Malakula Island, Vanuatu (Aug/Sep 2012)

Malakula Island

We hopped, skipped and jumped down the west coast of Malakula (leeside) with stops at Malua Bay, Lumbumbu Bay and Southwest Bay.

We anchored two nights at Malua Bay, home to a Seventh Day of Adventist school and two villages.  Many villagers came by the boat in their dugout outrigger canoes wanting to trade vegetables for items such as rope, batteries, bed sheets, medicine, clothing and school supplies.  We were also able to get a couple of coconut crabs for about 500 vatu each.  In these islands that depend on a subsistence lifestyle of growing vegetables, fishing and hunting for bats, bartering is such a way of life, that money doesn’t do much good – the locals rather trade for items that they need.

We visited Terry, the school principal, in his lovely home with an awesome vegetable garden.  He was a very nice young man with a wife and five year old daughter who presented a lovely bouquet of flowers to us.  Both Terry and his wife are from nearby villages but on opposite sides of the river marking an age old river boundary dispute.  He and his family told us that cannibalism existed in these villages until the early 1900’s.  The two villages fought over the boundary marked by the river and the losers of the boundary disputes ended up in the pot for dinner!  Fortunately, the missionaries put an end to this practice.

We saw parrots fly over the boat so naturally I asked if there were any parrots on the island.  The villagers misunderstood my query and brought us a parrot trapped in a cage. What a shock to see that poor captured bird.  I profusely apologized for the misunderstanding and asked that the parrot be returned to its natural habitat.

We sailed from Malua Bay to Lumbumbu Bay and stayed only one night.  This was an easy five hour trip from Malua Bay and a nice stop-over anchorage enroute to Southwest Bay.  We didn’t even get off the boat and took off early the next morning for Southwest Bay.

Again this was another quick four hour passage from Lumbumbu Bay to Southwest Bay.  It was nice arriving at noon so we had enough time for a quick visit to Lembinwen village with a personal tour of the village by Jolie, the chief.  Jolie shared that this had been a very traditional village prior to “westernization” by the missionaries and US military in WWII.  Prior to then, the men lived in separate quarters from the women and they had had separate paths for the men and the women.

The next morning we kayaked to Tisri lagoon – this lagoon was rich with bird life, including the pelican and kingfisher.  We loved watching the villagers paddle up the lagoon to their gardens in their traditional dugout canoes – such a different world from ours.

This village was yet another example of the true South Pacific that we really hadn’t experienced prior to sailing to Vanuatu – complete with thatched roof huts and of course dugout outrigger canoes – no cars, TVs, stores, electricity, water, computers, gas stations – all subsistence lifestyle.  But this lifestyle is slowing changing – there’s a digicel tower on top of the hill for the villagers’ cell phones and the locals now wear western style clothes.  At least we’re still able to see some of the true South Pacific that we hadn’t experienced until Vanuatu.  Who knows how long before this all changes!