Stuck in Vanuatu in a hurricane

Greetings all. It is Wednesday morning and I am sitting in a little Internet Cafe in Port Vila, Vanuatu, waiting for tropical cyclone Xavier to hit. Worse case senario, it is going to hit right here on Friday with 100mph winds. So we will see later today what the forcasts say.

It has been raining the last 24 hours, getting stronger and more steady. The winds have been fine. Some gusts. Nothing too bad. We are in a good anchorage. The only problem is that it is crowded. The locals have beached all the inter-island cargo ships on the beach behind us. They do this by running them straight into the island at high speed, and they go skidding up the beach and into a cliff. Then they tie them off to trees.

I really like Vanuatu. The people here are awesome. So friendly and nice. Sunday night I hooked up with some locals who took me to the real kava bars out in the jungles. I drank 3 large shells (cups) worth. I didn't loose sensation in my mouth, but I was really drunk. It works like a strong vodka, but taste like muddy water.

The kava bars are nothing but little grass shacks out in the jungle. There is a colored lamp out off the dirt road that lets you know where it is. Each bar has a designated color. We started at the green lamp kava bar, then went bar hopping to a bunch of other colors. The bar is nothinh but a plank of wood with a large garbage can of kava water behind it. They dip plastic bowls into the kava and serve it. The customers then take their bowl of kava and go off into he dark and sip it. There is no noise except the sound of men spitting, gurgleing, and clearing their throats. They wash the kava down with a swig of water that they spit out.

Nearby is a little food bar run by the local women. There they serve the local delicaies cheap and served on banana leaves. I had dinner there for about 40 US cents. The hygine leaves something to be desired... reminded me of the some of the local food servers in Haiti. Amy is too afraid to try them. The kava bars remind me of a backs woods moonshine distillery.

We were gonna leave here on Sunday AM. Now it looks like we may not be able to leave until this weekend. I don't know if that will allow me to go with Tom and Amy. I will have to call my boss back in Perth and see if I can get another week off.

One boat did leave port, one day early. The Sandpiper UK is now about half way to Australia. They are getting pretty beat up by the waves generated by Xavier. But they are out of harms way because they are putting more and more distance between them and the cyclone.

Tom and Amy are thinking about renting a hotel room if the cycle hit here. There really is not much you can do in the middle of a hurricane. So there is no point to staying on board and risk getting killed. All you can do it battan down everything as much a possible and cross your fingers. I still want to stay on board to run any pumps should we get a leak. But I think Capt. Tom is going to order me off.

So in the meantime we wait for the weather to clear by going to the bar and getting drunk while watching the World Series and Monday Night Football on satellite TV. That was a treat. Today we are heading for a noon drinking feast for game 3 of the world series. I talked to Jill, of Jill's American Cafe here in Port Vila. She is going to deliver us a big box of nachos for the game. Cool!

BTW... Jill's makes good mexican food. I've had her breakfast burittos everyday since I got here. Yum!

Nothing else exciting to report. I've been working on the Sandpiper's computers, getting them all up to snuff. I've brought a shit-load of new music and podcasts and other media with me. So all the other yatchies are coming over with their computers to get a copy. Most of the have been stuck with the same small music collection for months now. So they are realy craving some new stuff.

We bought Nacho Libre on DVD yesterday and watched it on board. I love that movie. It is very funny in it's own subtle way. Life is good... yes indeed.

More later.. check the Sandpiper's blog for more updates.