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Vanuatu October 2006 |
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Our season with Project MARC finished last week, it was a learning experience with variety. We are now back in Port Vila getting Alvei ready for the passage to Brisbane. Here is an account of our wanderings from July to October.
In July we went to Sakau in the Maskelyne Islands. We delivered a 16-foot Hobie Cat and then stayed while Kat taught the boys at the sailing school how to sail. Sean converted our galley into a clinic and everyone lent a hand stocking and organizing the clinic on shore.
We took all 10 Ni-Van students on a 3-day sail to Ambrym. We gave them lessons in knot tying and line handling. They all took turns steering. The students were all quiet, attentive and had amazing appetites. At one breakfast they ate 7 full sized loaves of bread.
The first of August we were due back in Vila for our official start of the season. Chief Willy provided us with 5 members of his family to transport to Vila. The southeast trade winds were blowing a fresh 25 knots. All the NiVans and half the crew was sick. It took us 3 days motor sailing to get back.
In Vila we loaded half a saloon full of medical supplies, school kits and hygiene kits. On the MARC team we had 4 British med students, two dentists, Alexia and Tasha; and two doctors, Lucy and Natalie. They are all smart, lively and very attractive. Along with them we have an older couple, Gene and Myrna as technicians and Eric a male physician’s assistant. Also joining the crew was a tall blonde Swede named Johanna and a Canadian physiotherapist named Elisa.
Back in the Maskelynes the med teams were busy treating a variety of patients and extracting teeth.
We sailed north to Banam Bay to deliver supplies to the clinic there. The teams did workshops in hygiene and birth control. We gave out boat loads of school kits and hygiene kits.
I took a boatload of 7 used mountain bikes ashore. It felt like being Father Christmas. Wish I could describe the smiles and wide-eyed amazement on the faces of those kids as the tinny landed on the sand. The beach became a spontaneous parade with each bicycle surrounded by a half dozen kids, all of them laughing and shouting, as the bigger boys rode off down the beach.
After being embayed with fresh trade winds for a few days the weather calmed down long enough for us to get back to Sakau and then carry on along the south coast of Malekula to Matanoui Bay. The little village of Malfakal, on this forgotten corner of the island, was in need of supplies and treatment. Here and from here on there were no docks or protected anchorages. |
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