On 11/4/07, Jim Marco wrote:

INTENTION from Resolution Bay Yacht Club

Resolution Bay Yacht Club

Inside Resolution Bay Yacht Club

Guest sleeping huts at Resolution Bay Yacht Club

AJ and Kenley

The day before yesterday there was a miscommunication with the driver and
instead of traveling to Customs and Immigration, we got some exercise by
taking a hike down the road to Turtle Bay had a nice lunch of fresh fruit
and bread and hike back.
Yesterday, we took a 4WD pickup truck over the volcano across mountains of
cinder ash to the other side of the island to check out of the country with
customs and immigration. I have found it’s fun and a pleasure dealing with
these officials. We saw many huge old Banyan trees. I’m always learning new
things after being told and shown by the driver the difference between male
& female Banyan trees. We purchased fresh bread and some more supplies as
well as fresh fruit and Veg’s.
My old cruising friends, Jim & Ann, from INSATIABLE II sailed into
Resolution Bay after getting back from our truck ride. We met originally in
the Marquesas in 1990 and they have been cruising the Pacific continuously
for 21 years.
Jim

The volcano, Yasur, which means God in Tanna Language

Kenley looking and AJ videoing the volcano’s wind blown cinder cone

Looking down on the coast from top of the mountain

More cinder cone mountain

Last night, we were driven by pick-up to see more of the red glow & large white billowing clouds smelling of sulfur coming from the rim, and hear and feel the loud explosions in the lava filled molten crater of the active volcano, Yasur, which means ‘god’ in all of Tanna’s local languages. I was moved by the awesome power throwing huge chunks of red hot glowing magma a thousand feet into the Black night sky. Luckily, we did not have dodge any falling lava as the wind was blowing it away from us. I was disappointed my Digital camera as it was not able to really catch the power and magnificence.

Vanuatu is a wealth of different languages. More than 200 here and more than 20 just on Tanna. I have met a number of linguists studying the many languages. They have been spending years learning to speak and document the languages and how it influences local customs. We’ve had very good long educational discussions that has given me a better sense of the people and their customs.

Love,
Jim

Sunset going to Volcano

Clouds of hot cinders & gases from lava explosions

Lava being thrown thousands of feet in the sky

Hi everyone,
My new crew, Kenley (from Las Vegas) and AJ (from New Zealand), and I sailed out of Port Vila in the late afternoon the day before yesterday. We are starting with a look at the active Volcano on Tanna Island and eventually stopping in New Zealand. Where I will fly back to visit friends, Family.
We got to Tanna yesterday morning after a day and a half of easy sailing. Island and the very friendly people are Awesome. Relaxed, read books, saw yacht Club, village, soccer game, hot springs, and swam in Resolution Bay. Today it’s riding over the Volcano to the other side of the island to visit Customs, Immigration, the village and the market.
Jim

After spending almost 3 weeks, making new friends in waterfall Bay. It is time to sail south Loganville. While in waterfall Bay my alternator stopped working and I was using this only solar panels as my source of electricity. It meant sending little e-mail, no refrigeration, and during this 140 mile passage I will not be able to use the autopilot with its high electrical consumption.
I left waterfall Bay just before dusk and began sailing by hand steering most of the night with light winds under clear starry skies and a slight swell. Later that night I was able to use the windvane for steering but in such light winds it was only able to steer at the very best a course plus or -40° and sometimes it could not handle it at all. So in light winds my windvane was little better than hand steering. This did not allow me to get much sleep during the over 2 day sail to Loganville. At the end, the wind totally died and I motored the last four hours to anchor off the beach at beachfront resort and catch up on my much-needed sleep.

As I mentioned in my previous journal entry I am currently in an Anchorage called waterfall Bay on the island of Vanua Lava where there is a five-day cruiser Festival starting today with custom singing and dancing as well as local food feasts. At the moment it’s raining and I will go into the village where the festival is when it stops. There is two beautiful waterfalls next to the village which spreads a thin film of fresh water on top of the Crystal clear ocean water. I wish I could adequately describe the beauty of the rich green colored rugged cliffs that surround this Bay. The waterfall Bay cruiser yacht club is a beautiful spacious long structure built for our comfort and convenience. The chief Kiraly is always so considerate and welcoming.
The opening ceremonies for the festival were most impressive. Speeches were made in the local language of Bislama and culminated with the pig killing ceremony which sanctifies all of the traditional/cultural ceremonies. In the afternoon we were shown many other cultural ceremonies they have here in the banks island’s. The marriage ceremony, the adoption ceremony, and the death ceremony all included the exchange of pigs, taro, and traditional shell money. The death ceremony also included the transfer of land to the children of the deceased. In the marriage ceremony, the dowry for a woman is paid in traditional shell money or equivalent to about $700 US as well as the giving of taro and pigs. It is set up so that the family has food and money. To promote genetic diversity marriages usually take place between people of different islands and tribes. When adopting a young child the true parents are never spoken about to the child but if he or she finds out on their own then that is allowed. The adoption is usually done through brothers or sisters of the adopting parents. The exception to that is when the adoption is done as an adult to define or change your family clan/tribe or eliminate having to pay the dowry for the bride. The demonstrations of Taro and sweet potato planting, and traditional fishing with a poll was also interested.
The next day we had the cultural dancing and singing by a group of bare breasted women in grass skirts from one village. Two villages took part in the next dance with one village providing the music while the other village of men and women danced around the music group. There was a demonstration of traditional fire starting, the making of a hot rock oven for the cooking of greens, taro, and sweet potato, taro mashing into a thick gelatine with coconut on top called lop lop, and began showing us the construction of a traditional sleeping hut using only lashings and no nails or fasteners. The construction techniques, knots, and lashings I found particularly interesting. They will be finishing the hut hopefully tomorrow.
The following day they did something even more interesting with their demonstrations. Which is they build a Outrigger canoes from scratch today. That’s right start to finish in one day shaping and hollowing out a breadfruit tree log to make the canoe and another small log as the Outrigger. It was fascinating and I got lots of pictures of each stage of the process. They use of all hand tools an axe, an aze, a machete and some chisels for making holes in the sides for lashings. They were paddling it around waterfall Bay as we were returning to INTENTION. They began the day with a number of different games the people often play. It was wonderful seeing them have such a fun time while showing us how the games were played. They also showed us some local healing of eyesight. I continue to be fascinated by the lashings used in the construction of the traditional sleeping hut. They began putting the roof and the sides on and showed us how there was space left for the pigs to be able to get in and out of the rain as well. So it is a people and a pig shelter. I took lots of photos to document the process and possibly be able to build one for myself at some time in the future. another very fascinating demonstration today was the water music. It is only done by women who by splashing in the water make sounds sounding like music. There is a distinct rhythm and melody. One woman was able to do much of it by herself. We were planning to cross the waterfall and walk to a nearby village but it has been raining in the mountains so hard that crossing the waterfall might be dangerous. It was no longer a twin waterfall but one large raging waterfall. We will probably have that activity tomorrow. We are being told to come in from our yachts around eight o’clock in the morning. Of course there continues to be lots of wonderful local food treats for lunch and snacks.
This was the last day of the festival. we started with the walk to the nearby village this morning and continued building the traditional sleeping hut. after that we took a boat tour to skull cave where there were a dozen old skulls or parts of skulls in a cave only accessible by boat. they had closing ceremonies for the festival and a beautiful feast of a fresh killed bullock, greens in coconut milk, sweet potato, yams, beef and onion and bell pepper shish kebabs, and lap lap with thick coconut cream on top for dessert.
What has been the most wonderful part of this five-day cruiser Festival was how we were made to feel so honored and taken care of. We had boys who would greet us in our dinghy and help us safely get landed and it was the same for departure. We had individual tour guides that were assigned to us to make sure that we did not get lost or miss a cultural event. All of our interactions with all of the people was always so warm and friendly I could see that it was a part of their natural way of being. Of all of the places that I have ever been the interactions with these people has been the most phenomenal.
Today there were two other boats and myself who went to a birthday party for chief Jimmy’s grandchildren in his village. MARCHRIS, one and the other boats at the festival invited all of the tour guides and a few of the chiefs aboard this evening for a thank you party. It was wonderful being able to acknowledge them for their good job of care of us.
I was just getting ready to depart from waterfall Bay when chief Jimmy paddled out with four other members of his family in his dugout canoe with an Outrigger to bring me in for a meeting with a local villager who wanted my support with a project. Rose wants to set up a turtle sanctuary on her land where the turtles are laying their eggs. She wants to gather the newborn turtles as they make their way to the sea and raised and nurture them for six months so they have a much greater probability of survival. It seems that she could make a huge difference in increasing the turtle population there in Vanuatu. We set up ways to communicate and I told her I would do what I could to support her project.
Love,
Jim

Yesterday INTENTION and I had great fun transporting six locals, three men and three young girls, from the provincial capital of Sola to their village on the other side of the island called Waterfall Bay. One of them was chief Kereley whom I had met previously in Waterfall Bay. The previous day he had made the long trip by land to Sola and had hoped I would the able to bring sacks of rice and flour and other supplies with me back to Waterfall Bay for the cruiser cultural festival. But with no boat having been in Sola for the last two months the shelves were empty and we returned without the supplies. A few days later a cruising boat called MARCHRISTA sailed with over 400 pounds of supplies all the way from Loganville, Santo to arrive in time for the festival. Mark and Chris on MARCHRISTA were honored especially at the closing ceremonies for their special effort and contribution. I
If they walk from one side of the island to the other, it takes them about 12 hours but by boat we had a nice six-hour sail even if it was raining part of the time. They had lots of local knowledge for the passage around the south end of the island. As I had mentioned before this anchorage has two beautiful waterfalls pouring in to the clear blue waters of the ocean. They are having a five day cruiser’s festival here starting in two days. At noon I will go ashore to watch their preparations and rehearsals of local string bands, singing, and dancing. Currently I am the only boat here in the Anchorage but hopefully there will be many more coming soon. I again jumped into the crystal clear water to swim and snorkel moments after watching the Islanders paddle to their village in their outrigger canoes.
Love, Jim

Hello to all
We left waterfall Bay with good Southeast winds to take us to Ureparapara, which is a volcano with the northeasterly side blown open so boats can sail into the center of the crater. It is a exciting and unique experience Sailing into the opening of a volcano. INTENTION was almost surrounded by more than a thousand feet of the of the towering sides of this huge volcanic crater covered with green lush vegetation. It was a good sail up there but the water pump on the engine broke just as we were anchoring. The wind had shifted around to the east and made the Anchorage bumpy and difficult. I replaced the water pump after anchoring and we were good again.
Chief Philip paddled out to talk to us and give us fresh Pompamoose in his Outrigger canoe. He pointed out a buoy tucked in behind a reef which afforded a more protected anchorage. I gave him some extra medical supplies as they are on a very remote island. There is only three or four villages on the island and no radio communication or telephone.
Even though was such a beautiful place and it was so spectacular being surrounded by a volcanic crater but we left the next morning.
Love,
Jim

Hello all,
Was a beautiful day sail around the top of Vanua Lava to the western side and beautiful waterfall Bay. Most of it was a very easy sail except for the last two or 3 miles which had the wind on the nose. it is called waterfall Bay because it has two roaring waterfalls falling about 150 feet into one large clear refreshing pool surrounded by huge water worn rocks and flowing into the sea. After getting anchored we were visited by chiefs from three different villages, chief Kereley, chief Nixon, and chief Jimmy. Upon first going ashore we were greeted with a reception ceremony telling us that our safety was of their primary concern and welcoming us to waterfall Bay which including fresh papaya drenched in lime juice. there always seem to be Outrigger canoes coming by to give us gifts or trade for lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.
We stayed here a few days swimming and snorkeling each day on the beautiful coral reefs near the village and the waterfalls. It was good exercise swimming back and forth as well as diving down 15 to 20 feet to see the fish and of coral formations. An unusual part of snorkeling here was it was necessary to get your face mask three or 4 inches below the surface of the water as the freshwater from the water falls was floating on top of the sea water and slightly distorting the clarity of your vision.
At night with the forward hatch open the full moon would come streaming down filling the forward berth with a silver glow of moonlight. After the moon had set there was still that star-studded night and the glow of the Milky Way to relish watching.
Bye for now,
Jim

Hello everyone,
We left Asanvari Bay just before sunset for an overnight sail north of along the island of Maewo to the islands of Santa Maria and Vanau Lava. The wind was blowing at 15 to 20 knots over the starboard quarter and INTENTION sailing beautifully with a full jib and a double reefed main making a comfortable easy 6 knots. Patti took the first three-hour watch and I awoke to a beautiful star studded sky for my watch. We continued sailing like that three hours on end three hours off until passing by Santa Maria island around 6 a.m. and continued north to the provincial capital of Sola on Vanau Lava.
We anchored near the pier in what turned out to be a lumpy roly Anchorage. After going to and having a wonderful 2 Km walk back from the airport to make some reservations for Patti’s departure we had lunch at the market meeting Charles, the provincial tourism representative and Lavie and Elizabeth. She works for the EC as a proposal writer for development projects there in the banks island’s and Lavie is a book writer and has been publishing a local weekly newspaper for the banks and the Tories islands. We also met father Luke, Robert, and Sarah at the Vanau Lava yacht club building. I gave some medical supplies to father Luke, who is an Anglican priest and is trying to set up a holistic medical center.
After realizing that the anchor chain was wrapped around a coral head we’d be anchored INTENTION in front of the Vanau Lava yacht club.
love to all,
Jim