“Hello, my name is Ezekiel!” he shouted. “Always nice to say hello!”
We returned his greeting and soon he was alongside, and despite his proximity, still shouting.
“My name is bible name! Ezekiel!”
We quickly realized he was quite deaf and shouted just to hear himself speak. Ezekiel invited us and the other boat in the anchorage to visit his home later that day. When we did, he showed us his photo albums that were bursting with boat cards and photographs, mementos from other cruisers. After some interesting discussion about his family, his farm, his religion, and the local politics, he presented us with gifts. Neatly arranged on two woven mats stood two huge piles of fruit and vegetables. We were taken aback by his generosity and although we were inclined to refuse some of the bounty on the grounds that we couldn’t possibly consume it all, we felt that might be rude, so we accepted every coconut, papaya, lemon, lime, hot pepper, and spring onion with gratitude. We too left our boat cards, and when we eventually made it to Australia, I shipped him a new photo album to continue his collection.
“This place is fantastic,” Nik said, sipping strong brew from a new French espresso cup. “I am loving Vanuatu.”
“It’s two o’clock on Tuesday. What would you be doing if you were back at work right now?” I asked him.
“Preparing a sales forecast for a Friday deadline,” he said.
“And where would you rather be?”
We were both loving Vanuatu. It was so different from anywhere we’d ever been.
We were gliding along in perfect conditions on an inter-island afternoon sail. Nik’s attitude toward cruising had improved steadily after leaving Fiji. I wanted to believe we’d become more relaxed, more accepting of the unpredictability of the cruising life, but in reality, I think it was just that Green Ghost had settled in too. In Fiji, there’d been maintenance issues with the outboard and the alternator that detracted from fun. New Caledonia had recharged us, and Vanuatu was smooth sailing, both literally and figuratively. We were finally hitting our stride.
“Well, that’s a no-brainer. I’d rather be here, obviously.”
“We can’t afford to forget this, you know – this feeling right now,” I said.
“I won’t forget Vanuatu,” he answered.
“I won’t forget Vanuatu either,” I said, “but that’s not what I mean. I want us to remember how good this is. When we go home and get jobs and get caught up in the rat race again, I’m afraid we’ll forget what freedom tastes like. I’m afraid we’ll forget this feeling of wonder. I’m afraid we’ll forget to come back.”
Farther north along the east coast of Malekula, in Banam Bay, there was a village known for its dance performances. “Kastam Dancing,” it was called in the local Bislama language, meaning a dance according to their original customs. We had no difficulty searching it out. Within half an hour of setting our anchor, John Eddy, the son of the chief, had paddled out to us in his dugout canoe. He was the local Kastam Dance booking agent and he asked us whether we would like to come ashore for a dance performance planned in four hours’ time.
The men and the women danced in separate performances. The men wore the traditional “nambas,” a long leaf wrapped in a spiral fashion around the penis, sheathing it from base to tip. The end of the leaf was then tucked into a belt that was worn around the waist. In this way, the penis is held up and out from the body in an erect position while the scrotum is left hanging. The men’s performance was musical and rhythmic and the dancers appeared to enjoy their performance as much as we did.
The women were less enthusiastic. Bare-breasted and in grass-skirts they danced in a less demonstrative way. They seemed disconcerted by our audience and their disinterest made me feel uncomfortable. It was work. It was a tourist show. It brought income to the village, but it did not exude the raw energy of the Toka ceremony on Tanna where the people danced in the joy of celebration oblivious to our presence.
We stayed on at Banam Bay and hired Dixon, a local guide, to take us on a jungle walk to some caves high on the volcanic slopes on land belonging to a man named Carl. Dixon and Carl showed us the easiest route to walk, right up the middle of a jungle stream, leeches and all. Later, ankle deep in bat shit, we viewed the promised cave and, looking up at the noisy colony, promptly lost our footing. I caught myself and regained my balance, but Nik and the rest of our party found themselves either knee down or hand down in six inches of guano.
After a swim in a freshwater pond, we lunched by a rushing river, sharing our picnic with the two men. They asked if we would like to see another cave and we eagerly agreed. They confessed that they had never taken tourists there and that was obvious from the not-so-obvious path.
At first look, it wasn’t much of a cave; it was more of a corridor in the rock. It was dry at the opening but the deeper you went inside the more water was underfoot. Forty metres in it became so dark that we couldn’t see. Just when it seemed too dark to go on a faint light glowed ahead. We kept going. I assumed we’d step out into daylight at the other end, but what we came upon was far more fantastic. The narrow passageway opened up into a huge cathedral-like room. Shafts of jungle-green light shot through a hole in the top of the vaulted ceiling, lighting the cave floor. A spring-fed creek flowed into the cave and formed a large pond within it.
As we leapt over the water to gain entry, we were startled by an EOUS – an eel of unusual size. It was like something right out of The Princess Bride. Its head was huge, its body thick, long and tapering. We were fascinated by what seemed a magic creature, a mighty eel emperor patrolling his cave kingdom in the highlands of Vanuatu. But Dixon called for a machete. He raised a steady hand high and struck a blow with considerable force. The machete walloped the surface and water sprayed everywhere, but the eel was gone. Horrified, I asked him why he wanted to kill it.
“To eat,” he said.
Of course, I thought. How ignorant I was. Where I saw a magnificent eel, a precious creature, he saw protein. As we hiked back down to sea level, my happiness that the eel had survived was tempered by my concern over what Dixon would have for supper.
The volcanic island of Ambrym is known for its wood and stone carvers. Ashore in Ranon Bay we spoke with a local man, Jeffrey, and told him that we were interested in trading goods for carvings. He suggested we return to our boat and bring our trade goods to shore, and in the meantime he would have some carvings lined up for us to browse.
Back on Green Ghost we got ruthless. What T-shirts could go? Did we have extra food we could unload? Tools? Rope? We took a smattering of things to shore in a bag and hoped to find a carving we liked, planning to offer one or more of our goods in trade. On our return to the village Jeffrey informed us that this was not how it worked. We were told to lay out everything we’d brought and let the men from the village take a look. We weren’t shopping. They were. I found the situation awkward. Fortunately, my input didn’t seem to matter. On the island of Ambrym business transactions such as these were the man’s job, and Nik took the lead.
We’d brought a large coil of yacht braid rope to shore. It was an old halyard, three-eighths of an inch thick and well over a hundred feet long. This was a desirable item and the men pounced upon it. Unfortunately for us, there were few carvings on offer and the ones that had been coughed up were not of particularly good quality. We couldn’t part with the line for any of the items we’d seen at our first stop in the village, so we asked Jeffrey if we could take the rope to the central carving “warehouse” in the middle of the village and see if anyone there was willing to trade.
There, among a small group of men, was a very elderly man with beautifully carved pieces. We fell into negotiations with him using Jeffrey as translator. We chose his walking stick and one of his war clubs and produced the length of line and several other items for trade. The old carver’s eyes got big and round. He folded his arms. He unfolded his arms. He put his hands together and pressed his fingertips to his lips. All the other men began talking.
A few more men came around to see what was going on, and soon there was a small crowd gathered around the rope. The old carver stood there with his hands cupped around his face – what to do, what to do, he seemed to be thinking. His cronies shouted instructions at him as if it was a game show.
“Choose the yacht braid!”
“Ask for cash!”
“Ask for both!” they might have been saying.
The poor old carver was hard pressed. His hands moved again, now one on the hip, one over the eyes, then both over the eyes, then both hands through his hair, then back to his face. Either he was deftly working this bartering scene or it was a big decision, maybe both. He wanted the rope, that was obvious, but he needed cash as well. We produced the 2,000 vatu that we had in our pockets and asked if he would consider taking the money, the rope, and all the other items we had with us for the two carvings. Deep breaths were taken, mental calculations were made. Finally, he nodded his head, “Yes.”
The small crowd erupted in approval, big smiles all around. The local men nearly knocked the old carver over with all the backslapping that followed. The halyard was then passed around the gathering, which produced more affirmative nodding among the men. Yes! Yes! It was a good deal.
We’d idled away a month in the northern islands of Vanuatu and we would’ve stayed longer, but cyclone season was approaching. On this northbound journey, we’d found ourselves in the company of a dwindling number of other yachts. The local radio nets had quieted while the long-distance cruising nets were abuzz with communications from boats already en route to Australia.
At the island of Espiritu Santo, we pulled into Luganville among half a dozen other boats and took the last mooring buoy off the resort on Aore Island across from town. Paying for a mooring ball allowed us free use of the resort facilities. We tied up to the float, jumped in the dinghy, and hit the swimming pool to do some research. A group of our cruising friends were already there and twelve of us soaked in the warm water, enjoying cold beer delivered poolside by the charming hotel staff.
Despite the idyllic setting it was tough to relax. Every boat at Aore was waiting for weather to voyage west to Australia before cyclonic activity developed in the southwestern Pacific. The usual pre-crossing group hype was ramping up among the sailors and the conversation turned to who was already out there getting beat up in heavy weather. On the threshold of a significant passage, it was always a bit of a trick to insulate ourselves from the edginess of other cruisers and remain immune to their tension while remaining open to information they might provide. Talking to the folks who had been holed up at Aore for a week waiting for the perfect weather system, we learned everything we needed to know – how best to get to town, the ferry schedule, the location of customs and immigration, where the market was, and how to get fuel, water, and groceries.
In all we were in Luganville for only four days, a record for us for preparing for an ocean passage. It was the same thing every time: paperwork with the officials, food at the market, fuel and water, then wait for the weather, then go.
We opted to water-up by jerry jug using the water available from a hose at the resort’s small dinghy dock. We borrowed empty jugs from other people and used every water carrier we had to speed the process by minimizing our dinghy trips. Green Ghost carries eight hundred litres of water and though we could live on less, we always filled the water tanks before a big ocean passage, just in case. We’d done two trips in the dinghy carting about 150 litres per load and we were back for our third run. I filled one of our white buckets when Nik stopped me.
“Wait. What’s that in the water?” he said.
I stopped the water flow and hopped down into the dinghy to take a look. Through the clear water in the bottom of a white bucket we could see reddish-brown five-millimetre thread-like worms! We’d half-filled our on-board water tanks with worm-water. With all the boats moored off the hotel and all the water usage, the reservoir on shore had been drained very low. The draw pipe was accessing the sludgy bottom and the scummy top of the remaining water supply. We stopped filling up, gave our tanks a double-dose of bleach, and purchased carboys of bottled water for drinking. Getting water anywhere else was not an option. We had to live with worm-water – all the way to Australia.
Our route took us across the top of New Caledonia and Chesterfield Reefs then bent southwest toward Bundaberg, Queensland. In consistently strong twenty- to twenty-five-knot trade winds, it was our fastest passage yet. We covered the nearly 1,000 NM to Australia in seven days and three hours, averaging six and a half knots.
The passage was a triumph not only because of our respectable speed, but because it was the first open-water passage in a long time that had not made Nik sick. He felt good. Even when the forks were leaping in the drawer, he didn’t barf once, in no small part because he was back on the patch.
Nearing the coast, full of anticipation, we searched the blue scalloped horizon for hours. With only 20 NM to go, there was no hint of a continental landmass. No wonder it took early explorers so long to find Australia. It’s practically invisible from the sea. Finally, the thin brown smudge of Bundaberg appeared on the horizon.
“Land, ho! Hello, Australia!” Nik called out.
I thought of Ezekiel. He was right. It’s always nice to say
hello.
CHAPTER 16
Toronto
(November 2003 – November 2008)
By late November 2003, we’d sailed into Australia and landed in reality. We’d reached our destination and had come face to face with the “figuring it out when we get there” part of our plan that long ago had seemed so very far away. There were many possible endings to a Pacific odyssey; you could keep sailing north then west, up and over Australia then on through Asia to continue a circumnavigation, or you could head for the North Pacific to circle back toward North America in a circum-Pacific route. Some sailors were happy with their one ocean adventure and sold their boats in New Zealand or Australia. Some stayed put and worked on their immigration status. Others paid to have their boats shipped home by freighter. But we weren’t looking for an ending. Our hearts whispered, “Further” – we wanted more but our bank account cried out much louder for the same. We were the only couple in the fleet who packed up our boat for long-term storage in Scarborough, Queensland. We weren’t saying goodbye to Green Ghost. We were only saying, “See ya laytah, mate.”
In Australia, we crossed paths with Norbert.
“Green Ghost, vat is zee plan now?” he asked us.
He laughed when we told him we’d only just been re-united with our repaired camera. (It had finally been couriered to us upon our arrival in Australia.) But he grew more serious when we told him our longer-term plan – that we would store our boat for two or three years while we went back to Canada to make some money.
“No,” he told us flatly. “You vill not be two or zree years, you vill take longer. Ven you vork you vill have to pay for zee haircut and you vill have to pay for zee cloze. You vill be spending so much money to make money. You cannot save. You vill be gone longer zan two years, longer zan zree. I know, I have just done it.”
It was advice we didn’t want to hear.
Packing up Green Ghost was a sweaty, back-breaking process in the Australian heat. Cleaned of all grime, unloaded of all food, and packed up with all the sails and deck gear stored below decks, she was hauled out and moved to the long-term storage yard at Scarborough Marina. In the barbed wire enclosure, she was protected by security cameras in daylight and by guard dogs at night. Out of the cyclone belt she was safe and sound.
I expected a maudlin mood to settle upon me on our day of departure. After all, Green Ghost had been our home for eight years – four and a half years in Vancouver prior to cruising, and three and a half years of grand adventure. She had facilitated our dream and carried us safely across the Pacific. On our last day, we swung the chain-link gate closed behind us and fastened the lock. Lugging our bags down the road to catch a bus to Brisbane, ex
hausted by the heat and the process, I was so completely spent I didn’t even look back.
In late March 2004, it was time for us to return to Canada to work. I suggested we fly to Ontario – not an easy sell to the captain, who, through most of his adult life, has habitually run fast and far from Toronto. But, at this time, Toronto made sense. All our immediate family members lived within an hour of the city’s centre. Nik’s eldest sister was unwell; my father had been hospitalized with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. I knew my mom would welcome some support. Nik’s parents were elderly and still living in the split-level family home. They’d asked us to help them move to a condo. My nieces were six and seven years old; we’d been missing their childhood. I argued that for all these reasons, it was the right time to be living near family.
There were other pluses to Toronto that worked well for us too. We could live in the basement of Nik’s parents’ home for a while. They had two cars and allowed us to use one of them. The job market was large. As far as an easy re-entry plan went, all things pointed to Ontario.
When we turned up in Toronto many assumed we were back for a visit. At a party at my sister’s house my uncle greeted us enthusiastically.
“Good to see you guys. How long are you visiting?”
“We’re not visiting. We’re back,” I answered.
“Back? You can’t be back,” was his astonished reply.
“We are back. We’ve left our boat in long-term storage on the hardstand in Queensland, Australia, and we’ve come back to Canada to work.”
“You’re not allowed to be back. You’re what we live for. You’re living the dream. We wait in rapt anticipation of your news. Your e-mails keep us going. What are we supposed to do now? Don’t tell me you have a fixed address. Back? Bah! You can’t be back.” Then he turned and walked away, leaving us standing there with our drinks.
It suddenly dawned on me that we weren’t us anymore. We’d become mascots. Turning up at a Toronto cocktail party was like being caught out of costume. We’d been unaware of our own transformation, but in our absence, we’d been completely redefined.
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