Malekula Vanuatu

After a great nights sleep we up’d anchor and left Epi around 9 o’clock. The island of Malekula was only about 25 miles away so would only take 4-5 hours at most. The sun was shinning and there was a good breeze, the seas were still slightly choppy but it wouldn’t take us long.

We arrived towards Malekula and it was another very green and lush island with lots of coconut and banana plantations. The anchorage was at Port Sandwich, named after the Earl of Sandwich for some reason. It was a beautiful place, only a small jetty and no real sign of life.

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A few people started to turn up and were filling the jetty up with goods, we later found out that a boat was coming in later that night on its way to another island. There were thatching roof panels, fruit and vegtables, disgruntalled pigs in boxes, chickens, you name it it was stacked high on the jetty.

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Jetty being loaded for the pick up

 

We went for a walk into the town on the dirt road and yet again met loads of friendly people, even though everybody seem to be carrying a machete !! Even the youngest kids were chopping up a coconut or breaking into something using this weapon. We walked past loads of houses and everybody yelled out ‘Hello’ or ‘Hi’ as they saw us.

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New community house being built

 

We saw one man who was cooking something above a large oven, we went over to him and asked what he was doing. He was drying out and cooking coco nuts. He would take the nuts out of the plant and leave them to dry for 9 days and then cook them for 3 days above the home made oven. They then got shipped out to one of the bigger islands where they were no doubt transported to somewhere else. I don’t suppose he saw much of the money for his work.

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Coco processing center

 

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Homemade oven

 

 

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Coco nuts being roasted

 

After walking for sometime we came to the end of the road where the local school was just letting out., a lot of the school kids followed us down the path back to the boat all happy and jokey. Not sure how many boats came into this anchorage but we did seem like a bit of a novalty !!

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