Sailing from the Solomon Islands to Vanuatu on the cruising yacht Watermelon.

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SOLOMON ISLANDS TO VANUATU
(Going to weather)

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May 28, 1995

After a rather eventful trip, we arrived in Luganville, Vanuatu. We plan be here only long enough to wash and disinfect the Yacht ‘Melon before day sailing down to Port Vila. It was some trip.

We delayed leaving the Solomon Islands just a bit too long, and the Eastern trades had already set in. Planning on going slowly, we stopped at the end of Guadalcanal, in Marau Sound, where two elderly expats have lived for the past 25 years. Charles and Mafanwi Humphrey - he’s British, she’s South African. They are a fascinating couple living in a beautiful A-frame house on their own island (eight years ago they sold most of it to two fellows who are running a resort, just keeping enough for their own privacy). They love cruisers, the anchorage just off their house is beautiful, and they welcomed us graciously. They trade books, it was really quite lovely. The weather wasn’t good (understatement), so we stayed there for almost a week - got lots and lots of water which we didn’t need, and laundry wouldn’t dry, but it was a safe and secure hole until the weather abated a bit.

We left finally on Thursday, May 4 to go to Santa Ana Island, which we planned as our jump-off point to Vanuatu. What a trip, what should have been an easy 24-hour sail was wind on the nose, heavy seas. We goofed - we went the South coast of Makira [San Cristobal] - our friends on GANDALF OF BRISBANE left Marau Sound the same time but they went on the north coast and had perfect conditions. By 9:30 Friday morning we were both exhausted and conditions were getting worse, so we turned around and ran with the wind to find a safe anchorage for the day so we could rest. There are no detailed charts of Makira, so none of the bays on the large-scale chart had any soundings or enough detail to tell us where to go except for two bays where an anchor symbol was printed. But from the chart there was a deep bay called ANGANIWAI HARBOR just about 12 miles west, and we decided to try it - there was another bay a few miles further on with an anchor symbol that we figured would be a fall-back if Anganiwai turned out to be untenable. As we sailed in we were afraid it wasn’t going to work - the swell rolling into the bay was going to make it an uncomfortable anchorage. But as we worked our way in, we saw two canoes signaling us to keep coming and to follow them - they guided us to a sheltered spot behind and between the reefs where it was perfectly calm - what a relief. And the villagers, who we were told by the local school teacher had never seen a foreign yacht, were delightful. They came aboard, played their home-made ukelele and sang, brought us papayas, bananas, and stuff. They also went out that night and caught crayfish for us, and the children all picked us oranges in return for balloons - with great glee they all went running off into the bush to get us fruit for those precious balloons. You could hear them giggling and calling out to each other as they tore whole branches off the trees in their enthusiasm.

A poor village, they have no outboard motor and the closest “town” is Kirakira on the north coast of the island, two days’ walk (the only way they can get there). If they’re lucky a trading ship comes every two weeks or so with supplies, but they have so little money that they have very few things. We were like Christmas to them, and we reveled in it. If we weren’t in a hurry to get to Santa Ana before the weather deteriorated even more, as the weather charts predicted, this would have been a delightful place to stay for a few days. The people were just wonderful, primarily because they haven’t been spoiled by too many yachts.

After all this time in the Solomons, we are better able to see the contrast between places where lots of foreign yachts come through and are too often overly generous. GANDALF and WATERMELON alone can’t prevent these villages from becoming beggars to the yachts, as so much of Tonga has become, but we are trying our best not to contribute to the problem. Mary Harbor in Santa Ana, which was our last anchorage before heading out to Vanuatu, is a beautiful and calm anchorage. Since most yachts stop here on their way from Vanuatu, they are very familiar with yachts, and are a bit more spoiled than many places. But the villages are clean, the children are well-behaved, and the people are very nice.

We finally left Santa Ana for Vanuatu on May 13 - the weather was a bit rough the first day, but it settled down to a steady, boring 15 knots of wind on the nose, so we weren’t making good time. After two days of this we were feeling quite good, saying we didn’t care how long it took us to get to Vanuatu, this was not bad. Big mouths we have. We kept listening to all the weather forecasts, nothing ominous there, but the weather immediately deteriorated, wind increasing to 20-25 knots, 30-35 in the gusts, with heavy, confused seas. Muttering and complaining, we at least figured we’d be in the lee of Espiritu Santo Island soon and things would improve. 100 miles out from Santo the wind died completely. Wet and tired, we decided to motor into the coast and anchor for a while to recoup. After motoring all night we reached the anchorage only to find that it was untenable in any conditions so we turned south and drifted all morning down the coast. Afternoon brought brisk winds but smooth seas - now this was more like it, we were going to have a real easy ride the last 60 miles or so to Luganville. With more than 12 hours ‘til morning we could take it easy. Hah! Wind picked up dramatically until it was blowing 40 to 50 knots. At that speed and in the deteriorating sea conditions, we were going to be 60 miles southwest of Luganville in the morning with two tired sailors trying to get back, so we hove to with the main reefed down to miniscule size. That was better - we were making about 1 or 1.5 knots sort-of in the right direction, and the motion of the boat was much better. And then the main blew out at 4 in the morning. The wind was still howling, everything was getting wet, and we weren’t in the best of moods so we rigged the storm main (should have done that hours ago!) and tacked back towards Luganville. Problem now was that the storm main, so long-footed, was terrible at pointing so we weren’t going to make the bay into Luganville on one tack. The books say Luganville is a terrible anchorage in these conditions, and so we went back the way we came, up to the southwestern end of Santo to try Lisburne Anchorage noted on the charts that might afford some shelter and give us some rest. Six hours later we were approaching the anchorage and had great doubts about its shelter, but decided to push on in. To our relieved surprise, once close to shore the current and seas lay down and the wind dropped dramatically. It was still blowing 15-20 knots, but we could handle that, and with close to dead calm seas, anchoring was a snap, and we could finally relax. The next day on the radio we heard that several other yachts were calling trying to find out why the weather was so bad, and Arnold on Arnold’s net called Nadi, Fiji weather service to get them to look into it. Within 24 hours all the weather services started reporting what we poor yachts had been suffering for the past several days - a bit late for us, but at least others were warned. So for those of you out there who think that modern technology can replace good seamanship - good luck!

We were lucky that just before leaving Santa Ana I had traced anchorage charts (“mud maps”, as Eddie called them) that GANDALF had on board, otherwise finding Lisburne from our large-scale chart would have been much more difficult because the island is not where they say it is on the chart and it’s such a featureless area that we would have had trouble recognizing the place. Blind luck again made us into doughty voyagers.

The forward cabin was soaked (we found that a deck vent had lost its gasket and every so often a mass of green water on the deck would squeeze water through the cap and into the cabin). Two lockers full of water, clothes wet and smelly, all the cushions wet, salty and smelly, mildew everywhere (and I had just cleaned the cabin thoroughly while in Marau Sound, drat). We spent four days in Lisburne getting our other main set up and put up, putting away the blown main (it came apart at the seam, so repairs when we get to Fiji won’t be so horrendous), washing as much as we could of the interior with the limited amount of water we had (a villager came by and we had him get us 10 gallons of badly-needed water), checking our fuel, which we knew was very low, cleaning out the water in the forward lockers and getting salt off gear, though nothing could be done about our soaked linens and clothes until we got to Luganville and a sure and copious source of fresh water.

Once in Luganville we paid the price for that nasty trip. It took us three days just to wash and dry everything. Fortunately we had plenty of water, although Peter has to jerry-jug it to the boat (I used more than 50 gallons just for washing and cleaning). And we have unusually good weather; maybe that fellow up there is feeling guilty for sending us such lousy weather coming down here? Anyway, perfect for washing and drying everything.

Luganville is a pleasant surprise. Less than half the size of Honiara, it is better supplied and clean and lovely. The buildings and docks are mostly left over from WW II, but everything is painted and in good repair, no trash anywhere, regular trash pickup. It’s quite impressive. A ship just came in with fresh fruits and vegetables, and I went hog-wild, buying fresh broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, mushrooms, celery, etc. - things I haven’t even seen in the past eight months. We had Barbara and Eddie from GANDALF over for cocktails and crudités last night, it was a big hit - they’ve also been fresh veggie deprived. Exceptionally good and cheap beef and veal (ought to be, this is the center of the beef cattle industry in Vanuatu), so we are O.D.’ing on good meat. (Veal cutlets and veal chops are about $3.00 US a pound!! And I do so love veal). Diesel, as in all these countries, is terribly dear, about US$2.50 a gallon. As anxious we’ve been several times on this trip about running out of fuel, Peter refuses to carry more than 50-55 gallons of diesel, total, so we never forget we’re a sailboat.

Eddie and Barbara had an equally difficult trip once they left Santa Ana. They had still had to check out of the Solomons, so they beat their brains out to get to Nendo, checked out and left that lousy anchorage the next day and holed up in Utupua for a week, with lousy weather and high winds (the ones we were sailing in). They finally got into Luganville a day after we did. And here is something for everyone to note: because they arrived on a local holiday, they couldn’t check in until the next day, but Eddie came over to ask us for some advice. Barbara’s right pupil was dilated and did not react to light. I dutifully went to my “Where There is No Doctor” and told him to take her to the hospital immediately (‘do not pass Go, do not collect $100’), because the book indicates some pretty nasty causes of such a symptom (among them, acute glaucoma and stroke). Eddie called the Port Captain to ask for permission to take Barbara to the hospital, and not only did the Port Captain say okay, he came down to the anchorage and drove them there! Luckily, a group of Australian eye specialists had been at the hospital for several days giving seminars and further instructions on otology, so she had good care. Turns out that the Trans-Scop patch (Scopolamine, the darling of seasickness remedies) she was wearing for that nasty trip caused the dilation of the pupil. Whew! Through the entire time, the people in the Port Captain’s office and the hospital were absolutely wonderful, driving Eddie and Barbara around, whatever. Another nice place to be.

We complain about the French a lot, but we have been forced into admitting that they are probably the best colonialists around. The extreme contrast between former French colonies, current French territories and overseas departments and the former British, American, or Australian colonies and protectorates is dramatic. The indigenous people in the French islands are in general better-educated and better-trained (as in vocational training) than those in the other islands (including American Samoa), and French islands are clean and sanitary, the buildings in better repair, and things work better. This is as true in Vanuatu as in French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Martinique, or St. Martin. We contrast this with Australia’s administration of Papua New Guinea, which is a hole, or the Solomon Islands, which is nice but terribly backward. Or the U.S. territories - we haven’t been to Pohnpei, but Eddie and Barbara say that it’s as bad as American Samoa (and we felt American Samoa to be the armpit of the South Pacific). The French, for all their arrogance, do seem to be better and more intelligent colonialists than we Anglo-Saxons. And the Catholic missionaries provide the people with a lot more than a fear of God - they are the most respected vocational and agricultural schools in the islands, apparently (this also goes for the Australian Catholic schools in the Solomons - about all the Australians have provided that’s positive in these islands). Sitting here, in Luganville, we’re looking at shipping wharves and docks built by the Americans in WW II - 55 years or so ago - and they’re old, getting a bit shabby, but they are in good repair, still commercially functional, and clean. Just about everything that the Americans left in PNG or the Solomons is falling down and rotting away. Tonga can’t keep up what it’s gotten from Australia and New Zealand in the past 20 years. These are all culturally related people, so the only difference we can see is the foreign influences. Regardless, we’ve got a higher opinion of the French from these past few years’ travels.

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