. We will miss the paw paws and coconuts, but will be quite happy if we don't see any more bok choy for a while. We will trade our tuna meals for salted herring, which Karl is looking forward to. Of course, we might have to remember not to eat with our fingers while we are in Europe - the table manners are a little different in Vanuatu! We are not sure what to wear! After living in swimming togs and sarongs for three months, I guess we will need to find some other clothes now, which will be a bit strange. The landscape will be a little different too. We are used to silver white beaches in Santo, jet black beaches in Ambrym, chocolate brown beaches in Ambae and the golden sands of the Maskelynes - all fringed with palm trees and tropical jungle. Not just that, but after a small area of sand, volcanic mountains rise straight up to 800m, or in some cases 1800m. The landscape in Vanuatu is like a child's picture book of volcanic peaks. We will trade this scenery for the flat low lying fields of the Netherlands - I think the Dutch Alps are only about 8m high? The people will be a little different too. In Vanuatu, most people are small in size. Heather can look over the tops of most heads in a crowd here. Once in The Netherlands with all those tall people, Heather will probably feel like a midget. There will be an adjustment in the language we speak as well. Heather has been learning Dutch, but has picked up more Bislama in the last 3 months. Bislama is the local pidgin English and the national language of Vanuatu. It might help to speak a little French when we are in France, which will be a struggle for both of us! For the next 5 weeks we will leave our watery world behind and be land based. We will have to adjust to driving at more than 6 knots I suppose and get used to traffic again - there are no traffic jams on the ocean! But the world will be less wobbly and we won't need to check the weather forecast every day. We might need to remember not to jump out the back of the campervan to go for a swim! So this will be our last blog for a while. We will return to Vanuatu on 5th September and resume our cruising life - and our blogs. Tomorrow we leave Aradonna in storage in Vanuatu, awaiting our return.

We left NZ 3 months ago and since then we have visited 24 islands in Vanuatu. In these islands we have visited 66 different villages. We have delivered seeds to most of these, plus we gave seeds to other boats traveling to the 3 Shepherd Islands, 3 islands in the Banks group and 4 islands in the Torres group. Thanks to generous donations from friends, we have also been able to supply clothes, fishing gear and other items to many people, plus educational materials to several schools. Along the way we have met so many good people, yachties helping out local villages in all sorts of ways, plus very generous locals who love to share their world with us. It has been a fabulous experience! This year we have spent more time in villages and have had far more interaction with local people than last year. It is a truly rewarding experience to listen to the local stories, learn about some of their customs and understand their way of life.
We have also enjoyed the snorkeling and diving in warm clear waters, deserted islands, turtles, dugongs, and so many many colourful reef fish! We will remember balmy nights under the stars, beautiful sunsets, tranquil bays and some very boisterous sailing between islands. It sure does blow here! There were not as many cruisers in Vanuatu over the last three months as the numbers of yachties we met in Tonga and Fiji last year, but this year we have formed some new friendships with some really excellent people. We have enjoyed the social interaction even more this year, as we are getting to know more about this cruising lifestyle and how it all works! In the first part of our journey we visited islands that had been ravaged by cyclone Pam. Crops had been destroyed, food was in short supply, no fresh fruit or veges to be found. It was sobering to see the damage in some places and we have admired the resilience of the local people who have been getting on with rebuilding, with smiles on their faces. Once we got further north, to Santo, we experienced a different world. Untouched by the cyclone, Santo had produce markets bursting with fruit and vegetables. We have spent the last 4 weeks feasting on paw paws, bananas, pomplemousse, passionfruit, watermelon and many more tropical delights. The fishing gradually improved and two days ago we finally got to use the large fishing chill box we purchased especially for the trip this year. And then there was the wedding! We will always remember our beautiful day at Paradise Cove resort. A special place for us. Today we went back there, 7 weeks after the big day and treated ourselves to a fine lunch of fillet mignon with a glass of red wine. Superb! Tomorrow we have a list of jobs to do in preparation for leaving Vanuatu. It will be strange to be away from Aradonna for 5 weeks. Thursday is a public holiday here and a big festival for Independence Day, so that should be fun. Friday will be out last blog for a while!

What a day we have had today! Started out with an early morning snorkel in Nawora Matua bay at Nguna Island. Dramatic rocky lumps rising up from the sand - we were glad we had anchored off shore a bit and not tried to come in too close to the beach here. Mountains of rocks and coral and fish between us and the shore. Next, we took the dinghy ashore to the village of Utanlangi. Here we met one of the chiefs, Shem and his wife Lesley. Shem took us on a tour of the village and introduced us to the president of the disaster management committee, Datu. We gave Datu the last of our watermelon seeds, with instructions to share them with the other 7 villages on Nguna Island - he agreed to distribute the watermelon seeds and was happy because planting time for watermelons is August! There are more than 200 people living in the village we visited and many of these people have been to NZ to work on a 6 month permit, picking apples or other crops. They return from NZ with new ideas for the village and we saw first-hand how they now grow mandarins and oranges by grafting them on to lemon tree stock. They have learned lessons from the cyclone and are now building more concrete houses here and setting traditional houses higher above the sand to survive sea surge during cyclones. Bamboo stalk is used for making furniture, fences, houses, gates, marker posts and various other things. The bamboo leaves are used as mulch to keep the ground moist around crops. They have a communal garden, fenced off from the pigs and chooks and growing very well.
We then sailed into Havannah harbour and anchored at White Cliffs for a lunch stop and another snorkel. Another clear water spot with plenty of coral garden to explore, which was nice, but a near by dive spot was beckoning. Just around the corner was Paul's Rock. This is a pinnacle that rises from a 30m bottom, straight up to about 1m below the surface. We anchored safely near shore and took the dinghy to the little mooring marker on the rock and went for a dive. A glorious spot! Great visibility, with friendly fish and even a crayfish that was happy to pose for photographs. This is a marine reserve and the marine life seem to know it - they are happy to hang around rather than swim or scuttle away. Heather got some fabulous underwater photos here.
When we came up from the dive, the water around us was like a mill pond. Calm, clear, flat - just amazing! We decided to stay in this "day" anchorage over night as it is so calm and we are very close to hop around Devils Point in the morning at slack tide, to head back to Port Vila. Our Vanuatu experience is coming to a close and what a fantastic time we have had here in almost 3 months! We are very lucky people.