Port Vila

I am posting this long after the fact---we have had no internet since leaving Vila and will not have until we reach Luganville on Espiritu Santos where we will meet Darlene—it is only 6 weeks but 6 weeks in Vanuatu is a long time as it is such an extraordinary place where we are having adventure after adventure.
I will separate out the blog entries and do them sequentially so anyone who has the energy to follow them can take breaks as they go—besides if it takes as long as it did in Vila to post them it will be many days before I have succeeded.
We arrived in Vila on Children’s Day which appears reason to celebrate, meaning fireworks off and on most of the night.
Port Vila is a mid size town offering a great supermarket, restaurants, coffee shops and internet so the days were filled taking advantage of all that was offered. The internet was painfully slow so many hours were used to put on my Tanna blog, luckily the Nambuwan (number one in bislama) coffee shop offers free internet with a coffee so at least I was able to sit with all of the fellow travellers waiting as we painfully accessed our server.
Karen and Al (the Australians) were with us so we watched Australia beat South Africa at rugby in the Tri Nations cup and then NZ beat Australia—yeh All Blacks!!!!---they are a power to be reckoned with right now and we can only hope they manage to keep the pace next year when the World Cup is held in NZ.
We rented a car and toured the island of Efate which is the most populated and least interesting part of Vanuatu we have found. They have discovered the tourist dollar and you can visit the beaches which all belong to someone and therefore a charge is levied to use them—as can be imagined cruisers, having anchored in many bays around the world are unwilling to pay for the privilege!!!
The highlight of our Vila visit was the Independence Day. Vanuatu has only been independent for 30 years so great pride is reflected in the three days of celebrations. Every night for the week there were fireworks which seemed to be set off from all directions. Our anchorage in the harbour was a wonderful place to enjoy them. They culminated on the final night in one of the longest lasting display (one hour) that we have ever seen. The only problem that the coordination was less than one would expect with such a display and we would keep thinking it was over when a lot of noisy spectacular ones had been set off but they would then start all over—they really just kept digging out more and more until they ran out.
We spent a couple of days up at the big grounds where the festivities were held. The events were attended by families all of whom found a spot on the grass to watch the show.
There were some great kastom dances put on by a number of the islands which we enjoyed but the highlight for the locals was the break dancing. They identify greatly with the black culture of USA and the Caribbean (reggae) and sometimes we had to pinch ourselves to remember where we were. When the break dancing and later the judo club put on their performances they all rushed to the rope to watch. As soon as the kastom dancing came back they wandered off and we were left with a great view.
Another local highlight was the string band—when the Americans were here in the Second World War they introduced string bands which the locals have emulated, even the closed throat singing is the same and we felt as though we were in Alabama. The music really rocks and a number of the large women who wearing their Mother Hubbard dresses making them appear even larger got up and danced along—so much laughter and joy.
The fashion show of locally made large colourful dresses followed giving even more impression of colour and laughter.
The grounds were surrounded by booths where food was cooked on wood fires behind the stalls and we risked chicken wings (slightly undercooked) and meat on a stick (pretty chewy).
Ken sampled the kava which was a lot stronger than that of Tanna—I had one sip and it made my mouth numb!—other than a happy feeling and one of thirst later Ken seemed to have no major consequences.
Once the celebrations were over we felt it was time to move on so sailed up the coast and crossed to the island of Epi where we were hoping to arrive in time to enjoy the canoe races which they have each year.