Customs entry and Quarantine is handled by the local policeman, Richard and his helper, George. Yesterday we were asked to go ashore to the police station to clear in. Richard does all the paperwork and every now and then holds his hand up to George, who runs to the other room and brings back a paperclip for Richard. This happened several times during the process, making us wonder why Richard didn't simply have a jar of paperclips on his desk. But George seemed to take his task very seriously, always choosing an appropriate sized paperclip for each bundle of paper that Richard was holding together. Besides, it gave George something to do! As we are bringing seeds into Vanuatu to help people grow crops again after cyclone Pam, we had ticked YES on the Customs declaration about plants and seeds. This made Richard quite agitated. He said "No! We do not accept seeds here! You cannot bring seeds here!" We explained why we were bringing them in, but still he said it was impossible. So we handed him the bundle of paperwork we had gathered from officials including the OK from the National Disaster Management Office, the permits from Plant Protection and Border Control, all the certificates and letters of authority...He studied these papers in awe. It looked like he had never seen anything like it in his life before. But, once he had viewed all the signatures of all the Government officials from Port Vila, he calmed down and said. "No problem!" Phew! Anelghowhat is at the bottom of Aneityum Island and was largely untouched by cyclone Pam. 99% of the trees are still standing and during our walk through the village we only saw one roof slightly buckled. The village huts are made of bamboo frames with sides made out of woven plant material and thatched rooves. All were still standing. The people told us that Port patrick, at the top of Aneityum was hit badly, but most of the damage is on Tanna and Erromango Islands. We will keep our seeds and other supplies for those places.
Just off the coast of the village (only 1 mile away) is a tiny island called Mystery Island. Once or twice a week, a cruise ship anchors between Aneityum and Mystery Island. They are expecting a cruise ship tomorrow, so there will be 2000 people arriving for snorkling trips, fishing trips and perhaps to buy some local crafts or fresh fruit and veges. There is no market here apart from when cruise ships come in, so we are hoping to find something at the produce market ourselves in the morning. It looks like the locals here do pretty well out of the cruise ship visits.
Today Heather spent the morning unpacking towels and cushions from cupboards, doing the washing and having a general sort out. Karl diagnosed the fault with the autopilot - just the relay, which he promptly replaced and all is well again now with "Raymond". Yay! This afternoon we went snorkeling at Mystery Island. Many different types of coral and not too much damage from the cyclone, most of it is intact. The usual display of many coloured reef fish was very pretty too. We had a walk on Mystery Island, which is all set up for the tourists. When we viewed the tiny grass airstrip we were glad that we had arrived by boat! I put our position on the website at Mystery Island, to make it clear where we went today, but we are actually anchored well out of the way of the cruise ship, in Anelgowhat Bay. We enjoyed zooming over to Mystery Island in our dinghy - the new bigger outboard motor we have this year makes such a difference. Now we can plane across the surface of the water in a flash!