For some weird reason we decided to travel from Santo to Port Vila on a boat – the Island Gateway. We won’t do it again. It’s new service (been running one year) that offers a quick comfortable trip, stopping at a few islands on the way, leaving either Port Vila or Luganville at 7AM arriving at the destination around 4PM. So last Saturday we were up at 4, on the bus at 5, at check-in by the required 6 and all ready to sail at 7 but for some reason the boat didn’t leave until 8:30AM.
From the outside the Island Gateway looks like a slick, fast catamaran, seating about 56 passengers in an air-conditioned cabin, with DVD’s movies played for passenger comfort during the 9 hour trip. Well after 20 minutes I wondered how we were going to survive the 9 hours. The air-conditioning didn’t work and the temporary fans cut out after 10 minutes. The DVD was a Karaoke of those poser English Boy Bands - every song sounding the same. Added to that the sea was rough; within half an hour Viv and the kids had all been sick - some more than once (and most of the passengers). After 2 ½ hours we arrived at the first stop - Malakula - normally a 1hr 15min trip. It was nice to be sheltered and calm for a short time. This also gave people a chance to dry out a little as a few of the many waves that went right over the front of the boat, some of them had sent water into the broken air-conditioning / vent system, pouring water over unsuspecting passengers. We were fortunate that it never happened over our seats.
We then sailed out for the next leg to Epi Island. Within 4 minutes of leaving the boat stopped and just drifted along for about 30 minutes. During this time a crew member jumped overboard helping onboard crew repair the steering, a great confidence builder; not that the trip seemed dangerous, the waves were big but not too big. Anyway, we were off again and within a few minutes back into the rough weather with more waves crashing over the front, more sea sickness. I didn’t get sick but felt rather bad putting the rest of the family through such a bad experience.
We arrived at Epi Island around 4 PM (the time we should have been at Port Vila). During this leg of the journey the sea conditions had deteriorated and after a while four main poles between cabin roof and floor slowly came loose - with the floor of the cabin visibly separating from the boat hull when going over certain big waves. We think this may have caused concern for the crew cos the skipper said we would stay the night at Epi because of bad weather; not wanting to sail in the dark for the last part of the journey. On arriving at Epi the crew cranked up a generator to charge drills and whatnot, getting to work doing a few repairs. We enjoyed the peacefulness of Epi. Later all the crew and passengers were fed at the Epi Secondary School and given accommodation in various rooms or dorms. We slept in the Secondary School guest house - it was great, no rats or cockroaches.
At 2:45AM we were woken and asked to head back along the road to the wharf to get on the boat, at 4AM we sailed out for Port Vila. The sea was a bit calmer with not as many peopel getting sick and finally we arrived in Port Vila around 8:30AM. So the 9 hour trip took 24 hours. The stop at Epi sort of made the trip worthwhile - but next time……..........we’ll fly!
Our stay at Port Vila was great. One day we went right around the Efate Island, visiting a few Talua students in their own villages. We could buy any food we wanted in the supermarkets - stuff we haven’t eaten all year. Perhaps best thing was the accommodation. We stayed in an SIL house; we had power, hot water, ceiling fans and plenty of space. A real blessing!
No comments:
Post a Comment