Voyage Crew Emil Gruber, who is on for the whole of the 2003 Pacific, continues to make us jealous with his accounts of his voyaging. Here he tells of the Santo - Pt. Vila (Vanuatu Discovery South) trip, the stopover in Vila and the voyage to Tanna and on to New Caledonia.

Having been for two months on a unique place like Vanuatu, it is very hard to say goodby to these friendly islands. Since our start in Santo again, with our new captain Tod on board, we had further passionate days of sailing and exploring the islands.

There was a day with absolutely no wind, the sea flat as a mirror, you could even see the traces of flying fishes on the surface like carvings in the water. Dolphins appeared on the horizon and came towards the ship in huge leaps out of the water and dived just in front of us. Turtles hunted around the aft one evening on anchor and the next da two sharkfins crossed the bowsprit.

We got heavy inspirations of kava at a local dancing-dinner evening in the yachtclub of Ambae (also Aoba) and burned almost our feet on this faszinating hot water beach of Ambrym. We had a long talk with Chief Willie in Pentecost and he showed us the memorial copper plate of the visit of the Queen of England in 1974 very proudly.

In Epi I stepped almost on a stingray, which was hiding in shallow water and in Banam Bay , Malekula, Simon and me gave a new name to a beautiful lonely bay. "Merlot Bay",is now new in the charts after having a relaxing bootle of wine at this place.

Some local boys teached us the art of erotic sand drawings and Simon showed them his version of femal bodies in the sand. A quite amusing joint venture.

The luck was missing when we headed back to Port Villa. A big fish was suddenly on the hook of our fishing line but with a big bang half of the hook was missing and the fish was gone, freshly pierced, no new record on our trip , sadly.

Back in Port Vila, Troy, Simon and me chartered a small plane - we wanted to see our last trip a second time from the air. We flew over Efate, the Shepherds Islands, did three rounds over the craters of Ambrym and landed in Epi. This time, the dugong, this faszinating three-meter-seeweed-eating-gentle monster was here. We swam and dived with it,even touched it. After an excellent lunch we started again and flew very close over the Cooks reef back to Efate. A perfect excursion with Franz, our eccentric pilot, also a countryman of me and a resident in Vanuatu for more than 15 years.

We explored Port Vila and its countless possibilities to spend money in the next days until our boat was ready again after ten days of refit. Our permanent crew was working like hell and the Soren Larsen was in new splendour.

A rough motorsail to Tanna was a tough premiere for the new voyage crew, but everyone was quickly recovered near this nice island. Big humpack whales were jumping only 200 meters away from us. We all looked fascinated on these colossal bodies, when they shot out from the sea.

This time Yasur, the volcano of Tanna was again worth a visit. A couple of high explosions in the night produced loud "uhs" and "ahs" of the astonished rim people.

Then the crossing to New Caledonia. Perfect winds the first day, more motoring the second, dolphins under bowsprit again in the morning and a lot of rain shortly before arrival - every side of sailing was delivered. We had a short first view on Noumea - looks more than Monte Carlo than a city of the South Pacific- and after the formalities and dozens of admirers on the pier, we left for Te Dnu or Signal Island. There we walked with the seasnakes, very colourfull creepers, from blue to brown banded, highly poisoned but non aggressive - a really nice heartbeat adventure.

And finally Amedee island, a dream of powdery whitesandy island with turquoise sea all around, the best ever seen marine reserve for me.A old lighthouse is enthroned in the middle and the breathtaking look from above was worth every step on the spiral staircase. And now we a looking forward to Noumea again, the Equinox, a festival with a lot of music, street theater and variety will be a good relaxation before the last long ocean passage back to New Zealand.

All the best - Emil.

See Noreen's photo gallery for this trip here

 

Read more of Emil's account's of a Voyage Crew's tall ship adventure.
Auckland Kermadecs Tonga voyage	here
Kingdom of Tonga	here
Tonga to Fiji	here
Fiji to Vanuatu	here
Vanuatu Northbound	here
Vanuatu Banks	here
Vanuatu South- New Caledonia	here

 

Email to escape%40sorenlarsen%2eco%2enz (send about 4 or 6 pictures per Email)
Soren Larsen Voyagers Log: P.O.Box 310 Kumeu, Auckland 1250 New Zealand

For a Feedback form to give us your thoughts and suggestions on the voyage click here.