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Jon Turk
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Party on the Beach
- Older in Vanuatu - South Pacific 2007: Port Vila, Vanuatu - Newer in Vanuatu - South Pacific 2007: First Crossing
The satelite phone works.
The boats sort of work.
Either one or the other and I'm not too worried.
Call from Jon this afternoon and he says the boats float “well enough” but not completely well. They have been paddling along the west coast of the main island in the Vanuatu chain, Efate for two days. On the first day the usual SE trade winds switched to the NW and stacked against the swell making for a difficult landing in the surf. They came in through a reef and onto the beach where there was a restaurant. They asked the owner - if we eat dinner here, could we camp? And he replied – Why not?
Shortly thereafter, a black Buick limosine pulled up with licence plates reading PM1, followed by another limo with plates P1... the prime minister and president respectively of Vanuatu. Many more people came and much merriment was made, drinking kava and talking about cannibalism and the good ol' days. The head of security was at first a little bit suspicious of Jon, but after being cajoled with a postcard with pictures of Montana, he calmed down. All told, about 100 people attended the party, and there was music and dancing and NO guns... not even among the security guards.
The next day they paddled around Devil's Point and westward along the island where cows occasionally looked out at them from the shore. In a few days they will reach the end of the island, at which point hopefully they will have figured out how to keep the boats from leaking before they make the long open sea crossing to the next island.
Stay tuned... posts will go up on Sundays if all goes according to plan which is rarely the case.
Dated: 08/26/2007
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