Green Ghost, Blue Ocean

by Jennifer M. Smith

  The pathways in the village were lined with white stones and landscaped with colourful plants, the kind that grow in corporate offices back home. Flowering fragrant brugmansia hung overhead, dangling their peach-coloured trumpet-shaped blooms. Every yard was neatly swept, every garden perfectly tended. A professional landscape architect couldn’t have planned a more appealing setting. I thought we’d sailed into a fairy tale.

  Getting lost on our walk through the village, we came upon a graveyard. There was a perimeter of plants around the cemetery. Each grave was neatly outlined with small stones and crowned with a jar of red, yellow, and green leaves. The dirt between the graves had been meticulously swept, leaving a bristle broom pattern like a vacuum cleaner pattern in deep pile carpet. There was not a footprint anywhere. It was spotless, weedless, and perfectly heart-breaking. There were so many tiny graves. I wondered who they cried with – all the mothers who lost their children here. I wondered how they healed their heartache. A familiar sadness swept over me and grief tightened my throat – not a fairy tale after all.

  Stanley arranged a Mount Yasur tour for a group of cruisers. Nik and I could scarcely believe it. In our geology student days, this was an adventure we’d never dreamed we’d have.

  At dusk, our group tumbled into the back of pickup trucks and set off for the national park in great anticipation. The road ended in a parking area on a small plateau. This was the closest tourists were allowed to get to the volcano during active periods. Lucky for us, the volcano was relatively inactive at the time and we were allowed to proceed to the rim on foot.

  We hiked up a worn path of black sand. I took a pinch of it and noted it was angular and gritty between my fingertips. I thought back to Dr. Plach, my third-year professor of Igneous Petrology, and I knew because he’d taught me, this wasn’t sand – it was ash. As we ascended the final ten metres, there was a deep rumbling, like the throaty roar of a wild cat. Thunder, but not from the sky. It rumbled up through my legs, right up out of Mother Earth herself. At the rim of the crater, we could hear the volcano’s respiration, hissing and wheezing, breathing and spitting. Yasur was alive – alive and a little bit testy. We stood in the sulphurous atmosphere, mesmerized while molten red bombs of lava flew high into the air. A live volcano, actively erupting only three hundred metres from us! How thrilling it was to witness the very thing we’d studied in school. As dusk gave way to darkness, the contrast grew and an ever more impressive light show emerged – fierce red fireworks, Gaia’s violent blazing blood arced across the black night sky.

  All around us the ash slopes were covered in solidified bombs that had been shot out of the volcano during periods of higher activity. The newly formed rock varied from fist-sized chunks to blobs the size of Volkswagens. I looked around the edges of the larger bombs half expecting to see a melted video camera and the charred arm of a tourist sticking out. It was more than a little unnerving standing among the boulders and contemplating the fact that they had all rained down from the sky.

  We stood on the rim of the crater, awestruck by the processes of our magnificent planet, full of wonder at our dynamic Earth. There was nothing about Tanna that was familiar. It was as though we’d arrived on an entirely different planet, where we were challenged by the extraordinary at every turn. It was hard to believe Tanna could get even better, yet it did.

  We’d heard from the local people that there would soon be days of celebration at the Nekiowar Festival. They said it would begin with the Toka ceremony.

  “What is this festival for?” we asked Stanley. “Do you have it every year?”

  “It is a meeting of the tribes. There is feasting and dancing and gifts are exchanged. Usually we have it between August and November, but sometimes we don’t have it,” he answered in his usual way, both exacting and vague.

  We’d heard that the Toka ceremony would begin on a Friday, but a chicken changed everything. Someone at the host village had gutted a chicken and it was seen that its organs were reversed – the heart was on the right. This was deemed a bad omen by the Chief and the festival was delayed for four days.

  When the Toka began, we were convinced to rise at 3:45 a.m. to pile into the back of pickup trucks by 4:30 a.m. to ride across the island, past the steaming Mount Yasur, over the ash plateau to the first village on the right beyond the dried riverbed. With the early start, we hoped to catch the Napen-Napen, the women’s dance in the darkness, followed by the start of the men’s ceremony at sunrise.

  Hopping out of the back of the trucks, we could hear and feel a tribal beat above a chorus of male voices more than one hundred strong. Like the subterranean rumble of Mount Yasur itself, a rhythmic pounding vibrated up from the earth, through our legs, into our bodies. We looked at one another in disbelief. We were immediately collectively swept up in it – whatever it was.

  The thumping sound drew us in and we ran toward the source. We dashed down a grass path and as we crested a small rise we saw them: a thousand or more Tannese people gathered in a large clearing. The dancers, in golden grass skirts, stomped their feet in unison and sang in a low throaty harmony. With the sun rising over the hill behind us, the first rays of dawn shot glittering shafts of light through the dust kicked up at their feet.

  We’d missed the women’s dance but they were still in attendance, still in full dress from their nocturnal performance, wearing costumes of brilliantly dyed grass skirts. Their faces were brightly painted and they had vibrantly coloured foot-long feathers sticking out of their hair. Colourful adornment abounded. Red, blue, green, and gold tinsel garlands – the kind we put on Christmas trees – were wrapped around heads and necks and chests.

  The local people cleared a path for us to get to the front of the crowd to take photographs. We stood with our jaws hanging open and our eyes wide. Our throats were tight – speechless. The hair on my neck stood on end. Tears welled up in my eyes. The energy of that spiritual frenzy awakened a kindred primeval connection, a sense of unity I’d never felt before.

  When the dancing ceased late in the morning, the pig-slaughtering ceremony began. Groups of men and boys arrived in a procession, each group carrying aloft a live pig tied on a bamboo palette. The pig was straddled by a man or a boy who held the ears of the pig high. The group sang in unison, and circled the area, displaying their offering for the feast. Finally, the palette was laid down and the pig was given one quick blow to the head, dying instantly.

  By mid-day there were a dozen hogs lying out on the grounds ready to be dressed for the feasting. Tired and dirty, covered in the dust kicked up by the dancers, we headed back to the anchorage in the early afternoon, leaving the Tannese to the feasting of the Nekiowar Festival. As the truck bumped along the dirt road back toward Port Resolution, Nik and I agreed that Tanna was the most remarkable place we’d seen yet. Tanna reminded us of why we set sail in the first place, to seek the magic and find the treasures life holds.

  Rather than sail north to other islands in Vanuatu we chose to move on to Nouméa, the capital city of the French territory of New Caledonia. Same planet, different worlds; from the land of dugout canoes, thatched huts, and outhouses we stepped into the happening, high-end super-styling French culture of Nouméa, the Paris of the South Pacific.

  We pulled into the marina at Port Moselle where customs, immigration, and quarantine officials came to the boat in an orderly and timely fashion. When the paperwork was done, there was no need to move from the dockside. We’d been given one free night’s stay at the dock and a voucher for a free beer at the nearby pub. How very civilized. The French appreciate the sailor.

  We’d been told that New Caledonia was extraordinarily expensive and it was, but we fell in love with the place the moment we went ashore. Everything was posh – lovely shops, gorgeous clothing, beautiful art, and great groceries. Less than five minutes’ walk from the docks the public market teamed with fresh fish, fragrant baked goods, and perfect produce. The handcrafted art was an explosion of colour, with tables full of the beautiful p
roducts of people’s imagination. Beads abounded and shells and polished serpentinite were incorporated into everything you could think of. Bamboo carvings, ceramics, and beautiful fabrics were also for sale.

  Beyond the market, in town, we noted how different Nouméa was. New Zealand had been a bit too carbon copy of North America with their Body Shops, Starbucks, and Chapters bookstores. Nouméa was refreshing, not yet franchised North American-style and nearly all the shops were new to us. We spent time in fancy kitchen shops and restaurant supply stores, ogling the cookware. At the supermarket, we behaved like kids in a candy shop. Everything was imported directly from France. Soon we were gorging on baguettes, Brie cheese, blue cheese, Emmental, olive herb bread, dry cured salami, and wine. In Nouméa we centred our lives on the culinary delights, working our day around morning chocolate éclairs and afternoon café stops for espresso.

  We soon made a break from the city life and enjoyed a downwind southbound run to Île des Pins where we revelled in the delights of the island. We snorkelled through fantastic sea fans and collected flour-fine white sand from the beach. We walked through the ruins of an old prison, read tombstones in a cemetery for deportees, and hiked the 262 metres up to Pic N’Ga, the highest point on the island. As in Bora Bora, the hues in the lagoon were unbelievable. Even as we stood there taking in the view, we both declared that it couldn’t be real, it was too blue.

  After weeks away from the Port Moselle market, our fridge was bare, the water and fuel tanks were low, and the laundry hamper was overflowing. There were many chores to address before departing New Caledonia, so we decided to get back to town early, with plenty of time before our month-long visa ran out. For once, we’d have a leisurely departure.

  Back in Port Moselle, hoping to send some images home by e-mail from an Internet cafe, Nik downloaded photos from our new digital camera. Placing it on the navigation table, he inadvertently set the camera down on the safety string for the lens cap. When he turned the camera on, the zoom lens was prevented from extending by the trapped string. The lens jammed, resulting in a persistant error message on the camera’s visual display. The manual indicated that the only way to correct this was to take the camera to a qualified representative for service.

  I was annoyed. The camera had been so expensive. We’d owned it for only eight months and we had the rest of the magnificent islands of Vanuatu to photograph before the season was out.

  In moments like this the best thing is to get far, far away from one’s spouse before you start asking stupid questions like, What did you do that for? and Why can’t you be more careful? In normal life, I would’ve called my sisters to let off some steam, or met with a girlfriend and whined into my latte about the broken camera. But I couldn’t do either of these things. The only person I knew in Nouméa was Nik and I was stuck in a forty-two-foot space with him. I knew it was best to keep quiet, so I went out the next day and had my jaw wired shut. Ha. I’m kidding, of course. Instead, I pulled myself together. It was an accident pure and simple and such a ridiculous design-flaw in an expensive camera. There was nothing to be done but add camera repair shop to our long list of things to do before departure. Thank goodness, we’d given ourselves a little extra time.

  Late on Thursday morning, we dropped by the immigration office to make sure we knew the process for our Monday checkout.

  “We’ve come to check your office hours for our Monday departure,” we announced.

  “You will not be seeing me on Monday, you will be seeing me tomorrow,” the officer replied sternly as he reviewed our passports.

  “But we have a month-long visa,” we claimed, knowing we’d arrived on August 29.

  “No,” the officer said, “you have a thirty-day visa. Sunday is the 28th so you must check out on Friday.”

  He was right and we were frantic. So much for our leisurely departure.

  We set to our errands in high gear, hitting the market, the souvenir shops, the grocery stores, and a couple of camera repair shops. We sent rushed e-mails at the Internet café and found a phone booth for phone calls home. By Friday, the last of our laundry was done, our water tanks were full, and our camera was being looked at by a shop that would have an answer for us at the close of business. If we got lucky, perhaps a repair could be completed by Monday. We taxied to immigration and customs where we unabashedly begged both offices for an extension of our stay until Monday. They took pity on us – tourists with a broken camera – allowing a Monday morning checkout.

  In the end, all was for nothing because our camera could not be repaired in Nouméa. On Monday morning, we packed it up, went to the FedEx office, paid for insurance, and sent it by courier to Australia for repair. We hoped it could be fixed and return shipped to Port Vila, Vanuatu, our next destination.

  By the time we’d checked out with the customs officials and fuelled up duty-free, it was too late in the day for an offshore departure. As the sun went down, we made our way 20 NM south, where we set our anchor for the night. We needed a night’s rest before tackling open water.

  That night as I lay in bed seeking the peace of sleep, I thought back to the FedEx office. All day I’d been thinking that the insurance we’d purchased was so reasonable. I did the mental math again, thinking through the currency conversions. My eyes flew open. Staring up through the hatch at the starry night sky, I suddenly realized that we’d insured our expensive camera at one-tenth its original cost.

  CHAPTER 15

  Vanuatu, The Northern Islands

  (October – November 2003)

  We sailed out of New Caledonia on flat seas and gentle breezes, which freed up time I normally spent thinking about weather and allowed me to worry about our camera all the way to our next destination. On our final day of sailing toward Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu on the island of Efate, we realized our timing was poor. Our GPS indicated an arrival time of ten p.m. A nighttime arrival into an unknown harbour was against our better judgement, but the thought of standing off the island until daylight was equally unappealing, particularly because the conditions were building with every passing hour.

  We knew some friends were already at anchor in the port so we called them on the VHF radio for advice on the harbour. Learning that the entrance was well marked we decided to proceed. We sailed into the harbour effortlessly, anchored next to our friends, and settled in for a comfortable night’s sleep, every second of it relished all the more for not being at sea.

  In Port Vila, we spent the usual half-day doing the quarantine, customs, and immigration dance and then roamed the streets of town to see what was on offer. I liked Port Vila. It was not nearly as flashy as Nouméa, but it had a pleasant vibe, the right combination of off-the-beaten-track third-worldliness and sushi bars.

  We made efficient use of a few days of adverse weather tackling some must-dos. The most pressing item was to secure entry into the next country on our planned route and that meant a stop at the Australian Consulate to apply for visitors’ visas.

  Next, we searched out the FedEx office in the hope that the camera-fixers in Australia might have come through. No luck. This left us with a tough choice. When weather conditions became favourable, we weren’t sure whether we should wait or move on. We discussed the matter with friends over the radio.

  Here’s something you might not know. Cruisers are a nosey bunch. Most everyone leaves their VHF radio either on Channel 16 or on the local working channel so that they can get in touch with their friends on other boats about trips ashore, cocktail hour, and other plans or problems. It’s like a party telephone line – for everyone. When one boat calls another you better believe half the anchorage is listening. This eavesdropping on other people’s conversations is called “lurking.” Myself, I wasn’t much for it. I felt it put me in an awkward position. I never knew if I should act as if I did know or pretend as though I didn’t know everyone’s personal business the next time I saw them on shore. Bolder lurkers didn’t give a damn – they listened and they let you know it.

/>   Shortly after our chat on the radio, Nik jumped in the dinghy to do an errand on shore. A neighbouring boat waved him over. We’d met the owner only once. Norbert was a mammoth German man. He had shoulder-length blond hair, a missing thumb, and a belly scar that looked like a gunshot wound. With his barrel-chested six-foot-four stature, he looked more Viking than German.

  As Nik pulled alongside his boat, Norbert bent over the lifelines, booming in his German accent: “I’m going to give you some advice. Don’t vait for zee camera.” This man was clearly a bold lurker. “You know vy? I’ll tell you vy. Because I vill swim with zee dugong tree times, I vill catch four tunas, and I vill scuba dive zee Coolidge twice, and vare vill you be? You vill be stuck in zis shithole vaiting for your camera, dat is vare you vill be.”

  We took his point and left Port Vila the following day without the camera. We departed on an overnight sail to the island of Epi hoping to swim with a relatively tame dugong, a relative of the manatee, that was known to frequent the anchorage there. As we approached the island the following morning, we downloaded our Sailmail and received a message from Australia that read: Your camera has been repaired and is ready for shipment.

  Damn.

  At Epi, we watched and waited for four days, but we never did see the dugong. Perhaps he only came out for people who had cameras.

  A forecast for poor weather hurried us on to the large island of Malekula where we sought shelter in Port Sandwich, anchoring off a farm, before the skies opened up and unleashed a torrent of rain upon us.

  The weather cleared by morning and as we sat in the cockpit enjoying our first cup of coffee, a man in a dugout canoe startled us when he called out in broken English.