… for 3 h to find a dentist. Then I found two. The Dental Clinic of Vila Central Hospital and Novo Dental Clinic.

Vanuatu has an unusual way to describe an address. 69HW+G4X is an address. OsmAnd maps doesn’t understand this code and the AI Le Chat could not convert this address into exact coordinates. Thus, I was off while walking with my off- line map. With the help of passerby and a car driver overhearing accidentally my question, the driver dropped me just on front of the clinic.

Gosh was I happy! But, there’s always a but, the clinic has in the afternoon only patients by appointment. However, they could show me on my off-line map where another dental clinic is; the Novo Dental Clinic.

I started walking again. On my way I meet a guy who looked very similar to the one who showed me where I needed to go earlier by walking with me for at least 1 km. So we had a topic to start a conversation and continued until I was at my destination.

All my hopes were now with the clinic, the hospital staff told me. It was the Novo Dental Clinic, which I didn’t find by coordinates.

The Novo Dental Clinic doesn’t have the bond needed to fix the inlay back into its place. I got number to call tomorrow afternoon to see if they can getet it.

Port Vila is the last place before Japan where I can get the inlay fixed again.

Tomorrow morning I’ll first try at the Vila Central Hospital and then walk over to Novo Dental Clinic.

The appointment Tobias and I made is for 1500 at the “NAMBAWAN” coffee shop about 100 m away from our docked tender.

The dinghy dock I’m using turned out to be excellent. The tender drifts in corner of steps and the quay wall without touching a wall at all. Never had such a dinghy dock before. Excellent!

At the NANBAWAN (‘Number One’ in Vanuatu language) I wanted to have a beans salad but the lady behind the counter offered me a combination of the beans salad, pasta salad, and potato salad for the same price. I took it and it was good.

At 1500 Tobias came by. It seems the connector inside his PC doesn’t work reliable anymore. Curious what he will do. He will now look for a fishing and hardware store to get another lure and maybe something else he needs. Also here in curious what he will get.

While I’m still sitting in the NAMBAWAN coffee shop, a group of white young men came in. Long pants, white, half-sleeved shirts, and neckties. The typical uniform of missionaries of a private church of the USA. Objective;: converting as many people as possible to make as much money as possible for the HQ church back home in the USA.

At 1530 the hook was down in 15 m of water with 65 m of chain. It slipped a bit before it dug in and stood my test.

Now MaRe hangs in 12 – 15 KN of wind and swings gently a few degrees around. The wind is nice because it will be cool in the cabin and we get a little power from the SuperWind turbine. 15 – 20 KN of wind would be better because this would cover our needs during the night.

Until this, anchoring was a bit disappointing because the area where I considered to drop the hook is fully occupied with mooring balls. I can understand the rather big field of mooring balls because it means money from foreign sailors flows into the country. I just don’t like to go on mooring balls because I don’t know how good the line is at the other end down under water. I simply don’t trust them very much in general. I trust my anchor.

The last maybe 20 NM to Port Villa, was nice sailing. The waves got a longer and MaRe didn’t rock. It was simply nice sailing.

After we furled the genoa and approached the bay entrance, I slowed MaRe down to have enough time for our lunch. As for the quality of the food Tobias prepares, i wonder if he can cook something, which doesn’t taste good.

Polish friends of Tobias, with whom Tobias sailed before, were surprisingly still in Port Villa. They came over for a chat with Tobias while I cleaned the bow from still remaining volcano ash.

Now, the sun is only a hand above the horizon I’m writing this narration and feel like doing nothing anymore today. The normal feeling when the adrenalin drops after MaRe is secured at anchor or in a marina etc.

Might go to bed early and have a long and deep sleep.

It’s shortly after 0400, the time I started my second night watch duty. Log book is written and I’m sitting on the cockpit.

The half-moon is shining through scattered smaller high up altocumulus clouds looking like cotton-wool balls scattered on the nightly sky.

Suddenly they got blown away. Larger clouds, with cirrus like streaks are now to be seen but they dissolve quickly as well. The cloud-field disappears almost completely above MaRe. In the distance of the horizon there are the typical cumulus and cumulus- nimbus clouds hanging at the sky.

The half-moon and a few bright stars are to be seen. Light-pollution by nature, the moon doesn’t allow to see the full night sky.

I’m wearing my wind breaker because we have the wind from 90 – 120 deg STB. And this wind blows fully through the cockpit. This would be a bit chilly on the skin.

As we are now between Erromango and Efata islands, the easterly swell rolls onto MaRe. It’s with about 50 m between two waves, too short for comfortable sailing. It bangs often onto MaRe’s tunnel between her gums. Additionally there is a southeastern swell, which must have its origin far down in the southern pacific. These two wave systems make MaRe rocking.

In the meantime it’s dawn. The sun still behind the horizon but the night disappears and with it, the moon river which illuminated the sea in front of MaRe. With such an illumination, I didn’t need to use radar to see what’s in front of me.

Now it got a bit cool. My right arm feels cold inside the wind breaker. I want to drink a cup of tea and a have few slices of the bread I baked during my first watch. Freshly baked bread with butter and marmalade combined with hot cup of tea.

Now a look back.

During the last two days I was busy with a special task. Making a wedding greetings video for friends. My idea was to take a few pictures of my looong voyage and combine it with the actual greeting video. It required an non-linear video editor, an application, I never used before. I used “kdenlive” a pretty powerful tool, which I just could install from the Linux Mint repository.

At the end I got a video with pictures transiting with fade out and fade in and a BGM. Two days of work, but a satisfying one. I hope the two will like it.

While we walked down the road towards the temple, we wanted to visit, we saw the hardware store we were told that they sell coconuts scraper.

As Tobias wants to try also using coconuts for cooking, thus we bought one. It only needs to be mounted on a board to be able to sit upon the board for scraping the coconuts.

The way to the temple turned twice left and went up the hill.

I was wondering what kind of temple it will be.

Then we saw a modern rather big roof becoming more and more visible. The temple should be new and rather big.

It turned out that it is Baha’i religion temple in a perfectly maintained huge, simple but beautiful, and well maintained garden on top of the hill.

The shape of the temple is nonagonal (9). An unusual shape but the figure “9” has and important role in this religion.

The design is prefect for the climate of Vanuatu. Vertical wooden columns with a cross section of about 5 – 7 cm squared, interspersed with open space of also 5 – 6 cm wide. Thus, a prefect draft of wind is flowing through the temple. The roof was thatched with palm tree leaves. The benches to sit on inside where also exquisitely built of wood. Maybe mahogany. The way the benches where built matches perfectly the construction of the walls.

All in all, an exquisite design, which costs quite some money. According to an AI I asked about the financing of such temple, I got the answer that all are volontary contributions of members including members living abroad.

It was nice sitting in the temple and enjoying the quite and cool atmosphere.

However, the moment came and we needed to go back to reach MaRe before it got dark.

We quickly bought some veggies and fruits at the closing market and headed towards the tender.

When we arrived at the tender, the tide was asked so high that we needed to carry our bags on the heads so they stayed dry.

With a lot of impressions we arrived at MaRe.

As Tobias came back much earlier today and could also get vegetables, etc. I decided to depart to Port Villa already today

The sail is about 26 h, thus with a departure time of 1200, we will arrive at 1400 next day and we’ve still daylight for anchoring.

Now at 1400 we are well on course. The wind shifted quite a bit towards E, which helps us on our course of 330 deg.
Swell rolls on quarterly direction and has a height of almost 2 m.

Tobias said he will catch a tuna today. I gave him my blessing and look forward to a nice tuna sashimi.

The day before yesterday, we could make inbound clearance. The waves were subdued a bit.

On the satellite map I found a canal through the reef to beach in a smaller bay next to the main bay. That’s were i wanted to try it.

As I couldn’t reach any of the officials on VHF CH 16, I sent an email to the Iau, customs officer I am in contact since a while and told him that we try to go ashore for clearance procedure and that he please keep an eye on us to help us to find the offices. This email also was a safety measure because one can’t go legally ashore without being cleared on.

It turned out that the bay with its canal was just right for us. A local fishing boat was also tied up to a buoy.

We dropped a stern anchor, and pulled the tender towards shore. I sufficiently shallow water Tobias could tie up the front line at the dead coral reef.

When we were almost done with this, a man showed up at the beach and watching us closely. It turned out it was the immigration officier who welcomed us very warmly. We walked to a table under a tree where we also met the lady of biosecurity. “Perfect”, I thought.

Both of them helped us filling in the needed documents again. At times of internet and digital documents, in all countries, all documents needed to filled in twice. Digitally in before arrival and on paper upon arrival. Efficiency par excellence!

Payment need to be done in USD. However they requested almost brand-new bills. So we agreed to pay in Vatu, the local currency and they brought us by car to an ATM.

Bills were paid and they brought us back to the market place area where they asked us to wait for the customs officier. The time indication when the customs was very a lSouthern Pacific style. We agreed to stay here around the market place. Here it is easy for the customs officer to find us.

We strolled around the market place looking for the produce offered. Tobias was very delighted that he saw broccoli, and locally grown carrots. I found fresh lettuce. Thus all on top the this there are all the typical items for these Pacific island. I only was surprised about the many coconuts which are offered. Never saw this before on a public market.

Pretty soon a customs officer approach us and we made the customs clearance just on a kind of shelf under the canopy of a shop. And now we have a cruising permit for Vanuatu.

We walked through the town and the first thing I saw, was the fight between 2 phone companies: Digicell and Vodafone. “Vodafone” is written on each column of the 3 market hall buildings, “Digicell” is written on every house along the street that extends from the market hall.

There are plenty of shops selling food. Sad so, junk food, dominates the shelfs.

Also quite a few shops sell cheap Chinese clothes made from polyester fabric.

Then I saw a sign “Restaurant”. We talked to three ladies on the other street side and they encouraged us to go for a lunch.

It was a good one. Fish, rice, cassava, and a salad. Pretty delicious. I like to explore this local food.

We wanted to go to a temple Tobias found on the map of noforeign land map. It is only 1.5 km outside the village.

On the way, we passed a kind of community area with several of these very big and old trees. ‘Xxx’xxxxxxx there is also a community building constructed of traditional materials: bamboo for the walls and palm tree leaves for the roof. It looks nice and I think it is pretty cool inside.

Cool is also the area under these huge trees. Just nice to be on their shade. There was a group of men under the shade of the tree next by. Curious looks from both sides.

While we took pictures a man walked over and a conversation developed. After a few minutes another one came. He introduced himself as the nephew of the man who started the conversation.

After a while I interrupted because I wanted to have a look at the tender. The tide came in since a while and I wanted to be sure that the bow line is long enough for the rising tide.

On the way to the tender we saw many kids having a lot of fun in the afternoon sun in the shallow water of the beach. it was a good feeling seeing these happy children.

We gave the tender more bow line and walked into direction of the temple but we ended up in the village. A man we asked for the way to the street told us we need to go back. I’m sure there was a direct way to the street from the village but we must likely would have needed to trespass several private properties. To respect this, we walked back as asked to do. We don’t want to be intruders.

When we dropped the hook on Saturday in the Lenakel Bay of Tanna Island the sea was almost dead flat. It was glassy with few small wavelets. I could see our anchor chain at 11 m down on the sea bottom

We could not make inbound clearance because it was Saturday.

On Sunday however, the wind increased from SSE – SE and it got a bit rolly even on MaRe. The American monohull rolled already heavily.

Despite the rolling, at MaRe’s bow I could do my fitness training.

During the day, I worked on some long emails, and did a few small things. Writing on my mobile got a more and more difficult because the rolling increased. It became rolling for us on our catamaran because wind and wave direction where almost 90 deg to each other.

During the day, especially during the night the wind increased so much that the superwind turbine not only covered the power needed for fridges, lights, and internet, but net charged the service batteries.

On Mondays morning it really was rolly. Waves as high as meter were normal. Some where even a bit higher.

Around 0900 we got the expected VHF call from Biosecurity & Immigration Center. They asked us to come ashore for clearance procedure. “Don’t they see the waves?” I thought by myself m

OK. They are running the show.

Most difficult preparation was the tender. From the passage from Fiji to Vanuatu, the outboard motor was still on it’s support in the cockpit. Getting the tender in the water in today’s waves is already a challenge. Attaching the outboard motor is no fun anymore and only possible because I developed my technique to use the STB davit as a crane.

I was lucky and got the outboard motor quickly on the transom of the tender and released the ‘crane’ line.

With all documents safely in watertight bags, we drove over towards the shore. The closer I came, the more I understood that this is ‘Mission Impossible’.

Although they showed us where to go at the beach, I did not want to go there. I considered it as too risky and turned around and went back to MaRe. A fast as possible we pulled the tender out of the water and waves.

Via VHF we communicated with the officers at land and agreed for clearance when the waves are down.

For tomorrow the wind is supposed to get get down and turn to ESE. I just hope the waves turn fast enough and the big reef in front of us protects us from the waves.

For the still long rest of the day. Tobi tried to get his PC charging, and I worked on emails. Among the emails, where the once to get permission into Guam and Saipan. I wonder if I get permission with my Cuban stamp on my passport although I have a US B1/B2 visa.

Confined in the MaRe. On Saturday confined by law, today confined by the waves.

What will be tomorrow?

Normally, after MaRe is at anchor, I write immediately a short note that we safely arrived and MaRe is secured on her hook.

I remember I wanted to do it yesterday as well. But then the adrenalin level of sailing and especially of going into a new bay with limited possibilities, went down and I felt tired and took a short nap. It turned out that I slept deeply for more than an hour.

Tobi took his diving gear and explored the very crystal clear water around the bay. I don’t recall right now when i Was lässt time in such a beautiful water I could see the anchor chain on the ground. On such water Tobi dive around the boat and also got in touch with the neighbor boat, a US monohull
****
After I woke up, I got a VHF call from border control asking if we want to clear in today or Monday. Because I sent them yesteryear morning very early, a mail that we want to clear in only on Monday, I considered their VHF call as caring and a nice welcome gesture.

The rest of the day was catching up with emails and messages, and relax. I need this always because I have someone on board, now it’s Tobi, for whom I feel the responsibility.

I also had to bake fresh bread and increased the amount of flour to from 600 g to 800 g because we need quite some bread.

For dinner Tobi fixed again a delicious meal using the mahi-mahi filets of which we still have done. Day 3 meal from the big mahi-mahi we caught the other day.

And now a few lines about the end of the night before.

I had the last watch duty of the night and looked at the sea and wind conditions. No chance to sail as the sea was glassy. This, on the other side, is excellent because we don’t have to run against a wind on our nose.

Logbook states “0715 start of the engines and going on course towards the bay’s entrance”. The WPTs were in the system, thus no challenge.

At STB side of the bay’s entrance is huge reef with nicely breaking waves; on PRT side it was submerged.

I followed my plotted line into the bay and could drop the hook where I planed it. The hook digged nicely into sand and pulling back showed the hook didn’t move at all. Prefect. Save at anchor.

Yesterday morning at 0400 when I started my last night watch duty, we discussed the wind and what to do.

The wind went down to 7 – 8 KN TWS and it turned to ENE. I decided to get about 20 – 30 off of the course and recover it at daylight by sailing faster with the gennaker. The plan was good but I could not convince the wind to blow just below 15 KN.

In the morning, when we started flying the gennaker, the wind was just great. However, a while later it increased to 15 – 16 KN almost constantly. For safety reasons I doused the gennaker. Instead of storing it in the sailing bag in the storage room at the PRT bow, we placed is on the PRT bow-net and secured it there with a line. This gave us the chance to fly it quickly again.

We continued with the genoa until after the breakfast. The wind was then constantly down below 15 KN and we flew the gennaker again. However, we had to recognize that we don’t make it before sunset until the anchorage. Additionally, the wind decided to completely fall asleep much earlier. Since about 0100 MaRe is adrift roughly 10 NM before the entrance of the destination bay. Without wind she doesn’t need to heave-to. Just barepoleq is enough.

Today Tobias finally got his fish. A big one! It was a fight! I had to give Tobias the fighting belt.

To reduce the tension on the fishing line, I furled the genoa by roughly one half. Then MaRe’s speed was down to 3 – 3.5 KN.

In the meantime the mahi-mahi went from STB to PRT behind the boat. Tobias made it tired.

I prepared the gaff and the pliers to remove the hook. Additionally I put on my life vest to secure me when I have to go down to the stern to get the fish with the gaff out of the water and up into the cockpit.

After quite a long and powerful fight, Tobias got it to the stern. It looked exhausted after they were fighting for about 20 – 30 min.

I was lucky and got the gaff quickly behind its gills and could pull it up into the middle of the cockpit. There it started jumping again. While I kept it down, Tobias brought a very strong alcohol and put some very strong alcohol in the gills. Within seconds it stopped jumping.

Then came the first cleaning of the cockpit. I needed at least 20 buckets of water.

To evicerate and filte the fish Tobias used today for the first time the new high density polypropylene board I bought it in NZ and prepared it for exactly this work. It turned out to be good. It will be less work for me to clean this board compared to the old wooden one, I used before.

Now, I am curious how Tobias will prepare the fish!