It is hard to believe we have been back for one week now. Day one was spent catching up on sleep after our travels from Tokyo and meeting Nettie for lunch. On Monday we reported our stolen outboard motor to the Police but we are not holding our breath that it will be found. We also picked up our replacement piece of rigging that had arrived while we were away. The Post Office did not want to release it to us unless we engaged the services of a customs clearing agent. So we asked the man at the Post Office (which is also the Customs office) where we had to go to find a customs clearing agent. He did not know! After some time he found a telephone number for us, but he could not ring it because the Government phone lines can only ring landlines and he only had a mobile ph number for the agent. We tried calling the number he gave us but it was not a valid number. What to do? The man refused to give us the rigging because he said they had strict procedures to follow and we must have the clearance form from a customs agent. After much discussion and a second visit later in the day, we talked to the boss and explained that this part was requir ed to stop our mast from falling off and it would be a serious safety issue if we could not repair the boat before we set sail to New Caledonia. We showed him a photo of our broken rigging. The boss did not know where to send us to get the part cleared through customs either! At last, he decided to ignore official procedures and let us have the rigging. But he made us promise that next time we would need to follow procedures. Phew! We are pleased to report that this new stay has now been installed and all is fine with the rigging now.
During the week we discovered another issue - the fridge/freezer was no longer working! We had left it empty of course while we were away so it had not been used for 5 weeks and now it refused to get cold. Thursday and Friday we had visits from the local refrigeration people, who thankfully fixed the leak and filled the system up with new oil and new gas - all working well again now. We were pleased that we had purchased our new electric fridge freezer in NZ which came in very handy as a back up while the main system was down.
It has been a rather social week. We returned to Paradise Cove resort, 3 months after our wedding there, and were welcomed like long lost family. Hugs all around from the staff and owners of the resort. We had a delicious lunch and a bottle of wine overlooking Aradonna in the bay - just beautiful and such a romantic setting. Back in Port Vila there are several boats here waiting to sail to New Caledonia and we have been chatting to a few of them with promises to catch up again in New Cal. Had drinks on board Dagon with Tom and Fran, who have recently come from sailing around Japan and also know Karl and Netties Dutch friends who live there. A small world! But it seems Aradonna is still protesting about us being away and leaving her alone for 5 weeks. Now we have autopilot issues again. Different symptoms than previous times and this one is still a mystery to us. If we cannot find the solution in the next few days we may have to hand steer to New Caledonia and see if we can find someone to fix it over there.
Meanwhile, Vanuatu is having problems of it's own. The Government here is quite unstable, we have seen 3 changes of Government since we arrived in May as they keep having votes of 'no confidence' and throwing out the incumbent. Now, 16 members of parliament have been charged with bribery. One of them, the Finance Minister plead guilty! Then he changed his plea the next day to not guilty. All 16 ministers are still in their jobs and refuse to stand down until the outcome of the trial is known, which could take months - this is amazing. Procedings started on Thursday with one minister announcing that he had no idea it was illegal to accept money in return for doing certain favours... Meanwhile they are still earning full salary and still making decisions for the running of the country. It really is a different world here.