(Another rare current post from Cyndi)
As I begin to write this post, it’s late in December (2017) and we’re sailing south from New Caledonia to arrive in New Zealand after Christmas. Yes, it’s late in the season, but this year’s La Nina conditions have made it much harder to find a suitable weather window for the trip.
Our 2017 year began in Gippsland Lakes, Australia, then included a circumnavigation of Tasmania before we returned to Sydney. From there we cruised to Lord Howe Island, Middleton Reef, and New Caledonia where we spent time time taking a much-needed rest after months of constant cruising. Once we got our energy back, we sailed to Vanuatu and we spent a few months exploring that beautiful place.
I’ve written posts about all these places except Vanuatu; so here’s a brief overview of our time there, much of which we spent cruising alongside our friends on the sailing yacht Bravo:
Two Cindys! (In reality, “Cindi” and “Cyndi”)
We on Legacy have made it a policy not to “buddy-boat,” which to us means traveling in tandem with at least one other boat for an extended period of time. We do sometimes travel for shorter periods with another boat (we’ve had lots of wonderful travels with our friends on Bright Angel, for example) but we tend to roll our eyes at some cruising boats who just can’t go anywhere without each other, traveling in twos, threes, or–don’t get me started–rallies.
And so when we met up with our friends Adam and Cindi on Bravo at Aneityum Island, Vanuatu, it was meant to be a nice reunion. As it turned out, though, we were headed north at the same time and planned to do many of the same things. And so began our season of “not buddy boating” with Bravo in Vanuatu.
We didn’t plan to do so much of the island chain together; it just sort of happened. Because we weren’t tied at the hip, we became a great team, often able to scout things out and book each other into activities (dive trips, cultural shows, restaurants, kava drinking, nice people to meet and other boaters to look out for–Mr. Anchor On Top of Everyone, you know who you are!–etc.) We shared things we learned, commiserated on inevitable boat snafus, and of course spent a lot of social time together having meals, sundowners, etc.
I have no doubt that other boats saw us as buddy boating. When I explained to a mutual friend that we weren’t buddy boating per se but more traveling alongside each other, he asked what the difference was. I thought about it for a second and realized the answer: If one boat felt like going off to do something completely different on a whim, while we’d certainly inform each other, there wouldn’t need to be a summit meeting about it. Feel like leaving tomorrow and going in a completely different direction? Cool, let us know what you find out there! No one was on a leash (if ever there were two boats who would not tolerate a leash, it would be Bravo and Legacy). In fact, we actually made our travel decisions independently, only to get together and find out we’d made the same decisions. Good thing we get along very well!
One of the things I really enjoyed was going ashore as a foursome and introducing ourselves to the locals. We’d say our names: Adam, Rich, Cindi and Cyndi, and we’d always get the same response: a surprised and amazed look and the phrase, “two Cindys!” said with a sort of awe, much like if one heard about the discovery of a live Tasmanian Tiger (most likely extinct since 1936), and not just one but two. Imagine how you’d say Two Tasmanian Tigers! That’s how people would say it: “Two Cindys!”
Now Cindy is not a common name in Vanuatu, but we’d sometimes get this reaction even from the Aussies. It was funny to us, but I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed it until we had gone our separate ways. Bravo was going to Australia and had less time in Vanuatu, opting to do the northeast islands while we headed to the far north Banks Islands before doing the same.
Traveling without them, I immediately noticed the difference when we introduced ourselves to locals. I was just Cyndi again, no longer part of the magical “Two Cindys” phenomenon. It felt sad, like I was once a unicorn but now was just a regular horse.
And so, now solo, we traveled down the east side of Vanuatu, completing a kind of circle back to Port Vila before heading to New Caledonia. The Vanuatu verdict? We loved it, but I had one big problem with it.
For me, Vanuatu is a beautiful and dramatic place, definitely going up there into the favorites category. For Rich it’s more: he’s found his locational equivalent of a soulmate. Thus, he’s dreaming about getting a little place there someday and is anxious to get back for more visits. I love it and am looking forward to returning, but there are many other places I want to go. Meanwhile, if not for the summer heat and cyclones, I might have trouble getting Rich out of there at all. Below, a few photos to show how Vanuatu ticks all the boxes:
Agreeable Cities
Beautiful Anchorages
Blue Holes
Dramatic Natural Phenomena
Dugongs and Turtles
Exotic Islands
Friendly Locals
Garden-of-Eden Villages
Gorgeous Scenery
Great Food
Magnificent Beaches
Nifty Resorts
Rich Cultural Traditions
Adventurous River Rides
Waterfalls
Stunning Sunsets
Waterfront Restaurants
World-Class Snorkeling and Diving
After Vanuatu, we finished the season by returning to New Caledonia before heading back to New Zealand in time to celebrate the New year.
Here, a summary of that time:
As we left Vanuatu, I worried about our next destination: New Caledonia. We have loved it there, but our previous visit was spent recovering from travel burnout, and Vanuatu is a very hard act to follow.
Thankfully, New Caledonia didn’t fall under Vanuatu’s shadow. We returned, and it felt great to be back. New Caledonia and Vanuatu are so different that you can’t really compare one to the other–it’s the apples-and-oranges thing. And even though we’d come to the end of a long cruising season, we felt pretty energetic and managed to visit some of the places we’d yet to see in New Caledonia’s lagoon.
And for some reason, even with so many people around us anxious to get a weather window to New Zealand, we didn’t feel the same pressure. We, too, we were waiting for a window, but when they’d end up not being satisfactory; we’d happily go out to do some local cruising. We were waiting on the arrival of our new chartplotters from Simrad, and the weather was (with the exception of a couple of days) comfortably warm and not too hot. With nice weather, so many places yet to see, such great food, both eatery-wise and market wise, why would we want to leave? Well, cyclone season was arriving, but it was still early enough we didn’t feel too pressured.
Finally in December we did get our weather window, but even as we passed Amedee Island (near our exit out of New Caledonia’s lagoon), I found myself wishing it were May and we were just arriving instead of leaving. It’s surprising to feel this way after such a long season–it seems somewhere along the way my tired soul revived. Rich was feeling good, but he was (and is) very ready to take a break from boating for a few months. New Zealand, hopefully, will provide this break.
Now, as I finish this post, we celebrated Christmas at sea then spent New Year’s eve in Opua. Champagne glasses filled, we made a toast to 2017 and felt a moment of silence filled with gratitude and wonder at the gifts this year brought, including mainland Australia and Tasmania, Lord Howe Island, Middleton Reef, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, New Caledonia yet again, and finally New Zealand.
What an amazing year it has been, a standout year in a series of pretty good years. We can only hope that 2018 can be even partly as special. –Cyndi
