Tour 3 Crew Arrives

Thursday 1 July 2010, 10pm, Luganville

This morning everyone seemed to be heading in different directions. Paul and Grant headed off on an overland trek and will be staying overnight in a village. I headed off to town to get a new gas bottle, sewing needles (to replace all the ones we broke on our neighbour’s sewing machine), and eggs to replace the ones our hungry crew botted of the same neighbor. I also had to see if I could find a slightly bigger chain link. Ray was on dinghy duty and Carl cleaned the kitchen pots. After I came back from the shops (for the first time) Carl put the chain link back and Ray started sewing the sail.
Ray started sewing because our local seamstress didn’t arrive at the appointed hour. However, eventually Gibson and Christine (not Chris) did arrive and immediately set about sewing. Gibson left at about 2pm but Christine remained till the job was done at about 4pm. Christine is a mother of two ( a 4 and 8yo) and went to college in Port Vila. She chatted about life in Vanuatu and although she hadn’t traveled much she had a good understanding of the world.
Christine said she was originally shocked to think we wanted to do the sewing on the yacht. To her, the yacht was a small object on the horizon the size of a canoe. When she got on to the yacht she was amazed to see the space available. Meanwhile, Carl and Ray had been ashore on other errands and Chris had been spring cleaning the galley and main cabin on the yacht.
The sewing was finished, the spring clean was finished and the boys arrived back at the resort all around the same time. So we all met up for an end of day drink. We had about an hour to kill before setting off to the airport to meet Rob and the Tour 3 crew.
Ray and I set off for the airport a little after 5pm and Chris and Carl promised to keep the seats warm till be got back. As usual we just walked out to the main road and within minutes a taxi picked us up. We got to the airport 20 minutes early. Sitting next to us was the owner of the yacht next door, waiting for his wife to arrive on the same plane. He was talking to a stranger who turned out to be an Australian electrician contracted by the health department to fix things at the various clinics. I asked if he was going to Sola because it had a generator that had never worked. He said he was but he had been told the generator  gets used a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon; so presumably it works. Nevertheless he thought he might check into the information because Sola is a long way to go to find you need spares.
Rob and the team arrived on time and were very excited to be here. A man had heard me out in the car park looking for a mini bus to hire. He came into the terminal and asked if I would like him to organize transport. The man turned out to be Pastor Solomon who knew about the eye team and was good friends with Richard. It took a 13 seat mini bus plus a micro taxi packed to the gills with bags to get us home.
Back at the resort we had a lovely pizza dinner with both crews (Except Paul and Grant who are away on their adventure) plus Dave the crewman from the yacht next door and Gail a NZ girl on holiday.
During the evening the wind steadily increased. By the time we went back to the yacht there was a strong onshore wind blowing and we all got our best going out clothes drenched.
Andrew