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Solotavui Village, Kavala, Kadavu 24 June David We are tucked up in a gorgeous bay, Kavala, at the eastern end of Kadavu.
Surrounded with high, steep, lush deep-green hills. They call this Little New Zealand and I can see why. Reminds us of the Sounds, but for the coral.?Such welcoming locals. We had no sooner put our anchor down than we were enthusiastically serenaded by a group of children ashore. We replied with our own songs which seemed well received. ?A passing family, returning from church in their fibre, a tough, versatile local boat, came on board with coconuts and pawpaw and then piloted us to a better anchorage. They stayed for tea and biscuits. We swapped songs and fell in love with one year old Lisi.
Yesterday we picked a dry spell and went ashore to do sevusevu at the village.
We joked with the Chief that the kava we presented was probably grown in the bay and bought in Suva just to be brought home again.
Sevusevu was followed with an extensive tour of the village guided by Luisa. *** Janet "These men are working on the pastor's place," said Luisa, pointing to a house nearby.
Bula," called a man in an old blue rugby jersey, then said something rapidly in Fijian.
"They are inviting you for yagona, would you like to go," Louisa translated.
"Yes please," I said. "We haven't tried Fijian kava yet." Inside the house there were 10 men sitting cross-legged on a mat, a large wooden bowl on feet in the middle of the room.
"Bula, my name is Joe." We introduced ourselves and Joe passed David a half coconut shell of brown liquid. He drank, and the men clapped four times. Joe refilled the shell and passed it to me. I'd heard that Fijian kava, called yaqona here, was stronger than in Tonga where we last partook. They clapped. I drank. It tasted part nutty, part aniseed and part river silt. It numbed my tongue a little and gave me a pleasant glow. The men were friendly and interested in us.
To get to the village we'd traversed a slippery muddy path over a hill and were not looking forward to the return journey.
"No, no, we go this way," said Luisa, pointing to the shoreline beyond the village.
Low tide had revealed a rocky beach all the way back to where the dinghy was tied up outside the local shop. Luisa helped us buy data for our Digicel simcard, and showed us how to set it up.
*** "We're gonna move," said David, donning his raincoat. We'd been sitting in the cockpit having a cup of tea discussing the day's events when suddenly the wind rose and started to change direction, threatening to push us onto the coral reef close behind the boat. I leapt below.
"Depth sounder shows 1.5 metres." I called.
Bit close. The rain was coming in sheets now.
Engine on, I get us up on the electronic chart, tiller down, David was winding the anchor in.
"Four meters now." Wind gusts push the bow round and I motor into the wind to take the load off the anchor.
"We're up," called David.
I turn the boat and motor across the bay to the lee of a headland.
"This is it," calls David. He releases the anchor chain and I motor back to lay out the chain. Gusts push us from side to side.
Back in the cabin, toweling his hair dry, David declares, "That calls for a shot of vodka." I glance at the clock, 4.30.
"Why not." I retrieve a green coconut from the basket in the cockpit and hand it to David. He deftly lops the top off it with a machete. Fingers still intact, he decants the nectar into the waiting shot glasses of vodka.

Happy days in the Maskelynes We were not really impressed with the village of Ranon on Ambrym Island. These people had NOT been hit by the cyclone, but clearly have made no attempt to maintain anything for many years. Buildings sit with guttering half off, rotting timbers hanging loose. Concrete buildings half finished, with reinforcing rods poking out of concrete piles, rusting away. Bags of cement sit on the beach beside rusting lengths of reinforcing rods, steel mesh and twisted lengths of timber that were never stacked straight, just left to lie where they fell when unloaded fromt he boat that brought them who knows how long ago. In the school, ripped school books lie on the floor of the classrooms, chairs left lying on their side and desks in haphazard disarray. The resource room at the school was a frightful sight, with school journals and text books strewn on the floor, fallen twisted stacks of books falling off the teachers desk and sliding from crooked piles on shelves. It looks like nobody cares here! In the village, men lie on the beach in the shade of the trees, or sit in the kava bar. Kids play on the beach, fiddling with dinghies that yachties have left as they walk through the village or visit the volcano. Locals approach trying to sell us a tour to the volcano or a viewing of a traditional dance. We declined.
The bay has a dramatic look to it with jet black sand and black rocks. The water is clear but seems inky black with no light reflected back from the sand beneath. We decided not to dive here as first planned, we felt like moving on.
We set sail for our favourite place, the Maskelyne island group, and had a beautiful day in the sunshine, with flat seas and a warm breeze. As a bonus we caught a 42cm Skip Jack Tuna on the way, which will feed us for three nights! Last night we anchored at Awei island, along with 3 other boats. We invited friends Brian and Sue from Darramy over - we had not caught up with them since our wedding, plus we invited the 3 crew of Argonaut over to join us for sundowners as well. Frits and Marian are Dutch and have been sailing for a few years now. Frits son Gerben was visiting for a week or so, taking a break from his usual job as engineer on a superyacht! It was a fun evening, all sharing stories of various adventures and experiences. Today Heather caught up on the laundry and made bread while Karl did some maintenance jobs on Aradonna. Various locals have come by to say hello. One, a 5 year old boy, paddling by himself, was delighted when we gave him some fishing hooks. A couple of sailing canoes came past, with sails made from flour sacks sewn together, these people were from nearby Avokh island. Later, two canoes paddled past with three dogs swimming behind trying to keep up with their owners! Awei island is quite small and all 4 guide books we have tell us it is uninhabited. The update on this, is that 15 people live here now, all part of one extended family group. With our gifts of seeds, the 300 residents of Avokh and the 15 residents of Awei will soon be growing watermelons! Yesterday we spotted a turtle near the boat, it is always nice to see them lift their heads and peak up at us. We are heading off for a snorkel now, to see what we can discover.

Just a short, 10 mile hop south of our last anchorage, getting into Loltong Bay was easy. Reefs on either side, but the triangles on shore were easy to see and once they are lined up, there is no issue with being in the right place. Much better than Ambae where the trees had overgrown the second triangle! This is a busy bay with supply ships and other local vessels coming and going. It is the Government administrative centre for Pentecost Island.
Ashore, we met Matthew and his wife Marie. They run the local yacht club and offered us a traditional banquet of 10 local dishes for dinner, only 1200 vatu (about NZ$18) per person and BYO drinks. So we booked in for dinner. Matthew then explained that he is the youngest son of the old chief Luc, who had died leaving 6 sons. The eldest son, Jacob, is now chief. We went to see Jacob and he immediately took us on a tour of the village. He showed us where they dry kava for export and then took us to the Government administration office where they look after banking and kava export to several countries, among other duties. After a look at the school, he told us that today was a special day and we should follow him to see a Kastom dance. We had heard about these dances that are arranged for tourists, but he insisted that this was not for tourists and the dancing was happening right now and we should just follow him.
We went to the neighbouring village just south of Loltong and here we found an elderly man wearing large plumes of leaves from his behind and carrying a stick. He was dancing and chanting around in circles, while stick drums burst out a quick beat and another man presented him with a pig. The pig did not look happy to be part of the event. Next, several other people from the village started dancing around with their arms spread wide, like they were birds flying. They formed a long line and danced up one way and down the other, zig zagging across the field like a long snake of birds. Some of the people were laying mats over the shoulders of other people while they were doing their bird dance. After a speech, another man presented an equally frightened pig, but this one was enormous, and the whole dancing and chanting and beating of drums and laying of mats started all over again. It looked like the whole village and perhaps most of the one next door were camped around the field to wat ch the event.
Most of the people involved were wearing shorts and t-shirts, or dresses - usual island dress rather than traditional grass costumes. They were however adorned with orange painted faces and several of the men had leaves of various descriptions sticking out of their trousers. Now and then one of the men would pass a long palm frond to the elderly man (the chief of that village)and he would dance with it for a while before placing it in a row at the side of the field. This was all very fascinating, but what did it mean? Jacob explained. Once a year, the chief of a village has the chance to improve his rank and become a higher chief. There are 5 steps to becoming the highest rank chief. The first four steps were like the one we were watching. The chief would arrange for 10 different people to give him a pig and the 10 pigs would be presented at the ceremony for him to kill. His sons and daughters and other family members would then dance with the family that had given the pig and give t hem mats as payment for the pig. The 10 pigs would later become part of a big feast, along with taro and yams. The ceremony could only be held once per year and it always has to be held at the time of the yam harvest, because then the village knows it has enough food for the feast. It is not to celebrate the yam harvest, like some other islands do, but it was held at that time just for practical reasons for the feast.
For a chief to get to the highest rank, he needs to go to step 5. This involves getting 10 people to give 10 pigs each to the chief, who then has to kill 100 pigs!!! Not many get to that level.
It was amazing to watch these people carry out this kastom dance, not for us, not for tourists, just a plain old annual event so the chief can get his ranking up. Wow! Later, we kept our appointment with Matthew and Marie for our dinner to start at 5pm. Marie had done a huge amount of preparation and Matthew patiently explained each dish. Tree nuts for a starter, then a plate of green paw paw salad with beans and tuna, next there was paw paw that had been roasted in a fire and then topped with freshly grated coconut. Another plate arrived with manioc chips and next to it a plate of pumpkin stalks and leaves that had been cooked in coconut milk. Neither of us had ever thought of boiling up the stalks and leaves of the pumpkin plant and eating them like you would beans and spinach - but it was delicious! Later came the local lionman banana wrapped in island cabbage leaves, then manioc wrapped in island cabbage leaves, then a plate of taro and a plate of island cabbage cooked in coconut milk with instructions to eat the cabbage and taro together. Quite tasty when combined! Just as we were feeling rather full, out comes a plate with two large omelets. The omelets were filled with onion, spring onion and capsicum and were delicious. We could not face the plate of yams that came out next, but did manage to slurp our way through a juicy pomplemousse. What amazing value and a truly delightful meal. Matthew and Marie were great company too, answering our many questions and laughing with us at our reaction to different dishes we had not tasted before. We asked about the Saturday morning market as we were hoping to buy some fruit in the morning and they immediately asked what we needed. They were happy to supply us with produce from their garden. We gave Marie 500 vatu and asked for a bunch of bananas and 2 paw paws. She returned with 3 bunches of bananas, 3 paw paws, 6 capsicums, a yam, a manioc, some ginger root and another root that they make curry from, but would not take more than the 500 vatu. A fun evening with generous hosts and a thoroughly enjoyable day.
Tonight, back on Aradonna having coffee in the cockpit, we noticed some interesting little lights flitting around in the water. They look like fireflies but they are just below the surface of the water and squiggle back and forth in a swarm that moves around like they are searching for something. If anyone has any idea what these brilliant creatures are, please let us know. They emit a very strong light, like a little LED swimming around! Another fascinating day in paradise.

Yesterday morning we snorkeled in Vanihe Bay and on the chocolate brown sand in the bay we saw hundreds of what looked like plant stems poking out of the sand and waving in the tide. Interestingly, as you snorkel over these stems, they get shorter, disappearing into the sand only to grow again after you pass by. On closer inspection these are not plant stems at all, but Garden Eels. These eels live in burrows in the sand and poke their heads and most of their bodies up into the current to feed on passing plankton, but quickly retreat if anything swims by. A slow careful approach reveals a tiny head on the end of the "stalk" that can grow to 1m long. Further out of the bay around the point, several larger fish were looking for a feed - snappers, grunts, trevallies and scats. Karl spotted a nursery of small stingrays feeding too. An interesting spot! After exploring Vanihe Bay we departed Ambae Island and made the 10 mile hop to Maewo Island. Maewo is a long narrow island running north-south. It is about 30 miles long and only 3 miles wide, but the whole island is a high mountain range, with mountains in the 600m, 700m and 800m range down the spine of the island. It apparently gets more rainfall than other islands in Vanuatu, which is not surprising given the prevailing winds and height of the mountains. Sailing along the coast is a pretty sight, with dense tropical jungle rising straight up from the sea, highlighted by gashes of white water cascading down in massive waterfalls. We anchored in Asanvari Bay, which has a roaring waterfall in the corner, tumbling out into the bay. Ashore, we met the locals. There is a yacht club, or I should say, there was a yacht club. It needs a new roof, and some walls might be handy too! The daughter of the deceased chief is trying to rebuild it, but we are not really sure why. This tiny village of about 100 people also has a restaurant, although there is no menu and no food, but the lady running it said she could probably find us some chicken and some taro if we were hungry. There is nothing to drink at the retaurant, only food, if you give her time to go and catch it. But, she said helpfully, there is a bar at the other end of the bay, if we would like a drink. The other end of the bay requires a 20 minute walk along a goat track through the bush on the side of the hill. Here, we met Alex who has been developing the Sparkling Waters Bar. A fabulous spot, right next to the waterfall, with a patio looking out into the bay. When we asked about beer, he said he could probably go and get some, but it was warm as it was too ex pensive to run the generator. He does not serve food, only drinks, as long as you like warm beer! Alex told us he has been developing his bar for the past 5 years and hopes to have it ready one day for all the yachts that come to visit. We were the 20th yacht so far this year, which is not a lot of customers really. Apparently some aid agency is helping with funding to rebuild the yacht club, but from what we saw they already have far too many businesses running for the number of visitors they get.
We met Justin at the school. Justin is chairman of the board of the school which as 96 children from year 1 to 6. The children come from the 5 villages up the coast and can only get to school by walking through the mountains or by boat. There are no roads or cars as the mountains rise straight up from the shore. Justin is also chief of the council of chiefs for his region and his wife is the principal of the school. We gave him seeds to distribute to the surrounding communities - he was extremely happy and very grateful. We watched some of the local kids playing soccer and Karl joined in the game for a few kicks. Today we explored the bay by dinghy and found a few good snorkeling spots. The coral here is not as colourful as other places, mainly browns, greens and dusky blues, but very pleasant to look at. It is a leafy coral, made up of layer upon layer of leaves forming large rosettes and frills that cling to the side of huge rock faces turning the rocky outcrops into the skirts of Spanish dancers. There were no large fish here, but throngs of tiny ones. Another enjoyable day, swimming in clear warm water and reading books in the sunshine. Ahhh!