sv evi

We arrived in Port Resolution, on the island of Tanna, in Vanuatu, after 4 days of sailing from Fiji. We spent a week there while waiting for good weather to visit the active volcano of Mount Yasur. We started home schooling again, played soccer with local kids, hung out with our friends on SV Renard, and made some new friends on SV Oceaneer, an Aussie family.

The first time we went to see Mount Yasur, an hour’s ride away in the back of a pickup truck over bumpy roads, we got rained out by a big storm just as we arrived at the volcano. We decided to try for the volcano at sunrise the second time, because the weather looked the best. We woke up at 2 am, got in the dinghy, beached it, walked up to the truck, and then arrived at 4 am. We stayed there for 2 hours, right on the rim of the crater, watching small eruptions every few minutes. It was dark, very windy, and smelled strongly like sulfur. But it was AMAZING!!

Nathan, Cristie, Archer & Lydia had all of us over that evening for piña coladas and snacks. Nathan convinced us to come visit Australia en route to Indonesia, arguing that his proposed route would shorten our longest passage, include some of the best cruising grounds in Australia, and be safer because we would head to Thursday Island inside the Great Barrier Reef (and farther away from Papua New Guinea). We talked it over…and agreed that it sounded better!

We all did an overnight sail to Port Vila, Vanuatu’s capital the following day. We arrived there one day before Vanuatu’s Independence Day, the 30th of July. Here are some pictures from the Independence Day celebrations. I loved to see family groups all wearing dresses in the same fabric. Everyone was dressed in brilliant colors and sporting Vanuatu flags in their hair or painted on their faces.

One morning, while eating pamplemousse, Luz said, “I’m so glad we came to Vanuatu.” When I asked why, she replied, “because of the pamplemousse!”. Pamplemousse is grapefruit, and they were 85 cents each, and delicious. The kids also loved the baguettes, which were about 60 cents each.

I spent the better part of 3 days provisioning and cooking 9 meals in advance for our 8-10 day passage to Mackay, Australia. I made chicken & rice, white bean chicken chili, pesto, spaghetti carbonara, chicken stirfry, spaghetti, pork sausage soup, lentil couscous salad, and we bought pizza.

Cristie and Nathan had all the kids over on SV Oceaneer for a movie night! So fun!

Jade said she didn’t want to go to Australia because she didn’t want to leave Alice & Charlotte on SV Renard.

We were planning to leave on Friday the 2nd of August, but just as we started the engine to head over to the fuel dock, Riki noticed that the engine wasn’t charging the batteries. With some help from Nathan & Simon, they determined the batteries were full, but the monitor was faulty. By this time it was too late to leave, so we stayed and went to an amazing fire show on the beach with our friends.

We got our visas for Indonesia, and we need to enter the country by the 5th of October, so we have to head that way…1200 miles from Port Vila, Vanuatu to Mackay, Queensland, Australia. We left Vanuatu on the 3rd of August, cheetah tattoos on!