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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.

We enjoyed ourselves at Revolieu Bay in Epi yesterday. We had a nice dive on three bommies and got close up to 2 turtles, a whole family of lionfish, a mantis shrimp, a school of trevalley and a load of other marine life. Ahsore, we delivered more seeds and were able to stock up on watermelon, bok choy and spring onions from Pierre. We shared some Bok Choy with Brian and Sue on Darramy and enjoyed catching up with them for sundowners. We had finally run out of meat however, so Heather had selected a vegetable curry from the cookbook to try. The next thing we knew, Sea Whiskers arrived into the bay, called us up on VHF and offered us some tuna! They (Chris and Sally) had caught a Yellowfin Tuna on the way in and happily shared some with us. Wonderful! After shushimi tuna entree and seared tuna steaks for dinner we were replete, rather glad to be saved from cooking a vegetable curry! This morning we set off from Epi at 6.30am, prepared for the long slog south with head winds towards Efate. Within 15 minutes of leaving the bay we had a large fish on the line. Karl tried valiantly to stop the reel from spooling out while Heather turned the boat around to follow the fish. A few days prior, a large fish had spooled the line and we lost it, so we were determined to land this one! After a 20 minute battle, we landed a very nice 80cm Yellowfin Tuna. The largest fish we have caught this year and our first Yellowfin. Such a thrill! But so much meat on it, it is more than we need in the next few days before we fly out...
Our 43 mile passage was just sailable, but pretty much on the nose, so we sailed as much as we could, but motored the last 12 miles when strong headwinds and a large wind chop slowed us down to 2.5 knots under sail. We were very glad to drop anchor in Nguna, in 15m depth we can clearly see the anchor dug in to white sand. Good snorkeling here too. About half an hour after we arrived, another yacht pulled in to the bay. Illusion V anchored nearby, so we called them up and asked if they would like some tuna for dinner. Bob and Cath (who are Kiwis but sailing a boat from Hobart where they now live), along with their visitors Jenny and Mike, jumped for joy! They were about to prepare a vegetarian risotto!! They just arrived in Vanuatu 10 days ago and had not caught any fish so far, so were delighted with our tub of fish. They invited us for drinks on board Illusion V and we enjoyed a great evening together. Nice people. They are heading up to the Banks and Torres Islands, so we gave them the last of our watermelon seeds (we still had 1/2 box of the original 15 boxes of seeds) to take up to the northern groups of islands.
After another fresh tuna meal tonight and more in the freezer, we will have plenty of omega 3 for the last few days of our Vanuatu visit.

By the end of the day on Tuesday there were 6 yachts in the tiny bay next to Awei Island. Yesterday we left the bay early enough to travel 5 miles and get in through the pass into Uliveo Island at high tide. As the crow flies this island is only 3 miles away but by the time you navigate around numerous reefs, it is about 5 miles. By the way, all the measurements in our blogs that say miles are all nautical miles, 1 nautical mile = 1.850km. The pass is fairly narrow, but we still had 4m of water under us at high tide. Once inside, there is a small basin with depths of 14m to anchor in, beside Lutes village. This is another lagoon anchorage and very protected.
There are three villages on the island: Lutes, Peskarus and Pellongk. Combined they have 800 adults. There is a school at Sangalai for the whole island, with 230 children from age 5 to 13, 44 of these are boarding here full time and take turns at doing the cooking for the group. They all do their own washing and other duties. Stuart took us on a tour of the island and introduced us to many people. They had some damage from cyclone Pam here, though most of it is now repaired, but they still have no paw paws. Bananas are just starting to grow again and should be ready soon. Some buildings had been blown over but mostly new ones have already been constructed. We gave seeds to the chief in each village for them to distribute to their community and they were very thankful. We also gave seeds to the headmaster of the school - the school has a vege garden but no seeds, so now the children will be able to learn growing skills as well.
As we walked through the village, a band of curious children started following us. There were mosquitoes everywhere, landing on us, so now and then a child would run up and slap a mosquito they could see sitting on our arm or leg or shoulder. Then they would run back to the following group of children. The daring ones got close and closer and became our body guards fending off the flying beasts and swatting any that landed. Karl started joining in, swatting mosquitoes that landed on Heather's arms and neck, or maybe just swatting for fun? Then Karl swatted Heather on the bum! This sent the children into wails of laughter, they fell around backwards and giggled for the next 10 minutes! Every time the laughing would stop for a second, one would start giggling again and the rest would dissolve into more laughter.
We were very impressed with the whole island. All 3 villages are clean and tidy, everything is well organised. The school grounds are cleaned every day by the children who have litter duty at the school and in surrounding pathways. Gardens are nicely clipped, people are friendly and seem to be working together to make a great life for their families here. There is a rural training centre where youths who are not academically inclined can learn trades like electrical and plumbing, plus agricultural skills. There is a women's resource centre where young mothers can learn to sew and mend clothes, plus support with parenting skills. There is a building construction workshop where young men learn to build with concrete and other non-traditional materials. There is a solar powered desalination plant (Open Ocean from NZ) to give fresh water to the health clinic and 3 locally trained nurses. We met Carlo, a local builder and he showed us some of the concrete buildings he has built. Very professional! He and his co-workers were just finishing off some concrete bungalows and a cafe which will soon open as guest accommodation on the island. Carlo very proudly showed us the flushing toilet, which is a complete novelty here. This will be a nice place to stay for anyone visiting the area.
The day we visited was a special day - they were having a music festival. All the youth groups from the three villages, plus one from nearby Avokh Island were performing in an annual competition. Judges scored them on several aspects, including timing, uniforms, melody, wording etc. All the people in the village were out watching the performance in the afternoon. Performances included string bands, dance groups and choirs. We were well entertained for 3 hours. We were standing near the back of the crowd and it was nice to see the performers, and also watch the reaction of the families to the music and dancing. At the end when everyone was celebrating the winners (Lutes village) some recorded music was playing and it had a catchy beat. We both started jigging away, tapping our toes and wriggling our hips in time to the music. The next thing, we heard squeals of laughter from the crowd and realised that hundreds of people had turned around and everyone was watching us! The children tho ught we were hilarious and the adults looked a little bewildered. Fortunately the music stopped and so did we, before we could get into any trouble! Today we visited the clam sanctuary. Started in 1991, this sanctuary is the result of hard work and dedication by the people in the Maskelynes. Clams are a popular food source here in Vanuatu, but one of the local people, Simon (now deceased) realised that clams would all be eaten if they did not preserve them. His family now carries on caring for the clams and nobody is allowed to take any clams from the protected area. There is a large fenced off area of shallow water north of Pellongk village and in the middle of this is a man made island. We paddled out in an outrigger canoe with Stuart and landed on this island, built up from dead coral. It has a small changing room with a concrete floor and thatched roof and has been really well made. Snorkeling around the clam area was a thrill, to see so many large clams, some 50cm wide! Many of them have lips with bright colours. Some purple velevet, some bright green, others brown with purple splotches, some tan with turquoise spots. We nev er realised that clams came in so many different colours and patterns. A cheeky moray eel was poking out of one coral head and later, back on the man made island, we spotted a sea snake, which thankfully are not poisonous.
Later, we asked to meet the chairman of the youth development group, his name is Carl. We congratulated him on the music festival yesterday and presented him with some of the Burnsco donated fishing gear so that the youth group could use this for their youth fishing activities and competitions. It is so nice to see people actively doing positive things in their communities so we were pleased to help them. A wonderful place to visit - highly recommended to anyone thinking of coming to Vanuatu.