Tanna Island, Vanuatu

Jim, Vicki, Dylan and David completed the passage from Fiji to Vanuatu, in the Ring of Fire, with no major problems. The trip took us three days and three nights and we arrived at dawn this morning. Jim and Dylan actually saw the volcano do a little light show as we approached pre-dawn!

We had terrible weather - cloudy and rainy the whole time. And that was after a week of the same in Suva! Yesterday we had some high winds - around 30 knots, but they subsided. The only mishap was: we furled the main and raised our new mizzen staysail and it was doing a really fine job! Then the block at the top snapped off the mast and all came tumbling down! So, we will fix that and be good to go.

It is bright and sunny here today in Port Resolution Bay on Tanna Island. There is a lovely, very cool breeze, and we are having mahi-mahi for dinner. The guys caught a HUGE fish on Tuesday. They claim maybe 70 pounds, and I believe them. Dave reeled it in and Dylan gaffed it, and then did all the butchering.

Due to the fact that Port Reslution is on the East side of Tanna Island and the administration is housed in the main town on the West side of the island we were forced to travel the bumpy, but enjoyable and scenic, road across the island to check in. This was acheived together with three other couples who had arrived on other yachts and intended on doing likewise. On our arrival in town we proceeded with the formalities and then perused the goods that the local market had on offer! The most enjoyable sight was a post of mandarins of some sort. Very attractive and also very practical as one could pick off a fruit when one desired. Jim and Vicki enjoyed lunch at a beach side 'restuarant' and Dave and Dylan enjoyed a ride on a local canoe they borrowed from some kids on the beach.

During the days adventures we discovered that the Soccer final of the Tafea cup was to be played that day in the evening at the local stadium, which had unfortunately lost its new grand stand roofing in the most recent cyclone winds they received in 2003. David and Dylan decided to stay and prolong their adventure and with the sworn word of the driver that he would return (although late, which he apologised for, after almost issuing us with heart attacks) they did just that. They witnessed a wonderful afternoon of entertainment and were punished for their excessive dip into the pot of happiness and joy by being rained on almost the entire bumpy 2 hour ride home! They were feeling notoriously worse for wear the following morning!

However they were treated to a wonderful LIFE experience when together with Jim and Vicki and all the other yachties in the harbuor it was arranged to ascend Mount Yasur and to witness the reality of the Volcano that boiled, spewed and erupted within! What a spectacle. Our truck ride up there included a lot of jolting and bumping with the occasional "I'm going over!" but in the end we arrived safely at the base of the volcano with a small walk to the summit! The height above sea level was cause for concern on the climatic front and so we had all donned windbreakers/jackets of sorts and sat down to enjoy the sunset and the show.

The sunset was alarmingly boring in comparison to the fireworks which were firing off haphazardly within a few hundred yards of our position, which was up wind by the way! In one particularly large eruption a large amoebic form of red hot magma shot out of the crater and gracefully proceeded to menace us all with the possibility of heading our way. Fortunately it did not but the 'plop' it made on landing was enough to secure in our minds the state which any one of us would have been in should it have landed on us! The eruptions were absolutely spectacular.

We stayed well into the darkened night as the sheer beauty of the scenes was magnified with the absence of daylight and once every one was satiated and a little nippy (the temperature dropped rapidly after sunset and our chiled beers were doing nothing to assist with this situation) we returned to the harbour and smiled at a happy, enjoyable and successful summit.

Vicki, David and Dylan, having not had enough of the heat or possibly spurred on by the thought of heated waters sought out, found and immersed themselves in the nearby Hot water springs the following day. The tidal state was not altogether cooperative and hence we discovered we would experience a gushing of cold Pacific Ocean water and then a sweeping, somewhat scalding, volcanic heated cycle of hot water until the next swash of cold water. I am afraid our ideas of a health spa were dashed due to this inconsistency! But we enjoyed it nevertheless. And then we were off to Port Vila and its environs.