Position: 18deg 39min South, 173deg 58min West � Neiafu in Vava�u
Dad�s bug seems to be spreading round the family � so kind of him to share. Good burley being produced, even though it�s tough going with 7 people sharing one heads on board, ha ha! Rebekah and Arwen were up at the crack of dawn playing, fortunately Abby joined in and kept them occupied. After breakfast we had sultana scones and took some over to share with Tusitala. The weather is still overcast and chilly, with the temperature dropping to 25 degrees. We got the sweatshirts out today � how are we ever going to cope when we come back to NZ?! Charles had to dive down to unhook our anchor chain from around a coral bombie, before we set off to our next daystop. Good job we hadn�t had to urgently move during the night or we�d have been stuck. We motored over to anchorage 17, Lape Island, and went ashore for a walk to the village. Lape village consists of four families, they live very traditionally and yet have their own Free Wesleyan church with minister on the island, and their own school. The school was a fairly new building, consisting of one room, the teacher�s desk and two chairs, a long school desk and long bench at which the six primary school children sit for their lessons. There was a separate toilet block and hand basin, and a small staff quarters adjacent to the school for the teacher. The view was out over the bay. The lessons are in English and it was interesting to see English posters everywhere and questions about the solar system on the chalkboard. It looked lovely. We arrived at lunchtime, so the children had gone home and we saw them with their mother in the cookhouse, eating their lunch that had been prepared over the open fire stoves. There was no electricity and water was from rainwater tanks from the roofs of the houses. The living was very simple and yet I was impressed at how beautifully the school children were turned out, with their hair neatly braided and in clean clothes � how they manage to wear white tops I just don�t know. We were impressed by the islanders industrious farming, aside from coconuts, they had crops of taro, cassava and karva, and were also growing bananas, mangos & pineapples (not in season), pigs and goats, and even had scarecrows in their domestic vegetable garden to keep out unwanted predators. Older children board at school in Neiafu,. going home on Friday afternoon and returning after church on Sunday. The people were very friendly and welcomed us into their village, which when walking through, is like someone walking up to your back door � so it�s quite intrusive. As the cooking on the island is done over an open flame, the kitchens are not part of the house, there is a separate cookhouse for each house to cook and eat in, and the house is for sleeping in. We then put up the gib and sailed through to Neiafu. Matt and Emma were hoping to attend the local youth activity, but unfortunately both were laid low, so didn�t manage to go, much to their disappointment. We had comfort food of mince, veg and mashed potato for tea and Matthew made good use of the local free internet before they discovered us and cut the access. Our friends who had lent the kids a TV show on DVD�s gave us an invitation for the children to go over to their boat to watch the second series of the show and have popcorn and beverages on a night of their choice � so they�re very excited. They also very kindly gave Charles and I a voucher for dinner at one of the local exclusive restaurants after Charles helped treat her injured finger, something that they really didn�t need to do. We�ve enjoyed their company and enjoy helping them out, plus they�ve given us lots of delicious desalinated water!
S�all from the cook and bottlewasher today, love to all, & thanks to John and Saskia for our very useful timer! It has so many useful functions and it�s used every day. xoxo
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