Vanuatu: Asanvari, Maewo

We set sail from

Banan

Bay

late Friday afternoon. As soon as we were underway and had the sails set, I was recruited to assist the galley team with dinner. While at anchor only two people were assigned to galley, but with everyone on board for dinner they needed the usual three galley crew to serve and clean up. Once the sun went down, we had a good view of the volcanoes on

Ambryn

Island

glowing orange as they spewed hot lava.

The nice part of doing galley duty is that you are not awakened for night watch. So, I got to sleep through the night. Well, almost. JD, who sleeps in the bunk above me, did not know that I was not supposed to get up for night watch. And since I have been known to sleep through wake up calls in the past, he makes sure I am awake when it’s time to go up on deck. He did his best to make me get up, telling me to turn on my light, until I told him that I had been on galley. I fell right back to sleep.

I woke up early Saturday (Oct. 22^nd) as we were approaching

Maewo

Island

where we anchored by Asanvari village. Asanvari is situated in a beautiful bay with a large waterfall and fresh water swimming pool that comes right down to the bay. While the village huts look quite similar to those in

Banan

Bay

, they seem to be more decorative, particularly with landscaped gardens. And there is a bit more technology available. Chief Nelson and his son, Nixon, have taken initiative to bring improvements to the village. They’ve built a Yacht Club which has electricity, a flush toilet and shower, a kitchen with a refrigerator and cold beers for sale, and a telephone. The Yacht Club makes Asanvari an appealing anchorage for smaller yachts, which gives the villagers more opportunity for trading.

Snorkeling in Asanvari was the best I’ve seen so far. The coral reefs were truly spectacular and even more variety and quantity of fish than I’ve seen in other places. One of the more unusual creatures we saw was a large (12-14 inch diameter) electric blue starfish. We snorkeled along the edge of the reef which was about 3 to 5 feet below water until we reached a precipice where it dropped to at least 30 or 40 feet deep, maybe more. It was thrilling to swim out over the edge of the precipice, so completely different from being on land where you would never dare go to the edge for fear of falling off. Suddenly there is a huge drop below you, yet no fear of falling. What an amazing sensation!!

I snorkeled three days in Asanvari, and each time was better than before. On Sunday, our second day there, although I was on duty, we were allowed to go ashore for trading and the crew picnic at the waterfall. Since there was also a Kastom Dance performance later in the afternoon (and no ship’s work on Sunday) we were allowed to stay ashore. I rafted on Andrea D’s inflatable from the waterfall over to the cave, then traded the raft for snorkel gear and swam back to the waterfall. The underwater terrain was very different there than what I had seen the previous day. There were more volcanic rock formations and deep fissures (crevasses) and less of the shallow water reef and coral heads. One section I dubbed “the desert” because it was flat rock, totally barren of coral, plants or fish.

The Kastom Dance at Asanvari was very different from what we saw in

Banan

Bay

. Only the men danced; they wore woven “skirts” with leaves stuck in the sides, ankle bracelets made of nuts that rattled as they danced, and very elaborate headdresses with feathers and carvings. Each headdress was completely unique from the others. The dances were more intricate in their choreography, and every bit as energetic as the dances in

Banan

Bay

as they jumped and stomped their feet back and forth across the floor. During the last dance, they pulled us in to dance with them as they circled around the dance floor. It took a lot of energy to keep up with them.

The Kastom Dance was followed by a demonstration by the school children of bamboo stick jumping. It’s a bit trickier than hopscotch or jump rope, which we figured out quickly when we all tried it. A few of our nimble crew did quite well at it while others of us stumbled through more clumsily.

After the Kastom Dance program we were all served kava. Ten of us at a time drank from the coconut shells while the others clapped their hands until we had downed the entire shell full at one go. The first round for everyone was a “high tide” with the shell filled to the rim; after that we had “low tide” shells filled about half way. The full effect of kava does not necessarily hit immediately when you drink it. However, after having three, four or more drinks, the cumulative effect can be more than you might expect. Rumor has it that the effect of the kava is intensified if you eat after drinking kava. Well, dinner was served after we had drunk the kava. Whether the rumor is true or whether it happened to be a coincidence of timing, I don’t know, but I certainly did feel more light headed after eating.

While the staple foods of taro, manioc and rice were the same as at

Banan

Bay

, there was more variety in the meat and fish served. The featured item was coconut crab, two of which we had seen tied to posts in the Yacht Club before they were cooked. The coconut crab has very strong claws that it uses to break open coconuts; hence, its name. Be advised not to get too close to it because it could do some serious damage.

The local string band played music and we all danced during the kava drinking, dinner and for several hours after dinner. Again, there seems to be one song – the same one we heard in

Banan

Bay

! – to which they sing different words. Nevertheless, we had great fun dancing.

On Monday I was off duty from the ship again, so I borrowed some snorkel gear and went with JD. We swam out through the same area I had been to on Saturday, but we went farther out. to see the reef around the point of land at the end of the bay and some deep water where the fish are much bigger than the small reef fish. I saw a school of fish swimming along and suddenly they all turned 180 degrees to swim quickly away in the opposite direction; they were being chased by a grouper. I watched a much larger fish go up, up, up to the surface of the water. JD said it was a Wahoo chasing a flying fish which got away when it flew above the water.

Once again, the sights we saw were phenomenal; words cannot do justice to describe all of it. And I fear the snapshots on my underwater camera may not capture the experience either. I swam along the reef for an hour and a half, and would like to have stayed in longer except that I started to feel chilly, so I went back to the beach. I do wish I had a picture guide to underwater creatures of the South Pacific so I could identify more of what I’m seeing.

Before returning to the ship for all hands to raise the anchor, I made one last visit to the waterfall where I washed the salt water off in fresh water. At the base of the waterfall, the water hits the pool with tremendous force and standing right there having my back and shoulders pummeled by the water is far better than any showerhead massager or Jacuzzi jets.

We pulled out of

Asanvari

Bay

shortly after noon and motored about 18 miles to

Bwatnapne

Bay

on

Pentecost

Island

.