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Firefly - Awaiting wind and rain in Esema Bay, Efate, Vanuatu



Firefly is tucked into the anchorage at Esema Bay awaiting some bad weather. A small system is due to pass over central Vanuatu between midday and about 2200 today (Sunday 28th September) and from the recently downloaded GRIBs it is forecasted to get wet and windy. This blip in the normal great weather has been expected for some time so we have found what we hope is a well sheltered place with good holding - its near a river mouth so the ground is mud and sand and the depth is about 8 metres - this is a much better choice than a deeper anchorage with a coral strewn bottom which is much less predictable.

Coming from Erramango, we arrived on Efate at the capital of Vanuatu, Port Vila. We spent 2 days there getting hooked up to the internet and re provisioning. We met up with World ARC yachts Hebe and Trillium who also left the rally at Fiji and we had a couple of enjoyable nights out. Vila is a lively place and very convenient for yachts people as we are able to moor just off the town and the dinghy landing dock is at the 'Yachting World' bar. Our first dinner out was at a Chinese restaurant in Vila, there are a lot of Chinese people running businesses in Vila and the food and service was very good. The following night Jane and Andrew from Hebe invited us for dinner at the superb Havannah Resort, we sailed there in the afternoon and anchored Firefly just off the jetty - we had a candlelit table on the beach, a bonfire was burning nearby and we were served fantastic food and wine under the stars on a beautiful calm starry night - a luxurious highlight of our trip so far and a good way to say goodbye as Hebe is shortly heading to Australia and is not rejoining the WARC.

Having arrived in Esema Bay on Saturday we soon met some of the locals including a very friendly 10 year old lad called Richie who was out fishing in a canoe - he already had a squid in his catch. An hour before dark we decided to take a trip up the river in the dinghy as it was high tide (about a 1 to 1.5 metre range here) - the river ran alongside the village and there was Richie waving us down as he wanted to drive our dinghy for us up the river - venturing about half a mile upstream, the vegetation was very lush and it was very peaceful. Dropping Richie back at home his mother gave us a huge bag of tomatoes and invited us to attend the village church for the service at 0900 on Sunday morning.

The Chief Pastor, Geoffrey welcomed us to the church where the congregation had started to gather and the organist was already belting out some upbeat hymns. The church had a roof and some low sides but was otherwise open, plastic patio chairs and some planks supported on blocks were provided for seating and Geoffrey was sitting at a table at the front. In the background the small generator powering the electric 'Yamaha' organ could be heard amongst the bird song. We had expected all of the villagers to attend but this was not the case and from what appeared to be a village of about 100 there were about 20 people present, with a lot of them turning up part way through the service - late arrival did not seem to be a concern. The 4 or 5 hymns were all sung in English including Amazing Grace, the only one familiar to us and English was again used for the very short readings. The rest of the service and the announcements were in Bislama and although we could understand the odd word we could not follow.

After the service we gave Richie a small gift of some paper and crayons that we had bought in Fiji and his mother gave us more tomatoes, another huge bag. Due to the generous nature of the Vanuatu people we meet Firefly is currently heaving with fruit and vegetables, especially tomatoes - in fact we gave half of the tomatoes to Peter and Shirley on the NZ yacht anchored nearby as we passed by on the way back.

The rain started shortly after we returned on board and we will now spend the day on some maintenance tasks, cooking and planning the next few weeks of cruising. Tomorrow, Monday 29th, its a year to the day since Firefly left Salcombe at the start of our circumnavigation - we have some SCUBA diving booked at the Tranquility Island Eco resort just a few miles away and hope that by then the weather will be settled again as forecast.

Paul and Susie

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