We started early on Monday.

I jumped into the water to do the final cleaning of the hull.

Tobi prepared breakfast and took dry laundry from the ‘”clothesline”, the railing and the genoa sheets.

Then we took off for the dinghy dock we used several times already,

First we walked to the immigration center and found a long line of people queuing up. Seeing this, we decided to go first to customs to just learn we have to go to another customs office, about half a kilometer down the road.

After walking half of the way, a customs guy came by car and told us that we first have to clear out at immigration. He also told us that customs closes from 1100 until 1300 for lunch break.

Back to square 1! We heaaded back to immigration. Stopped at a small shop to get some ice-cream. It tasted good in the heat of the day.

When we queued long enough that we stand already inside the building, a female officier approached us with the question, “Are you from a yacht?” “Yes”, I replied and got forms to be filled in. After we filled in all, she processed our clearance. We thanked her and took off immediately.

15 min to go until the lunch break of customs! Will we be able to make it in time? Will they process our documents before lunch break?

There are times were I don’t understand what’s going on. It’s also not always necessary.

We reached the customs office 5 min to 1100 and were told, we have go to another office first.

I saw us already waiting until 1300.

We filled in the documents at the other office, paid with our last cash, the fees of 8830.-Vatu, and headed back ŧo the first office.

There, the lady, took our documents and started processing them. She inquired a few additional documents in between. At a bit before 1300 we were cleared out.

Now shopping for the last food items and a medication for an infected eye of Tobi. It turned out to be not so easy. Tobi used his credit card in one shop but in another shop, where he wanted to buy eggs the credit card was not accepted. Thus, he came to the dinghy dock where I was waiting. The first food he bought, we just put in the tender. Nobody would take here something.

Then, on the way to the egg selling super market, we saw a sign of a small eatery offering rice & fish, rice & steak, etc. We went in and asked if we can pay with credit cards. Popo, the guy behind the counter said, “Yes”. So we told him what we want and that we come back in about 10 min.

At the supermarket we got 54 eggs. That’s the amount we can get into the three plastic contained I have for buying and storing eggs. My credit card worked!

When we reached the small eatery where we ordered our late lunches, the food was already prepared in cardboard boxes. I gave Popo, my card and he said he does not have the machine to take credit card payments. He offered us to eat the lunches without paying because they are already prepared. That’s what we didn’t want to do and we gave him US dollars, which I have for emergency situations always in my wallet.

He was happy, we were happy and enjoyed our very late lunch.

While eating we saw big dark clouds approaching MaRe from W and we were afraid that our dried laundry gets wet. We rushed to our tender and drove back to MaRe as fast as the 5 HP motor allowed it.

We made it and could get laundry inside in time. Actually the rain, which we expected to poor down on us, was delayed quite for a while and then it was not much.

We did finale departure preparations and had a cup of coffee to relax.

Just shortly after 1700 we lifted the hook and took off out of the bay of Luganville towards Tarawa, Kiribatis Islands.

The wind is almost zero and still very unstable. We could only use the genoa to pull us for a short time.

We will use the engines until daylight then I hope we can use the gennaker in the l ight winds, which are forecasted.

Let’s see what wind we have when we get surrounded by daylight.

S 15° 30.817
E 167° 10.199

After breakfast, while Tobi worked on the kitchen, I did the next step of our laundry work.

Thereafter we took off for doing our errands ashore.

I needed to refill a propane gas bottle, and Tobi wanted to shop for vegetables and fruits.

We found a nice anchorage up the river just about 100 m down the river of the bridge.

A guy invited us to dock just beside his boat. A prefect place close to “Paradies Petrol” where I read that they refill propane gas bottles immediately. I didn’t need to carry the empty gas bottle for long to read the refill station. How lucky I was!

Refilling was possible immediately but I needed to get cash. “Now I have to walk a bit” I thought myself. However, one of the guys said “Come on” and arranged that another one brought me by car to the center of Luganvile.
How lucky I was!

The bottle was refilled quickly, I paid and wanted to take the now heavy – about 23 kg – bottle when the same guy as before told me that the car will bring me back. So within 5 min I was at a place where I had to carry the full gas bottle for only about 50 m.
How lucky I was!

Arriving at the place where our tender was docked, I met Ian again. Ian is the one, who invited us to dock alongside his boat. We talked for a while. Among the topics we touched there was global warming. He sees the effect at full moon tide and showed me until where the water went up 10 years ago and now. He is still lucky because the ground floor of his simple house still stays dry. At the neighbor’s house, the ground floor gets already flooded. Global warming first hand experience. What do the rich countries do to reduce global warming? Nothing, or max a tiny little bit that the politicians can say we are doing something.

And the country with the very best president so ever, supports the use of fossil energy and stopped all solar and wind projects to make his country great again and let the people live in a new golden age.

After talking with Ian for quite a while, he helped me to get the gas bottle into MaRe’s tender. I started the engine, cut the lines, bid farewell to Ian, and took off for a spot Ian recommend.

This spot as just a few meters down the river on the other bank.

I just threw the bow anchor of the tender between two broken concrete slaps, let the tender drift in the current and was ready to wait for Tobi.

A few boys, with simple fishing rods, consisting of a stick and a fishing line attached to the end of stick. At the other side of the fishing line just a small hook. They looked into the water to see if there is a fish foulish enough to take the bait. One of them caught two small golden looking fishes. I wonder what they do with them.

Then Tobi came with the first shopping bags with vegetables and fruits. Additionally he carried three bundles of bananas tied together. He bought one and got two more as a present.
Sunday is also Tobi’s lucky day!

Tobi had to walk the short distance to the municipal market two times more to get all he bought. Finally all was on board and we could go back to MaRe.

With the arrival at MaRe part 2 of the shopping started. Cleaning all with sea and fresh water, and storing all. Not the easiest task.

I continued with the laundry we started the day before. In between two “rinsings” wer jumped into the water to clean MaRe’s underwater ship. The possibility to clean the hulls from any fouling, which grows even on copper coat, is a big advantage of copper coating.

Hanging the laundry on the “clothes line”, was the last task for the day.

We both felt tired.

We got 635 l of water into the tank. It was quite a tiering work. We shuttlesd with the tender 9 times to the beach.

The Beach Front Resort let us take a much water as we wanted. Very friendly people. Fortunately, OBM brought some Japanese tea with her to be given away to people who do us a favor. So I gave the lady this token of gratitude for the water.

We are also doing some laundry today and tomorrow because we have water here.

Once the laundry is done, we fill up the 2 jerry cans again; this gives us 50 l of additional water.

The other day I wanted to start the genset to recharge the batteries a bit more. I started the genset and the engine control board shut it down immediately. Fault code 45 no sensing of speed. As it was night i used the PRT engine to recharge the batteries.

A 4-letter word escaped my mouth.

Next morning, after doing the cumbersome removal of the genset enclosures, I found the route cause immediately. A bearing of the rotor wore out.

Shit happens!

Thierry, who I know from DHL Papete, send me instantly the email and phone number of DHL Tarawa, Kiribatis. Asking by email if I can have something shipped to their office, remains unanswered since 3 days.

Also unanswered for the same time is a mail with some technical and parts ordering question to the biggest Onan dealer in Australia. Onan service…

The main problem is the water maker, which requires the genset for power supply. Thus, we have to sail without water maker.

If we have good winds we reach Tarawa in 10 days with day distance of only 120 NM in average. If we consider 20 days due to days with no wind in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the doldrums.

We will fill the water tank and 2 jerry cans with water we have 600 l fresh water or 30 l of fresh water for the 2 of us per day.

1 l of freshwater is enough for a shower per person, thus 40 l of freshwater for showering. Sometimes we will also take a seawater shower on our way.

For drinking every day we consider 2 l per person plus a pot of tea an coffee. Also bit less than 6 l per day, I consider 120 l for drinking for 20 days

As washing the dishes will be done with seawater, we will have 440 l for cooking and baking, which means 22 l per day for 2 persons. This is enough in the case our sail takes twice as long as normal.

As an additional safety margin we still have about 50 l emergency bottled water on board. This is not counted for daily usage.

Tomorrow we’ll take the tender and go over to the resort at the beach. It’s said that sailboats will get water there. We will need to shuttle several times until the tank is full.

Today some other shit happened. I don’t know why, but twice did the breaker for the solar panel above the davits opened. The current flowing through the breaker is only below 31 A. However the one connector’s nut was not properly tightend up. Did this cause the heating up of cable?

After tightening the nut properly the temperature of the cable went down and the breaker did not open again for the rest of the day. Let’s see what will be the situation tomorrow.

We also went ashore to check the outbound clearness clearances situation with customs and the harbor master. Customs clearances seems to be ok, but I gave up the idea of docking briefly at the pier. It’s very tricky to get MaRe’s fenders in the same position with the very big, wall attached fenders for the commercial ships docking there normally. Thus, we will take the dinghy on Monday morning to make outbound clearance.

Routing to Tarawa is ready. Because we have to consider that we also can get northerly winds I placed an offset WPT 100 NM east of the SW corner of the Tarawa atoll.

To this SW corner WPT I also drew a line from the E corner of Espritus Santos island. This line is my “red” line, which we will not cross towards west. If needed we tack and sail a course with an easterly component.

Let’s see what comes up!

Preparations for departure to Kiribatis’ Tarawa are going on well. Today I filled already 40 l of spare diesel into the tank. A bit later we want to go ashore and get another 80 l. Ideally 60 l can go into the tank and 20 l can remain in a jerry can, which can be stored in the bow center storage.

Beside this I sent emails to Kiribatis, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia to inform them that I sent all required documents but as I did not get any reply I’ll assume that no permission will be sent and I just sail into the harbors for inbound clearance. Once I’m closer to the respective harbors I’ll update them on a more precise ETA.

Now let’s see how they react. My experience with Kiribatis’ Northern Line Islands is that no permission will be sent. Sometimes I feel I need to take such a step in order not to wait for months until a reply comes once the hundredth reminder has been sent.

The wind forecast looks terrible!!!. Checking daily the forecast it could be possible to lift the hook in Monday. However, forecast until Monday is still reading the crystal ball.

I’ll write an update in the next days.

First from Vanuatu we will sail about 1200 NM to Tarawa, Kiribati Islands.

Second, from Tarawa to Majuro, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Time wise, will Kiribati and Marshall island be in November.

When we leave from there, we will sail more or less a western course through the Federal States of Micronesia. This during December. I currently consider to sail first to the most eastern state of Kosrae, then to Pohnein, followed by Chuuk state.

In Chuuk we will look carefully into the wind forecast. If the wind is good for sailing north, we will take off for Chichi-Jima, Ogasawara Islands, Japan.

If we have easterly winds we might go first to the most western state of Yap, and then sail north.

Guam, and Saipan will/have to skip. No replies from the US CBP agency to email and web forms.

I understand that the Golden Age, which should have started already in the USA, will not be shared with some foreign sailors.

Thus, we don’t leave our money in the US but in Micronesia and Japan.

In January I will reach Japan.

Have a look at the Garmin tracking site (https://share.garmin.com/P435) and you will see our always updated position. My narrations will still be here
https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/SV_MaRe/?useGoogle

Since we are here in Luganville, maintenance, cleaning, laundry is on the daily program.

However, today I’ll go around the corner of a small peninsula with a reef extending the peninsula by about 100 m to the commercial part of Luganville. I hope the marker at the outer end of the reef is well placed.

In town I’ll check with immigration for outbound clearance procedure, check the fuel station and the distance to a possible dinghy dock, and do few smaller errands more.

Tobi suffered yesterday quite heavily from C19. Spent most of the time of the day in bed. But made good spaghettis for dinner. This morning he sounds better and says he also feels better. Keep fingers crossed that it stays like that.

I felt fine the last two days all day long and now, after my workout, I’m feeling even better.

S 16°48.076′
E 168°15.555′

On the late afternoon, of the 251026, the day after the wedding ceremony at Lamen Island, we went back to ‘our two villages at Epi Island.

We wanted to apologize to the two ladies who wanted to prepare a dinner and coconuts jam but we could not show up as promised. We also wanted to talk to other people.

Apon arrival, we immediately we met a guy Tobi knew. He came over to us and we talked about the car he was fixing. The replacement of the cargo platform of his pickup truck was his task. He also offered us fruits from wood behind his house for the next day. However, next day he was busy with some other stuff and we didn’t meet him again.

On our way we bumped into Lina, who we met the day before on Lamen Island. There, she introduced herself with the words “William is my small father”. When I asked what this means it turned out that William is the brother of her father. In our words, William is her uncle. “Small father” an interesting term for an uncle.

At Epi Island Lina and I had a lively conversation about our sail. As she was interested in, I gave her my email address and asked her to send me a mail so I can send her the links to my blog and tracking. I’m curious if a mail comes.

Tobi, often mistaken for my grandson, had in the meantime a chat with some girls in her late teenage years. At the end a lot of selfies needed to be taken.

A bit further down the road we met Miriam’s husband, who called his wife immediately. When she came with her always friendly smile. We apologized for not showing up as promised for the dinner, because we got sick. She was glad that we came and not only disappeared. We said farewell using the words “Until next time!” This way to say it I learned especially in Fiji and Vanuatu.

Finally we reached Benny. She too was surprised to see us again. The same story, the same understanding. We asked her if she could make us some of her coconuts jam she wanted prepare for the other day. She agreed and we promised we will be back next day.

We went back to MaRe being happy that we made this visit and apologized to Miriam and Benny.

Next day, we prepared for departure what needs to be done early and then went back to Epi Island for a last visit. For me there was quite a strong sadness involved.

Benny had the coconuts jam ready and her daughter (?) gave it to us and gave her the money. “Thank you so much for the jam and regards to Benny” were about the words I used. Benny had to do something else in the next village.

We met again William and a friend and talked over the good time we had on Lamen Island. For this we are grateful to him. Then also farewell to him.

We walked down the road towards the airport to see if we can find some mangos. It mango season now and these delicious fruits just fall down from their trees. We asked a young guy and he asked us to wait, and brought us some. So we also had some fruits for the next days.

Back to MaRe and we lifted to hook and sailed out of the bay with destination Lunganvile, 80 NM further north, and an overnight sail.

S 15° 31.382
E 167° 09.957

Yesterday, around 1700, we dropped the hook in Luganvile, Espritus Santos Island. It’s about 80 NM NNE of Epi Island and our last stop in Vanuatu.

We left in the afternoon of the day before yesterday in nice breeze and sail with a wind from 120 – 150 deg PRT comfortably en route to Luganville.

However, during the night the wind died and we had to start the engines just at the exit of the passage between Malekula Island in the west and Ambrym Island in the east.

I stayed a bit below normal cruising speed. At daylight we set the gennaker, which pulled us nicely towards Luganville. But, as it is with all good things, they are never enough. Thus, we needed to use the engines again. Unfortunately until Luganville.

The anchorage appeared a bit crowded. A tug boat, a bigger commercial fishing boat and 6 sailing yachts were at anchor. However, we found easily a good spot, almost the one I, I hoped to get when I planned the route. The anchor is down at 13 m. The ground seems to be sand or heavy mud. Prefect holding.

Here we will do the final preparations for taking off to our next sail of 1200 NM to Tarawa, Kiribati Islands.

I still have to write about our last day at Epi Island, which will be a catching up narration.

I also intent to sketch the route until Japan once in advance in one of my next narrations.

We got up at 0600 and both of us felt recovered from the short Covid 19 bout we had.

After a quick breakfast we took the tender and went ashore, where Andrew was supposed to meet us and go with us over to Lamen Island.

However, William showed up, told us that Andrew is drunk, and asked us to follow their boat. We did it. Fortunately the boat in front of us had only 15 hp outboard motor and more people on board so we could follow with MaRe’s only 5 hp tender and two persons on board.

It’s 1 1/2 NM over to the island.

The reef in front of it was submerged sufficiently to cross it.

At the beach, William got a few people and we carried the tender up at the beach.

With William we walked into the village and stopped immediately at the first house. William asked us to drop our small day-backpacks here and join the working people.

There were already several people preparing food. The food under preparation grows on the island. Yams, cassava, manioka, taro, water taro, plantains, etc., not mentioning all the delicious fruits growing here.

Tobi was lucky he got the last big knife and could peel taro. I was sitting beside a men, who also peeled first taro and later water taro. He pointed out to what needs to cut away. Beside him another one cut plantains in the middle, parallel to the length side. His wife took the cut halfs and scraped the content out of the peel using a shell. That’s the way they dealt with the very thick plantains. The thinner ones get the peel being removed from outside with a big and knife.

Other ladies were grating pretty big amounts of other roots

Around them, kids were watching movies or animations on mobile phones. Also on these small and remote islands kids get born into the internet age.

About 5 m away, 2 ladies started working on the earth-oven. It seems they use this place always. First the stones were removed, then earth, fallen into the pit, was taken out by a man to get the needed depth. Once deep enough, the ladies took over again and covered the ground inside the hole with the small stones and the big ones were put aside. A small fire was started on the small stones and it was very skillfully covered with rather big chunks of wood a man chopped next to the fire place a few minutes ago. As William showed us around in the village, we could not see how the meat and vegetables were wrapped in banana leaves and placed on the hot stones, then covered again with banana leaves. These top leaves are weight down with the big stones, which were put aside at the beginning. The meal will only ready in the evening.

William came and walked with us through the village.

The first thing I was surprised about was the streets through the village. Something I never saw on any small island in the South Pacific before. It’s a very clean dirt road. At both sides there are small, about 40 cm high walls of moss covered stones with holes for the entrance to the houses being aligned left and right. There are also many trees aligned both street sides, covering the street and puting all under the pleasant shadow of there leaves. It’s a wonderful feeling walking along such a bower, a green tunnel.

As it was already around breakfast time, William brought us to a place where rice and meat with vegetables was avaliable for hungry people. It was one of the community kitchens & eating places in the village. A few people cook in large pots and many people come to eat. The people live here the same or similar ‘sharing lifestyle’, which I also saw on Naigani Island in Fiji. I think this is an excellent way of life. Meals are taken under a big old tree with a wooden platform beneath, where the food is placed and people can enjoy it while sitting on it. We too got a plate of rice with a kind of beefstew with vegetables. It tasted delicious. We were very thankful to the people who cooked it.

And then she came, the first bride of the day.

The husband was a bit hidden but finally I recognized him .

The strong dress code according to the traditional code of Europe surprised me. I expected something more traditional in the Vanuatu style. But via internet people see what’s outside there island and seeing something new creates desire.

The couple and the people around them where heading towards one of the two, different in religion, churches of the village.

On our way, we came to a place, which will be used as ceremonial place after the couples got married.

About a handful, carefully decorated, about a meter high vertical columns coming out of the ground. The decoration was colorful. The columns were wrapped in violet colored paper with ornaments on it, perhaps Melanesian patterns. On top, natural flowers combined with balloons. Heliconia flowers are used as vertical hanging decoration.

There was also a booth like structure. Well decorated and prepared for two couples doing there some ceremonial activities. What will happen there I’ll see later. Thus I’ll get back to this place later again.

We walked towards the Presbyterian church. One couple will get married here. Inside some people did a lot of efforts to made it looking colorful for the wedding ceremony.

Sitting down outside in shadow of one of these huge trees, was very relaxing under a big tree. A comfortable breeze was blowing. We were talking about many things and sometimes just were sitting there silently, waiting for the first couple to come.

The first couple came walking in the green tunnel of one the streets leading to the grass covered place in front of the church.

When they came closer, the singing and the instruments of the Lirua Local String Band was too be heard. The sound is the one of the Southern Pacific Islands, created by about 10 people. Several guitars, at least one ukele, a conga, and a tea chest base. This was spiced up with a bunch of good voices.

The group moved to the church’s entrance and after organizing the who goes in when, the people went inside the church and the bride was the last one. As the church was completely occupied, a few ladies were sitting outside under a tree. The wedding ceremony started.

I asked William about documentation of a wedding, and he said there is none. Two people decide and start living together and sharing life.

We spent the time of the ceremony outside in the shade of an old tree. The bench had a backrest that enables a very comfortable leaning back. So comfortable that I felt asleep for a little while. Just in time for the arrival of the second couple I woke up again.

The second couple came walking under the bower from another direction.

It was the same nice experience when they, accompanied by the Lirua Local String Band, arrived at the grass covered huge place in front of the church. There both couples and the families and friends met and after a few minutes they all walked together to the nicely decorated ceremonial place I described before.

Both couples took their places in the well decorated booth like structure. People where standing outside around to watch the couples. There was a speech, given by a man in the native language Lamenu and volume increased by an amp and speaker.

We also met Terry again in this crowd. It was nice seeing him again and talk to him.

Once this was finished, two big wedding cakes were brought. One was decorated with a only a white cream and the other with about a combination of blue, red, and white cream. What a skill to create them on this island without refrigeration! The cutting of the wedding cake was a highlight and started with a loud count down by the crowd around. The cakes finally were cut into pieces about 5 cm small cubes and distributed to the people standing around. We too got some. It was especially a treat for the kids. They really enjoyed this piece of the sweet wedding cake.

Then William took us around the corner. There, two men boiled in huge pots rice and cooked beef pieces with vegetables in big pots on an open fire. As a wooden spoons they used sticks about a meter long and 3 – 5 cm thick. One has to be skillful with such ‘wooden spoons’ when stirring the food without p ushing the pot from the four metal rods over the open fire.

Inside the building next to the open kitchen, ladies already distributed rice with the beef cooked outside. It seems that it was for everybody of the village. The lunch of the wedding ceremony. We too got our portion.

Then William told u#dđs it’s time to go back to Epi Island and MaRe.

The evening of the wedding ceremony was reserved for a smaller group of people.

We got our backpacks, brought MaRe’s tender into the water, brought William back to Epi Island, and finally returned to MaRe.

What an eventful day!

Thanks William for making this experience possible.

*****

When I’m experiencing so friendliness and hospitality, a terrible thought sneaks into my mind and I see the following scenario. “Two black men cruising on bicycles Germany and reach a small village where a wedding ceremony takes place. What will they experience in this German village?”

I then feel ashamed and I’m considering me even more lucky, having been given the chance to meet all these wonderful people along my looong sail.