Friday 5th August
Apology time!! I think in my last blogpost I might have just HINTED that the people who were so rude and unhelpful when I had DinghyProblems might have come from… Black Pearl, the big Glamour Yacht. Well this morning the tender from Black Pearl whizzed past 2XS while I was soaking my feet in the sea…and it was loaded with nice young people, wreathed in smiles, waving cheerily. Hmmmm… Out on the bay, when we came back last night, we saw the super maxi giant yacht, gorgeous shinyblack Eagle V, last glimpsed in Noumea harbour. Today we took Monique out for a short cruise. We went past Eagle V, and as we were admiring it, she said…oh no… “That’s it! There on the back is… the tender, with the people who were so rude and so unhelpful!” And yes indeed so it was…
Yesterday we met up with the Vanuatu family in the afternoon and had a lovely little trip to Mélé village (vilej…) It is the largest village in Vanuatu – about 4,000 people – and it is where most of Mark’s family live. He drove us up and down and around the narrow lanes between the huts. It felt a bit intrusive to be cruising in big black Island Princess (the ute not the shop…,) peering into everyone’s vilej life… but nobody seemed to mind. They all knew Mark and waved, smiled, rushed out to hug if possible. He has a very large extended family – so many aunts, cousins, adoptive mothers, sisters-of-cousins, his brother Patrick, the whole kit and caboodle. The others all got out to be enveloped and embraced while Pete and I stayed wedged in the ute tray.
We were very impressed with the vilej. All neat and tidy, with dear little thatched huts, chooks, pigs, dogs, children all roaming contentedly around. No the huts are not romantic and comfy; they are very stark; I would not last more than a day and a night in one - no mattress! No downy pillow! No table and chairs!! Oh woe! But I think the huts are only for night time; all of family life is conducted out on the street. Cooking, chatting, washing at the tap. People did look very happy. (Mind you I asked Monique if Mark misses vilej life, in the big house on the hill, with Leah and she said NO…he loves his new life, and only goes back to the village once in a while to hang out with the clan…)
We went to the Beach Bar and had a drink or two – margaritas for Monique and me, fruit cocktails for the girls, beer for Pete. We were waiting for the fire dance to start, at 7pm. So, it being Island Time, we had plenty of time to spare, and even managed to eat some dinner as well as drinking our drinks. (Mark’s dinner arrived about half an hour after we had all gobbled ours up but…never mind!) The Beach Bar was completely crowded out, with happy expats – it was, according to the blackboard, “Jared’s birthday.” The bar is owned by Australians, and most of the guests, with the birthday guests, all aged about ten, were also Australian – maybe all these children go to the international school? They were having the most wonderful time, playing on the beach, eating pizzas, rushing about.
The fire dancing is not a traditional Vanuatu thing. The theatre company, Wan Smol Bag, who work with young people, started it up about a year ago. And what fun it was! About a dozen local kids came out and twirled fire hoops and ropes, dancing to a lively sound track on the beach in front of us (I think I heard Beyoncé – Leo would have been thrilled!) Great fun. Towards the end lots of the guests went and joined in, twirling fire ropes quite expertly along with the performers. The entire birthday party went to join in the grand finale – a sort of happy conga linedance.
Saturday 6th August
We had planned to take the Vanuatu Family for a bit of a cruise and lunch on 2XS today. At 11-ish I went and picked up…Monique! (Were there issues with the tender? Well…I drive it in to the dock with great expertise and moored it like a pro. But…when I got Monique in and tried to start it for the trip back to 2XS…I couldn’t pull the starter cord…it had jammed. So…row row row your boat… Monique very kindly chose to be impressed with my rowing ability rather than unimpressed by my motor ability…
We had a five nautical mile sail around to Hideaway Island, opposite the Beach Bar, where we had arranged to meet Mark and the girls plus baby Justin. But…as I expected, they absolutely didn’t want to come onto 2XS. Dara was fearful of the trip in the tender with her delicate new little baby, and Leah knew she would be ill as soon as she stepped on deck. So we left them to have lunch back at the Beach Bar and we had a lovely little BBQ for just the three of us.