Yesterday morning we snorkeled in Vanihe Bay and on the chocolate brown sand in the bay we saw hundreds of what looked like plant stems poking out of the sand and waving in the tide. Interestingly, as you snorkel over these stems, they get shorter, disappearing into the sand only to grow again after you pass by. On closer inspection these are not plant stems at all, but Garden Eels. These eels live in burrows in the sand and poke their heads and most of their bodies up into the current to feed on passing plankton, but quickly retreat if anything swims by. A slow careful approach reveals a tiny head on the end of the "stalk" that can grow to 1m long. Further out of the bay around the point, several larger fish were looking for a feed - snappers, grunts, trevallies and scats. Karl spotted a nursery of small stingrays feeding too. An interesting spot! After exploring Vanihe Bay we departed Ambae Island and made the 10 mile hop to Maewo Island. Maewo is a long narrow island running north-south. It is about 30 miles long and only 3 miles wide, but the whole island is a high mountain range, with mountains in the 600m, 700m and 800m range down the spine of the island. It apparently gets more rainfall than other islands in Vanuatu, which is not surprising given the prevailing winds and height of the mountains. Sailing along the coast is a pretty sight, with dense tropical jungle rising straight up from the sea, highlighted by gashes of white water cascading down in massive waterfalls. We anchored in Asanvari Bay, which has a roaring waterfall in the corner, tumbling out into the bay. Ashore, we met the locals. There is a yacht club, or I should say, there was a yacht club. It needs a new roof, and some walls might be handy too! The daughter of the deceased chief is trying to rebuild it, but we are not really sure why. This tiny village of about 100 people also has a restaurant, although there is no menu and no food, but the lady running it said she could probably find us some chicken and some taro if we were hungry. There is nothing to drink at the retaurant, only food, if you give her time to go and catch it. But, she said helpfully, there is a bar at the other end of the bay, if we would like a drink. The other end of the bay requires a 20 minute walk along a goat track through the bush on the side of the hill. Here, we met Alex who has been developing the Sparkling Waters Bar. A fabulous spot, right next to the waterfall, with a patio looking out into the bay. When we asked about beer, he said he could probably go and get some, but it was warm as it was too ex pensive to run the generator. He does not serve food, only drinks, as long as you like warm beer! Alex told us he has been developing his bar for the past 5 years and hopes to have it ready one day for all the yachts that come to visit. We were the 20th yacht so far this year, which is not a lot of customers really. Apparently some aid agency is helping with funding to rebuild the yacht club, but from what we saw they already have far too many businesses running for the number of visitors they get.
We met Justin at the school. Justin is chairman of the board of the school which as 96 children from year 1 to 6. The children come from the 5 villages up the coast and can only get to school by walking through the mountains or by boat. There are no roads or cars as the mountains rise straight up from the shore. Justin is also chief of the council of chiefs for his region and his wife is the principal of the school. We gave him seeds to distribute to the surrounding communities - he was extremely happy and very grateful. We watched some of the local kids playing soccer and Karl joined in the game for a few kicks. Today we explored the bay by dinghy and found a few good snorkeling spots. The coral here is not as colourful as other places, mainly browns, greens and dusky blues, but very pleasant to look at. It is a leafy coral, made up of layer upon layer of leaves forming large rosettes and frills that cling to the side of huge rock faces turning the rocky outcrops into the skirts of Spanish dancers. There were no large fish here, but throngs of tiny ones. Another enjoyable day, swimming in clear warm water and reading books in the sunshine. Ahhh!