Yesterday was Karl's birthday. Good news came over the SSB radio from Patricia early in the morning. Ted from Opua was donating an inverter for Port Patrick school and a yacht was collecting it soon, departing NZ in the weekend bound for Vanuatu. The cruising community is wonderful! We went ashore to let Stuart know the good news. He looked astonished, then bewildered and said "How did you do that?". We tried to explain the ships radio to him but he looked at us like we had performed some kind of magic. Then he broke into a huge smile and said thank you, thank you, thank you!! We also dropped off some photocopies we had made about NZ - he asked us for information because he is supposed to teach about NZ to his students are part of the curriculum but the only thing he knew about NZ was rugby! Next we were off to Futuna, a 7 hour motor sail into head winds. There are not many details on the chart, so Karl was up on the bow watching carefully. The depth around the island is 1000m plus and quickly rises up to 100m then 40, 30, 20. As soon as we got to 30m depth, Karl could see the bottom! Wow. We are anchored in 15m of water but it is so clear that it looks like 2m. Sheer cliffs surround the bay and no houses or any sign of life can be seen. We were having a snorkel, wearing only a snorkel, when a local arrived in his dug out canoe. The water is so clear that we knew he could see everything!! He glued his eyes to the boat, admiring it while he talked to us :-) When he left we saw him disappear into the cliff somewhere. So later, and with clothes on, we took the dinghy to explore where he had come from. A cave in the cliff has a shelter in it and several men and boys were there. The next thing we knew a large wave came out of nowhere and tipped us out of the dinghy! Capsize! Our new outboard motor hanging upside down in the drink! Some of the men came and helped us right the dinghy, then swam out to retrieve the seat which had fallen out. Heather had managed to grab the petrol tank and luckily neither of us lost our glasses. As we scrambled ashore by the cave to thank the men who had helped us, Heather realised that her wet top was now completely see through and a large hole had been torn out of the bottom of her shorts by the rocks. The men got quite a view! Then they explained to us that the cave was where the boys came to get circumcised. They stayed there to swim in the sea and keep it clean every day to stop infection. Time for us to g o! After rowing back to Aradonna, Karl spent the next two hours getting the water out of the motor and getting it up and running again. More locals came by in their dug out canoes to check on our progress. Finally about 6.30pm we could relax and enjoy a birthday dinner celebration and a late evening swim.
One of the senior men offered to be our guide to go to the village this morning (he is on the community council) and we are glad we had his help. The entrance to the steps up the cliff face is not easy to find. It was described to us as "by the big rock near the big tree", but in a rocky bay full of trees we would have had a difficult job! We climbed and climbed, up and up. Some rock steps, some concrete steps, some wooden steps, more rock. Finally we reached the plateau. What an amazing view! Isia village is perched up high at around 350 - 400m above sea level. No problems with waves coming into the village here during the cyclone! But all the fruit had been blown out of the trees and all the crops had been washed away by the rain. We met the headmaster of the 150 children at the primary school and we met the principal of the 114 children at the secondary school. There are three main villages on the island, with a total of 600-800 people living here. All the children on the island go to school in Isia. They were very grateful of our gifts of seeds, fishing gear, educational supplies and frisbees.
Supply boats only drop off supplies every 2 months to this isolated community and everything that the village needs has to be carted up the steps. They have pigs and chickens, they go fishing and they grow fruit and vegetables. They used to have cows as well but during their jubilee celebrations they ate the last ones! No one has managed to land any more cows onto the island due to the difficult terrain... After lunch on board Aradonna with our guide, he promised to come back at 9pm tonight to go snorkeling with us and show us the local lobsters. Unlike our crayfish, the lobsters here have nippers, so we are a bit reluctant to grab them!