SHIP DIARY
… A retrospection of the previous post (08.10) as seen by Mr. Shushtari
Day 0 – 08.10.2017 (Sunday)
Today is time to leave the amazing Vanuatu. All living in the mission are dressed formally and the girls have beautiful flowers in their hair. It is Sunday, time to go to church, so no one is working, people visit each other and walk around the town. We on the other side are quite busy with laundering, packing and helping Father Berry to dismount his chainsaw.
11.09.2017
It is time now to leave Melip on Malekula Island. For the last two days Tom, Alejo and Mr. Shushtari scrape the bottom of Alabama, diving underneath it, and now the yacht is ready to glide smoothly to the far South Korea.
We gather the crew, which is scattered around the island and bid a farewell party with baked corn in order to say a proper good-bye to our local new friends. Continue reading
30.08.2017
In the morning the yacht “Alabama” is anchored in the bay of the central town called Litzlitz at the north side of Malekula. Malekula is one of the several big islands of the country Vanuatu and is popular with its myriad tribes, cultures and languages. Cannibalism and inter-tribal wars have been really vicious in the past of the island. The sub-culture of this land is still preserved and there are almost no tourists. Continue reading
Alabama anchored in Lamen Bay
15.08.2017
Finally the day that we will sail on an expedition around Vanuatu comes. Our plan is to spend at least a month in the region as the typhoon season hasn’t yet finished in the northern hemisphere so sailing to Korea now would be dangerous. Instead we will travel around Vanuatu and in this way we will also test the yacht for any defects.
Vanuatu
Capital: Port Vila
Population: around 200 000 people, mainly Melanesian
Area: 12 190 square kilometers
Official religion: Christianity, mainly Presbyterian and some Catholic
State system: Parliamentary Republic, they got independence from France in 1980
Currency: Vatu (1 dollar is 100 Vatu)
Language: the official languages are Bislama (Creole Pidjin), English and French
Pirates of the Southern Seas
IMPORTANT! This post is not chronological. We skipped some posts about Indonesia and Papua New Guinea FOR NOW. They will be translated later. For the moment we will post in advance a few stories from our sails with the yacht “Alabama”.
(So in short: before this we traveled some more islands in Indonesia, mainly hitchhiking, then we spent two incredible months in Papua New Guinea and found a yacht to Fiji. There we later encountered “Alabama” and its lovely crew who quickly became our family.)
Let’s go back to “Alabama”. We are accommodated in one of the many cabins of the boat and everyone had their own. The yacht is really spacious, with wooden cladding that gives the impression of an old ship. Not only her current crew is unorthodox, but its whole story. We find some documents on board, from which we learn that one of his previous owners used the boat to traffic drugs, and three members of the crew were killed, one of whom was beheaded by pirates or drug barons in southern Philippines. Well, we certainly will not sail with her around the Philippines 🙂
Lines are being pulled, people climb up and down between the engine compartment and the deck. One is running, the other is rocking in the hammock, the third one smoking a cigarette, the fourth brewing coffee in the kitchen, the fifth taking a shower naked , the sixth singing or playing the guitar… The crew consists of ten really interesting people with dreadlocks and hippy outlooks. The atmosphere is joyous.
Magic Kervan 