Our adventures with Pieter and Sarah began the minute they stepped off the plane. After a quick hug and hello, Sarah hurried over to get some local currency (Vatu) out of the ATM at the airport. The machine promply ate her card! Being a Sunday, the people at the airport advised us to go to the ANZ in town on Monday morning. It turned out not to be quite that simple! For a start, the bank was busy, with queues heading all the way to the door at every teller. There was a teller for foreign exchange, who eventually helped change some NZ$ to Vatu, but this person could not help with lost cards. The next two tellers were for withdrawals only, then there was a teller who only handled deposits. Finally there was the teller who handled lost cards. After already standing in the money exchange queue for quite some time, Sarah had to go to the back of the line at the lost cards queue and wait some more. As it looked like we would be there a while, Karl decided to get some more cash out of the A TM outside the bank. Heather joked "Don't lose your card" and looked up just in time to see the dismay in Karl's face as the machine shut down after swallowing his card too! Fortunately, the security people were able to retrieve Karl's card quickly. Sarah was not so lucky. In all, Sarah made 5 trips to the bank that day, to wait in line to see if her card had been delivered from the airport ATM. The last visit was after the bank had closed - they arranged to let her in the back door to meet the man who had been clearing hungry ATM's full of cards all day long - his full time job apparently! By the time Sarah got her card back, it was definitely time for celebration.
The next day was the wedding of course and then a restful day to recover :-) In the remaining week we were together we played tourists in Efate. Swinging on a rope to drop into the Blue Hole for a swim, a cultural dance, traditional village lunch, a drive around the island including over the WWII airstrip, a coconut demonstration and stops at various lookout points to see little islands and resorts dotted in the twinkling sea below. We visited the Tanna Coffee factory, where we learned that the coffee processed here, in Efate, comes from over 500 growers on Tanna Island. The cyclone has destroyed much of the crop and they are now down to only 10% of usual production. It will take three years to get volumes back to pre-cyclone levels as they have to wait for new plants to grow.
Of course we did some sailing and snorkeling along the coast of Efate as well as at Lelepa Island and Moso Island. We were treated to many displays of flying fish defying gravity, along with a surprise visit from a pod of dolphins and a few turtle encounters. More seeds were distributed, this time to the two villages on Moso Island, along with some children's clothes donated by Sarah. The northern village has just started a turtle hatchery and will soon be offering glass-bottomed boat rides too.
We spent one morning at the Mele Cascades - a spectacular area with more and more cascading waterfalls at every turn along the path. At the top, we were treated to a torrent of water thundering down from the top - quite a sight! Then it was off to Hideaway Island for lunch at the resort and a snorkel in the marine reserve. Bigger fish here as they are not eaten for dinner! Another day we had a trip to the Aelan Chocolate factory. This enterprise, run by a French Vulcanologist, Sandrine, is a fair trade business, designed to get better returns for the 2000 growers of cocoa beans on Epi, Malekula and Santo islands. They had only been operating 1 week before the cyclone hit and when we visited they were still busy doing repairs to get fully operational. We were impressed with Sandrine and the journey she had been on with the growers to get better growing and fermenting practices in place and improve the quality and taste of the chocolate.
If you think it is strange to find a French Vulcanologist running a chocolate factory in Vanuatu, you will think it even more strange to learn about our dinner at Spice, an Indian restaurant. This restaurant is run by Neal, who is an Irishman. Not only is he an Irishman running an Indian restaurant in Vanuatu, he is actually a Geologist by trade! Go figure! Still, the food was delicious and the service was fabulous.
Our last night together with Pieter and Sarah, was spent with Nettie, an old friend of Karl's, who made us a tasty Dutch meal at her place. A fun and memorable evening.
After 12 days together, including our very special wedding day, we said a fond farewell to Pieter and Sarah on Friday. Yesterday we took Nettie and Lynette out for a day of sailing and snorkeling at Pango Point, which was good fun, followed by dinner with Nettie on board Aradonna. Today we rounded Devils Point in calm conditions. After having visitors on board for the last two weeks with so many stories and plenty of laughter - the boat now seems strangely quiet. There is not a breath of wind, the water is like glass - it is almost an eerie stillness. Our snorkeling activity produced the only ripples on the water! Time now to enjoy some music while relaxing and reading.