Blogs from Vanuatu, Oceania - page 12

here's another blog. this week flew by for me; have a fun weekend planned at a big cc meet in joplin. that's what my saturday will be. hope you have a great one and weekend. - b 25 July 2009 Today was Saturday. We had big plans; namely three buckets full of wash. We’re both getting over the flu (actually, the whole island is), so, the sheets, towels, the whole works needed a good soap and bleach treatment. But, no rush. This weekend all of the students at the secondary school, who usually sleep in dorms at the school and wake us around 5 am with their terrific singing, were spending the weekend out, so we decided to put off the chores for awhile and (ahem) sleep in. In the midst of our nap time, Justin ... read more

A fabulous couple of weeks exploring the islands to the north of the Vanuatu group. From Port Vila we visited Havannah Harbour - a mere 20 miles where we had a pleasant time with the chief of the village and his family. Onto Lamen Bay on the island of Epi next where there was reported to be a dugong - a manatee with a different tail shape renowned for his friendly nature. There we met up with Joanne and John aboard Feisty (from Oz) and Bungee, Jill and Sue aboard Bloomers (from NZ). We spent a super few days ashore exploring with them and searching for the dugong who was sighted on many occasions, but alas he didn't make himself available for swimming buddy. The overall purpose of our trip was to go to the Rom ... read more

Location: Port Vila Length of Stay: 19 Days Cost per Day: $20.00 Alo…Bonjour and Hello…The 3 spoken languages here are Bislama (Pidgeon English), French and English. It is just amazing to see people switch between all three when communicating with a group of people. What a fabulous 1st destination to begin one’s journey. Port Vila is such a gorgeous little place… It is officially the capital city of Vanuatu, however, really it’s just a town sitting on the edge of a beautiful harbour. The Vanuatu people or Ni-Vans as they call themselves are without a doubt the friendliest I have ever come across. Apparently a few years ago, some global survey voted Vanuatu and its people as the happiest on the planet… That’s a pretty big award…I can go sit anywhere and within 5 mins, someone ... read more

Travelblog August 2009 This year’s August excursions took me to around the islands, but in all honesty, I had very little to do with this expedition. This expedition was all about a pair of real heroes. This expedition was all about Dr. David and Heather Churcher. Dr. Churcher is a modern day Superman. He’s an expert sailor, dentist extraordinaire, and last but not least…Australian. Indeed, this guy would make the comic book Superman look like a lazy slob. Like Project MARC’s founders, Henk and Nelleke Meuzelaar, Dr. Churcher was a cruising sailor with a medical background that found Vanuatu one year and decided to come back and help the people here. Vanuatu has an amazing pull on its visitors and it is not uncommon for the aforementioned scenario to happen. Dr. Churcher contacted me earlier in ... read more

Travelblog July Part 5 The weekend in Luganville was extremely restful and allowed me to reorganize plans for the rest of the month. Alanna left us on Monday, and I sent Will and Iza to Vila where they had planned to spend the rest of the month. By Tuesday all the original expedition members had flown off to their destinations, so that same day I caught a truck up to the Big Bay Bush, and by Thursday I had a new set of volunteers. The first trip to the Big Bay Bush was to survey the roads for safety, before taking volunteers into the area. It was only a day trip and was facilitated by Brian Renshaw. He and his Landcruiser were originally scheduled to do our delivery to Tasiriki and the Big Bay Bush, but ... read more