Out of Port Vila - in Havannah Harbor

We finally made it out of Havannah Harbor. The southeast trades calmed down and Dianna on White Swan got better (some) so we took off two days ago for just a 25nm trip around the southwest corner of Efate Island to Havannah. Havannah Harbor, and Port Vila, were both huge staging areas for the US Navy and Army in the campaign against the Japanese during WWII. Havannah is a massive and well protected bay with two large bordering islands to the west and narrow entrances. This means our electronic and paper charts are very accurate here as the Navy went to great pains to know the depths and contours here. It is not especially difficult navigation here though compared to Fiji but you still have to pay attention.

Last night we had "sundowners" on the sailboat "Roger Henry". Alvah and Diana Simon on Roger Henry are going to Alaska later this year via the Solomons and Japan then down the US coast and back to New Zealand. We left Whangarei the same time they did earlier this year. Alvah is a frequent contributor to "Cruising World" magazine and the author of "North to the Night" which I probably have already mentioned before. His boat is a custom-made steel boat made in France to his specs for extreme cruising to high latitudes (Arctic and Antarctic).

We have veal the night before last. It was from one of the French supermarkets, the Bon Marche, in Port Vila. The beef and veal are the best overall we have had any where in the world here, including Iowa/Nebraska/Colorado corn fed beef. Don't know what it is but we have had some excellent luck with the meats here and even found (hold on to your seats!) some good pork sausage similar (but not as good as) Jimmy Dean. We have missed sausage probably more than any other food we have had to leave behind. New Zealand sausage is very British and to my taste mealy and pasty. Yuck! But we got enough of this other to last for several breakfasts on board as special treats. We got some excellent unrefrigerated eggs there too. It seems many of you back in the US think that is a terrible thing, but until you have tasted fresh, unrefrigerated eggs, you have not really tasted how good an egg can be. Farmers have known this for years. We have found out the hard way though that you have to get eggs from a distributor here though as the eggs you get in the "bush" at the local villages are just "free range chickens" are usually fertile, meaning they are developing chicks inside. Not a nice thing to break open when you are looking forward to your omelet.

Cindy is up in the cockpit looking for a dugong and a turtle. The little bay we are in has a big, big turtle with a neck about 6 inches in diameter and a dugong. The dugong is a rare creature that is sort of like a manatee in the US. They eat plants and things off the bottom of the bays and are very slow and gentle. We have not seen one yet but Cindy is trying to fix that.

I have been very religious about sending in the Yotreps position reports so if any of you want to see on a map/chart where we are just click on the link on the right side of the blog at the start.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see:

http://www.sailmail.com