In Search of a Dugong
Dugong: a sea cow found on the coasts of the Indian Ocean from eastern Africa to northern Australia. It is distinguished from the manatees by its forked tail
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Sea Cow: a sirenian
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Sirenian: an order of large aquatic plant-eating mammals that includes the manatees and dugong. They live chiefly in tropical coastal waters and are distinguished by paddlelike forelimbs and a tail flipper replacing hind limbs.
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The First Mate is in search of a dugong.
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In the whole of Ripablik Blong Vanuatu, there are only 2 towns, Port Vila on the island of Efate and Luganville on the island of Espirito Santa. The rest is all villages and hamlets based around family groups. From the number of babes in arms and young children one sees, population growth must be staggering. When a hamlet grows into a village, and the village starts to strain the local seams, a section of the family group moves on over the hill or into the next grove of trees and sets up a new hamlet. And so the process continues, but even with the growing body count, the population has a long way to reach that of pre-colonial times.
Port Vila is where we will stock up and fuel up for our exploration of these islands. Luganville is where we will do the same for our passage to New Caledonia. The First Mate heads to the markets. A large and very well-stocked French-run Bon Marché is just up the hill. It has everything we need, including baguettes, croissants and pain au chocolat!
There is a colorful Ni-vanuatu market with a bountiful array of fruits and vegetables. Family groups from the outlying villages bring their produce into the market which is open 24 hours everyday except Sunday. We think these hours are such not because they have eager customers at 2:00 in the morning, but because the villagers have no money for lodging, and needing to keep an eye on their produce, they simply camp out underneath their tables. They are always there, and the lights are always on so the place is always open! Children abound, and family life just continues on, around and under the tables.
The First Mate is delighted with how clean, well-lit and ventilated the place is. She is also pleased to discover that she can stroll through the market looking for the best of what she needs without being harangued by each vendor to buy his product. This is the first time she has been able to do this on any island nation, and it is really nice to feel so unnoticed!
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Across the Pacific, though burlap bags and boxes are plentiful, a favorite is the quickly woven carry-all made from the palm leave of the coconut tree. These continue to intrigue The First Mate, for they are quite pretty as well as strong and light in weight.
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The Waterfront Bar and Restaurant, where the dinghy dock is located, is our gathering spot. Happy Hour begins at 5:00 and can continue right on into dinner if one so desires.
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Fish and beef are their specialties. We soon learn that Vanuatu beef is tender and delicious. Fed solely on the grass of the land, the beef here is as naturally organic as one can get, and the price at the Bon Marché is unbelievable. About $7.00 buys us 2 thick, tender veal chops. Why beef cattle grow so well here and not on other islands in the Pacific is a conundrum, but they do or maybe it is because the Ni-vanuatu have discovered there is a market where other islands have not. Whatever the reason, the beef is good, but so are the fish. Thus, it is always a toss-up over which to order.
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Wednesday, May 30th – This is the day John from Windflower has been waiting for: Golf! He and The Captain have a running competition going so he already knows Bill is playing. Who else? Geoff and Ellen from BluGlass and Cindy from Summer Sky. With 2 other women playing, The First Mate decides to join the fun.
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3:00 is tee time, and since it is a short walk from Mele Bay, we decide to sail over to anchor there for the day and night. A short walk turns into a forced march as we quick step along the beach trying to keep up with John. 3:00 – We are late, and it’s about to rain, too!
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We cross a stream that has made its way to the ocean. Swirling, sucking sand catches all of us, and poor Ellen ends up on her knees completely wet. She’ll dry. John marches on leading us into dense woods along a faint path. Finally we emerge onto something that looks like a golf course. It is a golf course! We pay our fees, pick out our rental clubs (John packs his own), and off we go.
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Men tee off first, and the women promise not to hit into them as long as they keep up the pace.
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A group of local kids watches as Ellen gets ready to line up a putt.
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We opt for a taxi ride back
to a beach restaurant for drinks and dinner. What a fun day this was!
Bill re-established his golf dominance over John so that made his day,
and John has called for a re-match either further up in Vanuatu or when
we return to NZ!
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Thursday, May 31st – Most of the other Rally boats have left the area to start their adventuring around Vanuatu, but Windflower and Avante must return to Port Vila. Windflower had waited until leaving for Mele Bay to refuel only to find out that the fuel truck had broken down, and there was no fuel available. That’s cruising in the Pacific! One can never count on anything! Upon his return, he finds that the fuel truck luckily did get fixed, fuel is restocked, and he can refuel. Avante has to return to the calm waters of the harbor where The Captain can finish de-clogging the aft head. He completes that ugly job in the late afternoon. We are back in business!
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Friday, June 1st – On to real cruising. Havannah Harbour is our destination. The First Mate is eager. A dugong or two are reported cruising along the shore. She will be on the lookout. After a last morning in civilization of running errands and getting haircuts, we are ready to go by noon.
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Leaving Port Vila, we raise our sail and head north. We do not have far to go. Winds are perfect when we enter Havannah Harbour enabling us to sail peacefully to the very end.
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We pass a small area of vacation homes and a very pretty resort.
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Not too far away is a small native village providing a contrast in economies and lifestyle.
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We anchor at the end of the bay. We had expected to find at least one other boat in this popular spot, but we are delightfully alone.
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How to spot a dugong: Since a dugong is an aquatic mammal, it must come up for air. If a dugong is in the area and one is looking in the right direction, one will see it surfacing. One will often hear the puff of air or slight splash of water. Under water, its slow-moving dark shape is unmistakeable. It is a curious creature and will swim over to see what other large form is swimming in its precinct.
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Being nearly blind, it will often paddle up quite close. Dugongs are gentle, non-aggressive animals, but they are big. How close does The First Mate want to get? That she does not know right now. First she has to spot one. On and off that late afternoon and into the evening she scans the water. Was that a splash she heard? A puff of air? She races topside to see. Nothing. She sees nothing.
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It is finally warm enough and we are at an anchorage peaceful enough that we can set up our cockpit table for dinner. This is The First Mate’s preferred location for eating aboard Avante – out in the open, fresh air, cooling breezes, island scenery.
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The Captain even remembers to set up what he calls the “Queen’s Dinner Seat”. One of the problems with Avante for her is that the boat was built by men for men. It did not take into account the more diminutive stature of the average female. As a result, she cannot comfortably sit and reach the table without a bit of assist. A few pillows here and there are a great help so she just ignores his taunts.
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We eat dinner by candlelight or by the light of those look-alike battery-operated flickering candles. Out across the quiet darkness of the water toward the shore, we hear unmistakeable puffs and soft splashes. Dugongs! One or a few are out there, but we cannot see them. It is too dark. As we quietly sit there sipping our wine, it is nice to know they are out there. Maybe tomorrow she will see one.
During WWII, this large, nearly enclosed bay was a US Navy base. In the jungle not far from the native village on the opposite shore, the fairly intact remains of a crashed Corsair is supposed to be located. One has to go to the village to ask the chief for permission and for a guide before venturing forth into the jungle to find the plane. The Ex-Navy Pilot Captain would like to see this plane.
Saturday, June, 2nd – The next morning we pack our backpack with all such essentials as rain jackets, water, blister protection, bandaids, antiseptic ointment, and bug spray.
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When The Captain opens the drawer under the companionway steps where we keep such essentials as sun lotion, eyeglass cleaner, and bug spray, he is amazed at the collection The First Mate has accumulated there. What can she say? She is serious about life without bugs!
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We take the dinghy out and motor to the end of the bay staying close to shore where the dugongs are likely to be. Nothing. At the end of the bay, we motor across to the other side skirting the edge of the reef and head down to the village. Our rebuilt Yamaha motor is running well. The 4th take apart and clean out must have been the charm. We keep our fingers crossed! Pulling our dinghy ashore, we find the villagers strangely quiet and aloof. Usually someone will come up to a visitor and either introduce himself as the chief or offer to take one to the chief. We walk deeper into what is the more central part of the area, and it is there we encounter a young man who explains to us that a woman died this morning. The village is in mourning. We should come back tomorrow. It will be okay then for a guide to take us into the woods. We apologize for our intrusion, offer our condolences to the family and make a quiet and hasty retreat.
Sunday, June 3rd – We do not have time to return to the village, and even if we did, we do not think it appropriate even though the young man had said it would be. Our next stop is Epi Island about 60nm north of here. We are raising anchor by 0715.
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The Captain is so delighted that he finally got his wash down pump to work that he has to show it off. It was a corroded wire, not the pump itself that was causing the problem.
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We sail with just our jib as we head back down the bay to where there is a pass between islands that will take us out of Havannah Harbor. We spot a sailboat ahead of us which turns out to be Atea with John, Kia and young Braca aboard.
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After motoring through the pass, both Avante and Atea turn into the wind and raise sails. With 60nm to the next island, we are looking forward to a nice sail.
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Two sailboats heading the same direction always create a race. This one is no contest. Although Atea is well-sailed, Avante is a faster design and has a size advantage. Within a very short time, we have passed Atea, and as we do so, we take photos of them as they take photos of us.
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Winds are supposed to be in the teens but end up in the low 20’s, and we are screaming along averaging 9 knots.
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Look at the overcast in
these photos. Our weather thus far in Vanuatu has not been what one
might call blue sky and blazing sun tropical. We have had a lot of
overcast days and plenty of rain. The First Mate was recently asked to
include a photo of us with our tans. What tans? There has been so
little sun that we are forgetting to put on sun screen.
The wind and seas are too strong for our autopilot to keep up, and it keeps disengaging forcing us to the helm. Not true — The First Mate cannot take the helm. The day before they left New Zealand, she did something, she knows not what, to the shoulder of her right arm. Something keeps painfully cracking or clicking in there. Is it tendonitis? Bursitis? Old Age? She doesn’t know, but it will not go away. She has also sprained the joint of her left thumb, and because that is such a much-used joint, it keeps getting painfully sprained and re-sprained. The Captain knows she cannot maintain balance at the helm and steer without adding more pain to injury. She tells him that if he were to put in a reef or two, she would be able to handle it, but he is reluctant to put in a reef. We are just on the edge of needing one, and he is having too much fun! Sail on, Captain!
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We anchor in Foreland Bay on Epi Island in the afternoon. Two outriggers with 4 young people come out to visit with us from one of the villages on shore. The First Mate asks if there is a dugong in the bay. No, they have not seen one.
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Monday, June 4th – It is a short sail to Lamen Bay on Epi Island, our next stop. There are supposed to be big sea turtles here as well as a resident dugong, but Gloria and Michael on Paikea Mist had emailed us and told us that the dugong was no longer there having possibly gone the way all dugongs must eventually go. The First Mate is disappointed, but she searches the surface of the bay anyway. Why doesn’t she go in the water? Along with her aches and pains, she has another injury. Back in Port Vila on one of her treks to the Bon Marché, her much-used, broken-in flip flops had caused a blister. Any open sore is bad out here in the tropics and must be treated as potentially fatal. Steve on Magic Bus had ignored a scrape he had gotten while hiking. Infection set in and spread. He went down with fever, chills and body aches. Only a strong dose of antibiotics and disinfectant got him through what could have been a bad case of septic shock. The First Mate is taking no chances. According to instructions, we circle the reddened area with magic marker. If the swelling spreads beyond the marked area, it is time to act. If there is any yellow discharge, act immediately. She regularly cleans it with antiseptic wash. She applies antiseptic cream and keeps it covered. In her concern, she forgot that her skin reacts to something in the ointment. The skin around the blister begins to bubble. Yellow discharge! The Captain pulls out the medical kit to find the antibiotics. A 5-day dose of Azithromycin will kill anything — hopefully. It does. She is fine, but the wound is taking a long, long time to heal. It just will not completely close over, but she is told that that is the way with cuts here in the tropics. She keeps it covered and out of the ocean as much as possible.
Why must one stay out of the ocean with an open wound? To add to her distrust of lurking big fish down there, she learns that the ocean around here harbors its own invisible, deadly menace. An unhealthy Marine Bacteria. Any open cut is a target. As it was explained to her, the El Niña of the last several years has caused the ocean to warm up in the latitudes closer to the equator. In this warm water, this nasty Marine Bacteria has been multiplying with abandon. The weather pattern is now shifting, and the warm water is moving south bringing with it all those bacterium bugs. This water has now reached Vanuatu. What’s so frightening about this particular bacteria? If the bugs enter one’s body through an open cut, they multiply rapidly leading quickly to infection, and if not treated immediately with a heavy dose of antibiotics, septic shock and death will follow. Flies landing on an open cut can do the same thing, and the warm, moist environment out here doesn’t help either. That does not mean that one cannot walk the land or swim the sea. One just cannot do so with an open cut, a blister, a pin prick. The First Mate wonders just what she is doing out here! For the moment, however, she is just frustrated that this open blister will not heal. Instead of swimming in search of dugongs, she spends the afternoon scanning the waters and pecking away on her computer.
In the late afternoon, we see several outriggers heading from the mainland across to Lamen island just outside the bay. The natives live in small villages on the island but tend garden plots on the mainland. We are intrigued by one outrigger’s inventive use of palm fronds. In this country where both money and stores are in short supply, this man has invented a clever sail to replace his fabric one. It sure beats paddling!
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The sunset over Lamen Islands is one of the prettiest we have seen in a while.
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Tuesday, June 5th – Off to Malakula Island. This island is blessed with many secure bays and anchoring spots. We choose Port Sandwich and anchor just in from the entrance off a small village. On the way in, we are overtaken by what we first thought was a fishing boat, but it proved to be a brightly painted island cargo boat. Motoring into the bay, it is soon tied up to the dock.
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One of the reasons we chose
Port Sandwich is that our guide book mentions a jungle river dinghy
ride one can take up Murder River. Even the name sounds intriguing.
When one gets in far enough to leave the shark-invested salt water
behind, one is reward with a shark-free dip in fresh water. What’s this
about “shark-invested”? The locals have a habit of dumping the
unmentionable parts of their slaughtered cows deeper in the bay. Guess
whose powerful blood-seeking nose this practice brings in? All are
cautioned not to swim in this bay. The First Mate isn’t swimming
anyway, though it does cross her mind that this would not be a good
place to sink.
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We launch the dinghy and head off in search of the hidden entrance to the river. We find it with the help of GPS coordinates, for it is quite overgrown. Ducking under the low hanging branches, we slowly enter.
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We are totally enclosed by macabre mangrove trees with hydra-like arms and overhanging green canopy. Birds are brightly singing, but we cannot see them through the dense foliage.
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The river twists and turns until finally around a bend we come not to an inviting pool of fresh, blue water, but to a concrete bridge that is as much a dead-end as anything can be. Stagnant, sluggish brown salty water is a mere 1 foot deep in front of it. What a disappointment!
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The Captain ties the dinghy up to go take a look on land, but The First Mate, seeing nothing of interest, stays put. “So much for Murder River,” moans she who had been looking forward to a fresh water dip free of Marine Bacteria and sharks.
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Returning to shore, we tie
up to the dock to take a short walk around the area. It is late
afternoon and getting on to the time when one should not be out and
about without bug spray or even at all. Have I mentioned that we are
also now in a malarial area? We are, but the risk is not great down
here. If we were to continue further north into the Solomon Islands, as
the Rally will be doing, we would be taking anti-malarial medication.
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At first, the area appears uninhabited, but as we walk along the dirt road, we see family compounds that have been fenced in with gardens and plantings.
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We pass a Bislama sign telling that part of this land is a conservation area. The ingenuity that went into the creation and country-wide adoption of this relatively new language is amazing. We also enjoy the fact that we can mostly understand what is written.
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Wednesday, June 6th – Banam Bay, our next stop on Malakula Island, is practically around the corner. Since we do not need an early start, The Captain is prepared his favorite breakfast: Eggs, sunny-side up, Rashers and Toast. The sun is shining. Look at that blue water! Life is good cruising out here in the vast Pacific. (If only a dugong would show itself!)