Vanuatu - efate

A move to the island of Efate and Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu. It is a small town, but has a wonderful market and a pretty good 'Au Bon Marche' supermarket. The French/English joint administration caused chaos at the time, but left a legacy of baguette, cheese and pate from the French.

One of the fascinating things about the market is the 'packaging'. Sweet potato, yucca, and other root crops are sold in woven palm leaf bags. Coconuts are left with some stalk and tied with cords (all natural fibre) into packages of ten or so. Ginger, mandarins, and some almond-like nuts are strung up like onions. Lettuce are strung six at a time. Greens are wrapped in banana leaves. This is all done by the stall holders who keep themselves busy preparing the produce for sale. As well as fruit and vegetables, there are coconut crabs, boxes filled with the fishy catch of the day, and live chickens. Today we stocked up the boat for the next bit of the journey. Everything has to be washed before being brought inside - did I mention the huge cockroaches that had hitched a ride on some bananas brought to us in Tanna? - so it took all afternoon to wash, dry and find homes for everything. We have bananas and cooking bananas hung up, potatoes and sweet potatoes in net bags, papaya, pineapple and cabbage wrapped in newspaper, a large net bag of passion fruit (as we (I) bought 2 lots by mistake,) and a bowl of tomatoes in varying shades of green and red. When all was safely stowed away the total packaging discarded was a banana leaf and some natural fibre ties (plus a few insects which met a watery end).

During WWII, the Americans had a base here. There were 3 radar stations known as 1, 2, and 3. The names have stayed, but in Bislama, the local pidgin English. So nambawan, nambatu and nambatri. The latter two are now rather nice residential areas, and nambawan is a park at the waters edge. The Nambawan Cafe is very close to where we are anchored, and not only does excellent coffee and muffins, but has wifi internet for free (or the price of a cup of coffee). A very pleasant spot to watch the action in the harbour and meet other cruisers.

Tomorrow, weather permitting (it poured all day yesterday with strong winds), we will move to the north of Efate.