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Blue Pearl - Sailing



Blue Pearl is underway from Port Vila, Vanuatu to MacKay, Queensland,
Australia. The total distance is about 1200 nm but the "race" part ,
yes, sometimes we race, is 1050nm. Right now we are about 160nm from the
finish line which is at the Hydrographers pass, which is a pass through
the Great Barrier Reef, allowing access to the Queensland shore line.
You have probably heard of the Whitsundays a famous sailing area north
of MacKay. Well, the Whitsundays are right there. We are in a fleet of
22 boats and right now , 3 boats are in front of us and 17 behind us.
So, we are doing pretty well although, this includes a bit of cheating
(which we declare) by running the engine for about 4 hours this morning.
The penalty for this is extra time added to the total time to get from
start to finish.

We'd had great winds for the first four days of the trip and were moving
at a speed of between 8 and 10knots, then overnight the winds dropped
and our speed went down with it to about 4 knots. I am a little
impatient when it comes to speed so the Yanmar (the engine) came to the
rescue. Also we have to get to MacKay because Laurie (who flew to Sydney
for some sightseeing) and our friends John and Lyn will be arriving in
MacKay tomorrow to welcome us. The weather has been beautiful and this
is probably the nicest sail we have had since we left St. Lucia in January.

In any case, I haven't told you about Port Vila. Port Vila is the
capital of Vanuatu and is located on the island of Efata. We arrived
there from Tanna, which I have written about, via the island of
Erromango where we spent an overnight but didn't do anything else then
unloading some more useful gifts for the locals who are very nice and
very grateful people. Their existence is a happy but bare minimum one.
Port Vila is a little different. A bigger city with a lot. of commercial
activity and some tourism. We were there for three nights. We took a
tour of the island which. although interesting, seemed somewhat
disneyesque. We went to a replica of an original village, although the
real original villages still exist, and learned about the philosophy of
their way of life. The Chief is in charge and his word is the law. The
three pillars of their existence are Peace, Love and Unity. Who can
disagree..! But they insist this only works when all three are practiced
together. Maybe the Chief should come to the US for a while.

An interesting feature of all villages, even the smallest ones, is their
focus on education. Each village has their own primary school, sometimes
two. One English language and one French language based. This dual
language thing is a result of their colonial past. The Brits and the
French couldn't agree on who owned the colony so they decided to run the
place together. They called it condominium government..! Incidentally, I
think I mentioned before that Vanuatu used to be called the New
Hebrides. Rings a bell now?

Write again soon.

Captain Ruud.



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