The Volcano

The anticipation has been building in me for day, weeks. But now we are actually going to do it - we are going to see an active Volvano.
We hopped in the ute.  I was in the open back with Squiddy, Bosun, Sea Bird (our Brazilian crew member) and Varekai's crew, with captain and the driver in the front.  The road went bump, bump, bump, all the way to the foot of the volcano.  We passed some amazing trees on the way.  The were magical like the Faraway tree.  The trees filled me with happiness.  I imagined the trees would be much smaller and definitely not as spectacular.
At the foot of the Volcano we were led to a flat area with lots of logs as seats.everyone was put into country groups while the people from the local village did two dances for us.  When the second dance happened, one of the girls around my age took my hand for me to join the villagers to do the dance.  It made me feel special, I was the only one.  At the end the two girls pressed their faces against mine, transferring some of their face paint on my face.
Now it was time for another bumpy ute trip. This time up the volcano. I was very squishy this time. Then at last. We are at the volcano.
I could see the smoke towering above the volcano, hundreds of meters into the sky.  I could hear the boom of the lava being shot out of the ground.  The sound waves of the explosions pushed my clothes back and popped my ears.  At the foot of the volcano I could see dried lava from many eruptions before.
I felt excited and cold.  There are no railings around the rim of the volcano and where we stood it was only 2m wide with a drop on either side.  The hole in the middle looked like a gigantic meteor crater with three holes that have smoke, ash, lava and ask coming out.  At first I was scared but when it got dark I just felt amazed.
The chunks of lava were the size of a bus and got flung 300m high. It was a spectacular, amazing, dazzling, terrific sight. I just couldn't leave.
The memory will be one I will never forget. I will stay in me forever.

Aqua D

Ambrym

With not a little ceremony, I place down the hank of sailing cord to trade with in the small hut, and sit down on haunches with my counterpart. We bring our heads closer to discuss the deal. Rope is collateral here, and it was a surprise that something roused out from QuickStar’s bilge, unused for years, could be so attractive. But we have had many surprises in this island of Ambrym, northern Vanuatu.

Earlier that morning, our minds churned as we tried to classify something never seen before. All I could shout down the companionway to the crew was “There’s something big in the water nearby...”. It was rolling about easily on the surface, light tan skin and smooth. Rounded. A big creature, about 10 shoe sizes bigger than a dolphin. As big as a log, wallowing 15m away. But it wasn’t a log - it was moving. It becomes a they, and they see us and dive, mother and calf, horizontal tails and no dorsal. Dugongs.

Up the track from the anchorage, a living bridge spans 20m across the rainforest gully. The fig tree of interlocked arms reaches 8m across the gully above the stream bed below, to cross in times of flood. The bridge is topped by moss and grows in step with the rainforest around

Meanwhile, in the next village, carved tam tam drums start to pound across the island. The chief has come home to the village; the sound fills the rainforest and coconut groves and signal the start of the 3 day custom dance festival. The tam tams are up to 12ft high, carved from monolithic pieces of timber, just like the ubiquitous local canoes. They are crowned by faces with huge eyes, watching the crowd in the rainforest clearing.

Cruisers from about 7 boats sit in the front row, and people from the local villages stand en mass behind. They relearn the old dances, and see their relatives dance into lore. It is high village status to be invited to dance. The festival starts with the clubbing of a pig in preparation for a promotion of a village senior. One more level toward Chief. Current chiefs and previous chiefs look on, with curled bore-tusk bracelets showing their status.The dancers work hard and sweat in the humid air, sometimes fierce and sometimes laughing, but always looking inward and taking energy from the center of the group.

The stage is a small clearing in the trees where the forest has been peeled back and swept to black volcanic earth. It springs with the energy of the stomping, resonating as a giant drum, and I can see the sound radiating through the earth close to the dancers. We feel it through the log benches and hear the dance in our chests. The sweat from the dancers grows during the day as their history regenerates. The festival ends with the Rom dance, with costumes of pandanus and elaborate carved and painted headdress.

We walk back the hour to the anchorage through fields rimmed by fences of green timber posts that sprout and just like the fig bridge, become living fences that won’t rot. A few strands of barbed wire complete the fenceline. Here it is to keep the cattle out, but we ask a villager why the need for a single strand of barbed around the woven pandanus houses. The villages are sometimes mysterious, but they feel safe. His answer: it’s not for keeping out people: Black magic cannot cross barbed wire.

That night, QuickStar lies at anchor in the gentle roll of swell curling into the anchorage. Sitting in a dark cockpit, there is muffled talking nearby on the water. A dark smudge of a carved outrigger canoe glides by in the dark. What are they doing out here, near the anchored cruisers in the dark? Beyond them, high up on the mountain, above the silhouette of palm trees, and beyond the crest of the cinder cone, a lake of lava constantly bubbles. It lights the sky in orange and pink.The glow swirls slowly as clouds of steam rise and carry west on the trades. When sailing toward Ambrym and Tanna islands at night, we use the volcanoes as mountain lighthouses.

The rope trading continues for maybe 10 minutes, and ends in smiles. Frowns of concentration and spoken Bislama calculations between my counterparts break into happiness once we sealed the trade - for exquisite carved tam tam drums, flutes and a mask. I traded directly with the carver, who worked for hours on the pieces and was weighing values carefully. But his eyes lit up as he picked up the hank of rope, to tether the village’s cattle. The wooden carvings are stunning. But I think we both felt we got the better deal, as we carry away a piece of the different worlds we both live in.

Pigs

The Chief’s Second Son stands a boy amongst the men, a scrawny teenager surrounded by the muscular men of his village, looking even more diminutive as he seems to shrink inside himself, trying to somehow withdraw from the scene in which he finds himself reluctantly playing a leading role.  Second Son’s eyes are wide, almost startled, he wants to be somewhere else, anywhere else.  The other custom dancers stamp powerfully to the beat, sending vibrations through the ground to where we sit, but Second Son barely lifts his feet.  A large, black pig is to blame.

In Vanuatu pigs symbolise status and they are currency, pigs feed people and are ceremonial, pig tusks adorn elders and represent power in the village.  Their symbolism is a long held tradition, and similarly, their end is also traditional.

I was out for an early morning paddle, getting my Zen top up for the day by gliding across the vibrantly clear emerald water, scanning the depths for the turtles and dugongs that live in this bay.  Without warning a violent squeal shot across the water to rip me from my reverie.  I guessed a pig was being killed, but the tortured cries continued, making me wonder how it could take so long.  Surely the pig’s throat is slit to bring a swift end to its life?  No.  Tradition is still strong in Ambrym and so pigs die as they always have, by being clubbed to death.  It is a shocking revelation for someone from a sanitised society.

The following day at the custom festival, we sat amongst the locals to witness the songs, dances and costumes that have been part of their culture for hundreds of years.  It is for the people of the village, so there is almost no commentary, leaving us to interpret what is before us and feel what is happening.  The arrival of the Chief with a small, hog tied pig in one hand and a ceremonial club in the other comes without warning.  I race over to the Squid and Dolphin, huddled under an umbrella with other cruiser kids.  We have no opportunity to explain this custom or provide them with some preparation for what is rapidly unfolding.  With only time to say “A pig is going to be killed, you don’t have to watch”, they drop the umbrella to shield them from the sight, but there is no refuge from the sound.  Dull thuds of wood hitting skull mixed with anguished squeals.  Thankfully the Chief is skilled and the pig goes quiet, yet still twitching.  We go for a short walk to recover and let the dancing continue.

It is now the final day of the festival, and before us stands Second Son.  We have more understanding of how things unfold now and the sight of the big, black pig gives meaning to how Second Son is behaving.  Before him stands his father, the village and visitors from boats.  Everyone has expectations, none greater than the expectations Second Son has placed on himself and his performance today.  While the other dancers are swept along in the tidal flow of sound and rhythm, Second Son is clearly somewhere else, knowing what he must do, wondering if he can do it.  We look with empathy at the fear in his eyes, all of us knowing what Second Son knows.  This is the way it has always been, this is the way it will be today.

Night tether

The roaring starts way before it reaches us, just to let us know it’s on the way. It’s deep and distant, like wind ripping shreds off a mountain peak, when looking up into the blue from the valley base. But it will soon reach us here.

It catches the top of the mast first. Rigging wire whistles as the force starts to slew QuickStar sideways on her anchor. The gust intensifies and moves lower down toward the sea, teasing out halyards and other cords from beside the mast and slapping them angrily on the resonant aluminium. That noise conducts straight down into the cabin, where the mast forms part of the wall before bedding it’s huge load against the keel. I put my head a little further under the pillow for sleep.

The wind bullet is now localised enough to catch QuickStar’s hull broadside. Lying in bed I can feel the hull pulled sideways, slewing us across the water, around the arc of our anchor chain which hopefully tethers us to the bay. Water sloshes against the hull a few centimetres from my pillow. Once again my mind goes down to the image of the anchor, which I swam down to inspect yesterday, to check how it was holding in the sand. With just a few minutes of untethered drift we would be blown onto the nearby coral reef. And that means likely severe damage, and possibly worse.

The wind generator has been quiet in the lull between gusts, but now revs up into a breathy, expectant whirr as air stalls over the blades, then hits it’s favourite speed and sings into a high pitched whine. It pumps energy into the batteries - power that we’ll use for all sorts of things during the coming day - radio, bilge pump, perhaps the microwave for cooking. But what I care about right now is the anchor monitor on the iPad. That tracks location during the night and sounds an alarm when the boat shifts, which causes a Pavlovian response in our adrenal system: it means the 12 tonnes of QuickStar is drifting downwind in the dark. Despite the technology, I get up and check the screen often during nights like these for a little peace of mind, just in case the alarm didn't sound. It’s happened before. This time we are holding fast and QuickStar’s movement paints a lovely solid arc on the map around the anchor.

The wind-bullet ebbs after perhaps only 30 seconds, and a short quiet returns, with the latent slapping of water and rigging struggling to maintain their rage, but now losing energy from the gust. I wait for the next bullet to come roaring off the peak in a minute or so. The distant sound is already building, and we’ve learnt to discern the sound of those that will hit us. These wind bullets are stronger than the actual wind outside the island, as if they circle in the shadow of the mountain, storing energy to pump down into the bay in short violent bursts. I stick my head under the pillow and drift back to sleep for a couple more hours.

Later: there’s crepuscular light in the cabin, and blue sky through the ceiling hatch, flecked with iridescent salt crystals catching first sun. The air feels very clean. The wind is still there, but daylight takes out some uncertainty and brightens the outlook - we can see the shore. Time to scratch the sleep out with a coffee on the gas as the Bosun, Squid and Dolphin stretch and stir from their cosy cabins and drift sleepily toward the saloon. The reef that was a dark, skulking threat is now beautiful shades of aquamarine and beckons exploration with a snorkel. Time to start the day.

Aubrey

Red ridge

Yesterday was a big challenge; I climbed a mountain as tough as a rhino & as tall as Mt Everest. It was a hard climb but we made it.

Now, the reason we did climb the mountain was because Squidy really wanted to climb a mountain so we did it with Captain Aubrey, the Bosun & Captain Scrumpy from Serenity. We had spotted a track from Quickstar. It looked like the earth-hungry cyclone Winston had made the path.

So we went ashore to start climbing the mountain. It was quite easy compared to the rest of the climb. Scrumpy found a walking stick for everyone to help us walk. It helped a lot. The mountain was very steep but fun to climb. We had to go off the track and into the half-sunlit forest because it was the easiest way.

Then at last! We made it! To the summit of the mountain. We all felt hungry so we ate some of Bosun’s chocolate fudge.  But we still had to get back down.  So we started heading down but we couldn’t find the rest of the path so we had to weave our way through the trees to get to the rocks and walk back around to the other side of the island. Once we had got around I realised that I had actually climbed the mountain! I did it.

Aqua Dolphin

Kissing the reef

There is a common adage amongst cruisers here that there are two types of cruising boats: those that have hit reefs, and those that are yet to hit a reef. It hints of inevitability of collision, and there is truth in that when cruising in the South Pacific. And yet the spate of groundings among cruising friends in just the last few weeks has been a little alarming. Six of our friend’s boats have hit something underwater. It’s a little like an earthquake hitting your home - could be just a few cracks, or the walls might be falling in.

Groundings can be incredibly stressful, for the immediate crisis of safety - staying afloat and maintain steering control, understanding damage, and for the ongoing drama of repairs. A couple of the local groundings have been particularly bad, one with the boat taking on water through broken engine mounts after hitting a submerged rock. The skipper made the difficult decision to intentionally run the boat up on a beach to reduce the chance of her sinking. Needless to say, it was a sleepless night. They made some emergency repairs, and limped back to the mainland under tow from a fellow cruiser.

Another damaged her rudder on a reef entry. Steering immediately tightened up, and they also returned with shepherding to the mainland and now face the very difficult challenge of having a new rudder fabricated locally, or one sent out from the overseas manufacturer if it is still available. Until then, the boat is out of the water while they continue to live aboard and we feel for them.

Contributing factors to this rate of serious incidents are a lot of reefs, and poor quality charts. Charts for some parts of the archipelago are based on Cook’s original hand sketches from the 1700s. Reefs that show on one chart manufacturer are often completely missing on another. Many reefs don’t show on any chart. Some of the best “ground truth” data used by the community is from satellite images from the ubiquitous Google Maps. They show far more reef detail than any chart we’ve come across, down to the level of small coral bomboras that just a few meters across, lurking just below the surface like a brown snake in the grass.

Despite all the tech available, there is still a lot of catching up to do and sharp eyes combined with the right sunlight remain our best defence. Oh, and like everyone else, continuing to speak of groundings with respect, with one hand touching wood.

Aubrey

Community

I am a team player.  I love being a part of a community and feeling like I am making a contribution, doing my bit.  Each of us is part of several communities and they give us a sense of belonging, a tribe that we are a part of and with which we share some common ground.  Communities tend to have a scale of belonging which is a function of your time as part of the group and the level of your contribution.  There is always a core group that claims the status of being more a part of the community than the majority who dwell on the fringe.

Being on the fringe is not always a welcoming place and often where most of us find ourselves.  I have always held a seed of self-doubt, a voice telling me I am not really part of a community unless I contribute greatly.  There are always barriers to entry that aren’t clearly defined and the path to full acceptance is not always obvious.

Then we joined the cruising community and discovered that despite our short time in this group we feel no less a part of it than people who have been out here for many years.  There is no judgement on how long we have been sailing, how many miles we have travelled or the boat we are on, it is all about the commitment we have made to doing this and that is enough to bring us into the fold.  The cruising community is fiercely protective of its members and we have never felt like fringe dwellers.

When there is nothing but ocean in all directions, cruising can be lonely, but it is comforting to know that the community will spring into action if we need help.  In Minerva Reef, a 100ft schooner sent out a call for a fuel pump, so we took over our bag of spares and paid it forward.  Leaving Minerva we encountered various problems which led to a fouled prop and the fire extinguisher being held at the ready; at the news a nearby yacht reached out to check up on us.  That same boat we later saw run aground on a reef and damage their rudder, so we stuck close to them over the next few days until they could head back to the mainland.  The community is always there, in small ways, swapping mung beans for baked goods, or in bigger ways, ensuring the safety of our fellow sailors.

So I am thankful to the cruising community for taking us in and showing us that we do not need to be sparing with our level of inclusion and that opening up freely to newcomers is more rewarding than creating barriers and a sense of exclusivity.  I am thankful for the people who have helped us as well as those who have accepted our help, without questioning our credentials.  A sense of belonging is a wonderful thing, and I love being able to say, without any feelings of self-doubt, that I belong to the cruising community.

Bosun

Grace in disparity

The flipside of dealing with the harder parts of the Simple Cruising Life (™) are exquisite moments of learning from the local people and communities. Cruising folk themselves are a wonderful community: a binding common experience and shared goals forms a wide network of friendship amongst cruisers. But is is the local people of contrasting lives that really teach us.

We visited the local village at our Yasawa anchorage to request sevusevu from the chief, who welcomed us and invited us to use of the island’s beaches and fishing grounds. His first man took us for a tour of the village where we saw the impact of Winston, and then visited the island’s school in the nape of a soaring mountain.

Some basic school donations were appreciated: books from Australia, a soccer ball provided by a friend, and an old laptop. The head teacher’s passion for the school was wonderful and he clearly  has a huge impact on the lives of local kids - with resources that would astound an Australian school in their modesty. That meagre laptop doubled the number for the whole school. The school welcomed the Dolphin and Squid into their classes with wide arms for two days, which are times they will remember forever.

As we caught the village boat back in a village boat powered by the ubiquitous 40HP Enduro, we passed a 180ft superyacht that had been cruising the Yasawas and was moored nearby for a few days. The disparity with their surroundings felt slightly grotesque. We had seen the crew prepping the local beach for the owner’s lunch for 3 hours beforehand, complete with water toys, meticulously laid out snorkelling gear, drinks, a hanging wardrobe on the beach, and the ship’s monogram carefully created in sand art and shells. And because the pristine sand of Fiji was not quite perfect enough, the crew raked the whole section of beach in front of the towels to remove any impurities, and sent photos back to the mothership for quality control. We didn’t really need to see the owners; that indication of what they felt was important was enough.

I wondered though if they had any knowledge of the lives of the community just 200m away, and wanted to constructively tell them about that in case they could help, but the deployment of black security jetskis was tight. When I mentioned the superyacht to local villagers, their happiness and lack of material ego was wonderful. I try not to fall into a tourist’s trap of romanticising the reality of their environment, or to pretend they have opportunity. But the generosity of their spirit was a lesson to us, and a wonderful demonstration of dealing with people from different backgrounds with cheerful grace. Learn from those days, Squid and Dolphin.

Aubrey

Taking the Time to Live Simply

Our urban world has been built upon the principle of avoiding the time consuming tasks of simple living.  Basic needs of shelter, water and food are readily met in the city so there is no “wasting” of time in acts of meeting these needs.  Cruising life is a voracious consumer of time spent on tasks of simple living.  On a daily basis we make safe our shelter, tightening, repairing, sealing.  We conserve our precious water or use the desalinator to make fresh water and actively seek out new food supplies from local growers.  We scratch our heads and ponder the latest problem with the alternator and hope that our solar panels will continue to carry the load while we shut down non-essential systems.  The younger crew members are also becoming closely tied to the rhythms of these needs as the Dolphin provides updates on water tank levels and Squid closely monitors battery charge.  This cruising life we are living is heavily weighted by time consuming tasks of simple living.

So while our time is being eaten alive by simple living, we are learning patience and grace in the face of regular knock downs.  We are leaning that the way forward is not always straight ahead and that the journey we had planned is not always possible.  We need to keep our hearts and minds open to the opportunities presented by Plans B, C and D, knowing that we will find good things wherever we go, we just hadn’t thought about them yet.  And we are giving ourselves over willingly to these forces because the journey is wonderful.

Bosun

Shadow water

The notion of simplicity can be seductive. At a life stage of school aged kids, a home in suburbia, and a busy work environment, what could be simpler than to cruise in the Pacific for a year?

My analytical brain might however try to describe the transition of the last 3 months as an aggressive reductive process, where the force of physical safety and logistics for a family and crew, forces the priorities of the day. The myriad of non-critical sailing and other factors of life drift away. Success in work life is arguably no different: to prioritise ruthlessly and don’t waste time on what doesn’t have impact.

The difference in adventure sailing (aka fixing boats in exotic places) is that priorities are abundantly obvious, but change frequently and with impunity. Sometimes that does bring a type of simplicity I suppose. There are major new forces to respect and contend with: weather, breakages and distance. A trifecta of these factors is inherently stressful: and a day out of Minerva Reef, we managed to foul our propeller at sea in heavy weather and dragged a colourful mass of sail fabric through the water for a day like a small parachute.

This contrivance of problems couldn’t be addressed right away. It would be madness to dive into the tangle of ropes in those conditions, and we sailed through the night without being able to do anything. My mind churned on what we would do if we couldn't free the sail, and how we would get through the reef passes into Fiji? But we had to wait until the sea state calmed before attempting anything.

They next morning, the waves did calm. We hove-to to settle QuickStar into a stable motion with the wind abreast. Serendipitously, our crew member and friend, Diver, was an ex navy diver. He could advise and spot the dive, and separate fact from my naive ideas of what was ahead. I donned a wetsuit, knife, snorkelling gear and beanie to protect my head, and attached a rope to pull me back to the surface if it all went awry. The rope was also a tether of information - Diver ran through tug-signals. We settled with just one - a series of short sharp tugs meant get out of the water any way you could. And it might come from either end of the rope. My undisciplined mind filled with images of the head of a hooked tuna head we had seen just before at Minerva Reef (all that was left after the body was snapped up by a shark before it could be reeled in), of 2000m of water below, and a solid hull slapping the water above my head.

And so, abundantly focused on the present, and filled with adrenaline, I dropped into the shadow-water beneath QuickStar. Being under water has always invoked a calmness and I swam down smoothly to the prop and rudder. The rudder was clear and the prop would counter-turn by hand amongst the wallowing jellyfish of sail which was a promising sign. A couple of dives later, the prop was freed. The clarity, and mild euphoria lasted for days afterwards.

Diver helped me back onboard from the transom, and the state of the crew was immediately different. Jokes and smiles, and we relaxed with the knowledge that we could again use the engine when needed. We turned round to the wind, and QuickStar surged again toward Fiji.

Aubrey