Lamen Bay, Epi
Sea Sickness, Trading, Feasting and interesting people!

We left Port Havannah around 8.30pm. I was trying to assist get the anchor up but managed to stuff it up and nearly lost the anchor !
I was looking forward to my first watch, as a (what is the right term for a learner sailor?) newbie crew member the captain was doing the first watch with me. After the anchor incident It seems like a good idea not to assume a newbie can do anything !

I began the trip confident that there would be no more sea sickness, as I was sure that the main problem the previous voyage had been the three days of excess in Port Vila. On Cathy's advice I swallowed a couple of Kwells and put on the sea bands, these are elastocised bands with a bead the applies pressure to a point on the wrist, but once we hit the open ocean I was feeding the fish and about 20 minutes into my first watch Stephen took over and I went to my cabin.

Now I am no wimp about sickness or pain (having given birth to a 10lb14oz baby with out any drugs and I astounded Dr after my knee reconstruction by returning to work cooking six weeks after the surgery) but sea sickness brings a whole new level into play, especially on a long voyage and this was expected to take 12+ hours depending on the conditions. If I could have stood up I may have jumped overboard, knowing that hours of rolling and vomiting lay ahead I wondered if I would survive the trip and how far could I really swim!

I could go on and on about the experience of sea sickness but enough! Out of all the voyages we took I managed to stay on deck for a couple but never truly found my sea legs .
On the plus side host 7kgs on the whole trip, but wouldn't recommend it as a weight loss program!

soon after anchoring in Lamen Bay we had our first ni-vanuatu islander paddled out in a traditional 'dug out canoe, to sell us produce. Although we were well stocked we purchased all that he offered, tomatoes, spring onions, and lettuce.

Purchasing from ni-vanuatu in remote areas is a little complex as they are reluctant to suggests a price, I am not sure if this is in hope that the gullible white person will give them more than the item is worth, or if the embarrassment at dealing with money they displayed was genuine, but when pressed for a price there suggested price will nearly always be ridiculously low making it easy to be generous and give them market price. Susan was able to assist us with knowing what was 'market price' .

We also had a visit from Gail, a neighboring yachtie and she was organizing a feast in the village which we instantly said count us in for.

I was unenthusiastic about exploring this village as I was slow to recover from the not to be mentioned again. It proved to be a cute village with some interesting designed huts, it takes about three week to construct a hut and they last about five years. The women weave all the wall panels and make the roof thatching and the men gather the tree/bamboo for the frame work.

we joined with and interesting bunch of people for the feast, the food was ok but nothing worth waiting words to describe, but the people were interesting. Gail a natuapath, who organized dinner was a fellow aussie maybe in her early 50s created, marketed a natural skin treatment for psoriasis and made enough cash to buy her cattermaran and set out sailing ( it was comforting to know that Gail also suffered SS but distressing that she had not been able to come up with a natural remedy). Traveling with Gail was another women possibly in her sixties not sure about her story!

Also dining with us was another aussie family, Mum, Dad, Daughter and son. Dad had invented shoes for climbing coconut trees and set up a business traveling from resort to resort up the Queensland coast removing the coconuts from palms ... They have to be removed as they are an liability risk when they fall! How crazy is that!
they have been living on there boat for a 4 years, the kids are doing home schooling and the boy about 10 was incredibly switched on and confident. his sister a little more reserved 12 year old