September 8

This morning, before leaving Loltong, Jonah and I (the captain) went ashore to purchase more fresh baked bread, which was just ready and very hot. We returned to the boat and made ready to depart. By 9am we were raising the anchor and motoring out of the bay. Yesterday, on the morning radio net, a boat at Asanvari (on the Southern tip of Maewo Island) hailed us after hearing we were on Pentecost. He requested that we stop at Laone, about 5 miles North of Loltong and on the way to Maewo, to pick up Cody, the son of Chief Nelson of Asanvari. As we were in fact headed for Asanvari we agreed.

Therefore, at 10am, just an hour after leaving Loltong, we pulled into the bay at Laone village and dropped the hook to await Cody's arrival. Cody was due from Santo on the morning plane. Maewo does not have an airport and thus people bound for Maewo must fly into Pentecost and hire a boat for the 6 mile journey North to Asanvari. This passage, by native boat (driven usually by a small outboard and not very comfortable I expect) normally cost about 4,000 vatu (about US$35). Of course, this is a princely sum for a local man, and I imagine the airfare from Santo must not cost much more then this in fact.

We saw the plane arrive at about 11am and at 12:15 a small boat came out with one man aboard, him being Cody. He approached and said that there were some people ashore who also desired a ride to Asanvari and when asked he said six. Now I did not know this at the time but Cody is the schoolteacher at Asanvari so I do not think he has an inability to count. Perhaps while he was out asking us several more people arrived on the beach whom he did not know about, but when he arrived 10 minutes later there were 8 people on the boat and after they all boarded, with their baggage, I was told there were 3 more ashore coming! A total of 11 people were finally loaded aboard with their gear which consisted of everything from bags of clothing, new shovels, sections of pipe (to be used to build a BBQ pit) and other sundry items.

By 1pm we pulled the anchor up again and with a full complement aboard made our way across the channel which separates Maewo and Pentecost in calm seas with a 10k breeze blowing from the SE. The skies were overcast with about 90% cloud cover. We arrived at Asanvari at about 2:15pm and dropped the anchor right off the waterfall which sits in the bay in about 35ft of water. The fellow whom we spoke with on the radio the day before came over in his dinghy to ferry the people and their gear ashore, it took 4 trips. Only 2 of our guests could speak enough English to converse with us, though one other, a young girl of about 18, probably did speak English though kept it to herself. The old man and women we set up in the best seats in the cockpit and they never said a word. All in all we had a very pleasant time of it.