Saturday 31 May - Honeymoon beach

Rala the boat that was in Dillon's bay with us came in this morning, there is quite a collection of boats that we know here, including Nancy the solo American sailor on Aldabra. Rowan found a nice looking beach for us to go to, Rob and Frances joined us. We caught a local bus there, lovely suburbs with manicured gardens, roads were full of pot holes but otherwise an interesting drive. We had to pay to go to the beach even though it looked like a public park, which is fine as it looks like it is well kept. A lovely white beach with big old trees lining it, giving lots of good shade. Mainly locals enjoying the beach. Definitely needed reef shoes, as you have to go quite far out before it is deep enough to swim. Rowan went way out to the breaking waves to snorkel. Nobody else was tempted! He said it was quite good coral when you got far out.

After we had enough we walked to the other side of the island and found a small resort open for lunch. It turned out to be a Norwegian guy who had come and set up a dive resort with 8 rooms. All beautifully landscaped on a small plot of land. We had a delicious tapas lunch under the trees, which was lovely. The local beer is called Tusker just like in Kenya, but this is tusks from wild boars not elephants!

Rowan had discovered that our friend Jane Greening who introduced Rowan and I, was coming on holiday to Vanuatu, they are staying in a resort near Port Vila. We had planned to meet them there for supper. We realised our bus we caught to return to the marina was going past them, so we jumped off there. So amazing to catch up with them. Jane and I did the same computer programming course in Joburg in 1982 together, we both got placed at Edgardale, a large South African retail company, for our first jobs. Rowan shared a house with Jane for the last couple of years he lived in Johannesburg. Jane had always tried to get Rowan and I together and neither of us was particularly interested. When I bought my one way ticket to leave South Africa, she invited me to a farewell dinner which is where I met Rowan and the rest is history! So we go back a long way. Jane and Mike immigrated to Adelaide in Australia about 30 years ago. They are joining us for a couple of nights on board PolePole tomorrow.

Honeymoon beach

The Bislama language really amuses us! See if you can translate the Public Notice....

Lunch at the resort South Pacific Memories, with Frances and Rob