The sea had. hardly a ripple on it when we rose this morning. As we had breakfast on the deck we could see the sun breaking through the clouds. We hauled anchor and motored west back to Malakula. As we left Ambrym the wind came at us at 25kts and stayed for most of the trip. This gave us a great 7 to 8kts sail. We turned into Banam Bay and anchored. Two local ladies fishing in their canoe, came over and greated us and pointed to their village. After we had lunch we launched the dinghy and rowed to the nearest land. As we walked along the sandy shore we found groups of hermit crabs dinning on fallen coconuts. We came across a village hidden behind the coconut palms and ventured in. The half a dozen huts had no visable damage from the cyclones. The lady there got her two daughters to guide us through the bush to the main part of the village. This also had no damage, they told us their veggie garden did get hit. We were guided through the village by the chiefs son and about 20 kids. I’m not sure if the kids were more interested in the lollies we were handing out or the photos Emma was taking. We were shown the church where they all took shelter during the cyclones. The village churches here are all made of concrete. I had seen there village cow was tied up by a warn out rope, so I asked if they would like me to bring a good rope for the cow. They said yes and then they gave us some more pompleoss and are going to bring some bananas tomorrow. They have to trade, it’s offensive to give gifts without a trade.
Later this afternoon we ventured on to the next village. A village I had been to in 2019. Armed with more lollies it wasn’t long before we had an entourage of kids escorting us through the village. We went and met the chief who said we could wander around. As we did so we could see this village could do with some of the clothes and things donated by K-Mart NZ. So we will be back ashore tomorrow with some goodies. Our entourage with their beaming smiles kept hooting at Emma and touching her owl tattoo. They lead us back to our dinghy and put it in the water for us. They continued playing on the beach as we rowed back to Imagine.
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