What a day we have had today! Started out with an early morning snorkel in Nawora Matua bay at Nguna Island. Dramatic rocky lumps rising up from the sand - we were glad we had anchored off shore a bit and not tried to come in too close to the beach here. Mountains of rocks and coral and fish between us and the shore. Next, we took the dinghy ashore to the village of Utanlangi. Here we met one of the chiefs, Shem and his wife Lesley. Shem took us on a tour of the village and introduced us to the president of the disaster management committee, Datu. We gave Datu the last of our watermelon seeds, with instructions to share them with the other 7 villages on Nguna Island - he agreed to distribute the watermelon seeds and was happy because planting time for watermelons is August! There are more than 200 people living in the village we visited and many of these people have been to NZ to work on a 6 month permit, picking apples or other crops. They return from NZ with new ideas for the village and we saw first-hand how they now grow mandarins and oranges by grafting them on to lemon tree stock. They have learned lessons from the cyclone and are now building more concrete houses here and setting traditional houses higher above the sand to survive sea surge during cyclones. Bamboo stalk is used for making furniture, fences, houses, gates, marker posts and various other things. The bamboo leaves are used as mulch to keep the ground moist around crops. They have a communal garden, fenced off from the pigs and chooks and growing very well.
We then sailed into Havannah harbour and anchored at White Cliffs for a lunch stop and another snorkel. Another clear water spot with plenty of coral garden to explore, which was nice, but a near by dive spot was beckoning. Just around the corner was Paul's Rock. This is a pinnacle that rises from a 30m bottom, straight up to about 1m below the surface. We anchored safely near shore and took the dinghy to the little mooring marker on the rock and went for a dive. A glorious spot! Great visibility, with friendly fish and even a crayfish that was happy to pose for photographs. This is a marine reserve and the marine life seem to know it - they are happy to hang around rather than swim or scuttle away. Heather got some fabulous underwater photos here.
When we came up from the dive, the water around us was like a mill pond. Calm, clear, flat - just amazing! We decided to stay in this "day" anchorage over night as it is so calm and we are very close to hop around Devils Point in the morning at slack tide, to head back to Port Vila. Our Vanuatu experience is coming to a close and what a fantastic time we have had here in almost 3 months! We are very lucky people.