{"id":1564,"date":"2014-11-30T02:07:02","date_gmt":"2014-11-30T00:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/?p=1564"},"modified":"2015-07-06T17:31:59","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T15:31:59","slug":"erromango-and-the-impressive-david","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/?p=1564","title":{"rendered":"Erromango and the impressive David"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Adina<\/a>

Adina anchor in Dillons Bay, Erromango<\/p><\/div>\n

Erromango in south Vanuatu is probably one of the least travelled islands in the country. This is simply because it doesn\u2019t hold any big flashing light attractions, but for yachties who stop it\u2019s one of the favourites as it offers a nice bay with good holding next to a village of friendly locals and is the perfect place to wind down for a few days.<\/p>\n

\"Kids<\/a>

Kids love to pose!<\/p><\/div>\n

David is the person assigned to look after us yachties and he duly turned up in his wooden canoe with a variety of bright, colourful fruit. David is 65 years old but we\u2019d soon get to learn that age means little in these parts. He was the man who could guide us to see the so-called cave of skulls. But first up a tour of the village during which David advised us that he and his wife were busy preparing the local dish laplap for a fundraising event for his church later that day and we were welcome to come along.<\/p>\n

Walking around the villages you meet people and things tend to just fall into place to keep you busy. We walked past a man called Donal carrying a new invertor. Did we know anything about them and could we help him? We\u2019re certainly not electricians but Adina has an invertor on-board and we agreed to meet him later.<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>

Our battery heads off to a new home<\/p><\/div>\n

Donal has a small 12V battery and some solar panels which he wants to use to power up a freezer for a store he is building. But he\u2019s not sure how to do it all and we can see he doesn\u2019t quite have the right kit. On-board Adina we have been carrying one of our old batteries as a spare in case our new batteries failed. Donal\u2019s lucky day! We\u2019re only going to throw it away, it\u2019s still in good nick and a lot larger than what he has. And we have wires, terminals and tools. Donal seems to us a nice and honest man. But trade a little we must and Donal is only too happy to offer us lobsters and as much fruit and veg as we want. We advised him to send a solid canoe to the boat and later we watch our battery being paddled to a good home. We follow in and sort out the wiring, spectacularly showing what happens when you connect things up the wrong way with some nice sparks from the battery! Donal watches and elects to lock up the hut where the battery is kept to keep his children safe. Smart move. We like Donal, he\u2019s very funny. Everything is \u2018black skin\u2019 or \u2018white skin\u2019 when it comes to visitors and locals. \u201cWe know you white skins, busy, busy, rush, rush \u2013 if we make a time we know we must be there, not like black skin time\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Fund-raising<\/a>

Fund-raising with David and Rota<\/p><\/div>\n

Leaving the battery ready to be charged by solar in the next day\u2019s sun, we head off to the fundraising and do our bit trying laplap for the first time. A friend who has visited Vanuatu before described it as wallpaper paste. We shan\u2019t share such comments with the well-meaning community but we know what you mean!<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The cave of skulls<\/p><\/div>\n

Next day, David takes us off to Erromango\u2019s number one sight \u2013 the cave of skulls. Two caves actually, one where women and children hid in times of war and the other where people\u2019s bones were placed once they had departed this world. The main cave has collapsed but someone has kindly removed the chief\u2019s skull with a few others to another little cave for us to see. David asks permission from the spirits to visit and we take pictures. Just an odd attraction.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve enjoyed going to churches in some of the south pacific islands so we gladly accept David\u2019s invite to attend his church on Sunday. We\u2019re also now well versed in being expected to stand-up and say something so this time the request comes as no surprise and we can say a few kind words.<\/p>\n

\"Modelling<\/a>

Modelling in Erromango!<\/p><\/div>\n

We stay on a few more days and agree to help David by taking pictures of the lovely yacht club he is building (did we mention he is 65?) and other local attractions to help promote the area. We\u2019ll get a few posters and leaflets made up and distribute them for him. A photograph session follows and David has the kids playing roles. And they are good models and do just as he says; instructed to jump off a rock they strip off and happily oblige \u2013 until one jumps right on top of his friend\u2019s head. That one didn\u2019t go down so well!<\/p>\n

\"Kaikai<\/a>

Kaikai with Donal<\/p><\/div>\n

In the meantime, Donal had invited us over for \u2018kaikai\u2019 \u2013 a meal with him and his wife, Lota. We had explained sailors do potluck dinners whereby we all bring food and share. Turning up with some of our own food prepared on Adina, we see a generous table of food had been prepared. And just two plates and cutlery. We\u2019re now used to how they just make you the VIP but we were having none of it this time \u2013 Lota was sent off for two more plates! A super evening sharing stories and ways of life.<\/p>\n

\"Susie<\/a>

Susie and David at the watefall<\/p><\/div>\n

We\u2019d heard there is a waterfall on the island so we nag David to go and see it. Only one person seems to know where it is and he has a broken tooth. David himself, at the age of 65, has never seen it and after asking a few people off we march to find it. It\u2019s a fairly steep old climb and David advises us we must take it slowly. We spent all of that morning trying to keep up with him. The waterfall was more of a cascade but is in a lovely spot with a stunning view and had a deep pool set further down which of course David was going to get to. A nice steep soft sand bank to get to it and absolutely slippery \u2013 a few steps dug in by David and I was relieved not to be left in Erromango contributing my own skull to the collection. But not too much time for relaxing, off he went again taking us a different route back to the village. He\u2019d see laden fruit trees and climb them while we stood below and caught the fruit. Back at base, a nice freshwater pool to swim in and still David has us jumping off rocks. We scrambled back to Adina shattered while David wondered off to work in his vegetable garden! Amazing man.<\/p>\n

On our final night David paddled over to the boat with some fish in exchange for some fuel we\u2019d given his son. He had a nice shirt on and we knew that meant he was coming for a visit. We love having locals on-board and it was a nice evening chatting away to him learning about his life and, our side, describing living in the big smoke.<\/p>\n

\"Rota<\/a>

Rota with the handmade mat for Susie<\/p><\/div>\n

On our final day we prepared Adina for departure and ambled into the village. Donal and Lota loaded us up with more fruit and vegetables and a handmade mat for Susie. We visited David and his wife Rota and signed his guestbook.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The fittest 65 year old on the planet!<\/p><\/div>\n

We grow so fond of these local villages and it is hard leaving. We steered Adina into shallow waters, drove her past the outskirts of the village hooting our fog horn to say farewell. David stood waving his arms. Susie said \u201cPlease can we come back to Erromango before we leave Vanuatu?\u201d And try keep up with that 65 year old David again? Well ok, but I\u2019m going on a strict exercise regime first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erromango in south Vanuatu is probably one of the least travelled islands in the country. This is simply because it doesn\u2019t hold any big flashing light attractions, but for yachties who stop it\u2019s one of the favourites as it offers a nice bay with good holding next to a village of friendly locals and is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,53,51,55],"class_list":["post-1564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-david","tag-dillons-bay","tag-erromango","tag-vanuatu"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1565,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564\/revisions\/1565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}