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Vanuatu 2008
Vanuatu 2008
It’s been nine years since I’ve spent a night at sea in my kayak. In 1999, Franz and I endured a total of nine overnights in the frigid waters of the Kuril Islands in our WindRiders. I’ve been missing the void, emptiness of space and thought, the quiet niggling fear, the exhilaration of the smallest boats in the biggest oceans.
Last year, Nina Maclean and I toured the Vanuatu Chain in tropical waters, lined with palm trees, where we traveled among the hospitable, spiritual Melanesian people. This year, Aundrea Tavakkoly and I plan to return to make longer passages to the outer islands, and if all goes well, to cross open water to the Solomon Islands. Our longest crossings, without landfalls, will be 230 miles, about the length of Vancouver Island, from north to south. We will be using Lendal Wing Paddles and gear by Extrasport, Eureka Tents, Zeal Optics and Otterbox. See my sponsors page for details and links. Blog: As customary, this blog and all my blogs read from the bottom (oldest date) to the top (most recent date.) So, if you want to read about the journey in chronological order, scroll down, first.
Jon and the Drug Runners: October 1, 2008
Jon Turk here, at the keyboard: I motored into the city of Port Vila on a drug running boat. I use the term with a chuckle, knowing full well that it evokes an images of a blond, muscled, devil-may care, swashbuckling OUTSIDE MAGAZINE correspondent and I am none of those. I mean, I came in on a boat; I'm sure of that. And I'm equally sure that there were many tons of kava on board, which is a drug after all. But erase the image of a quazillion horsepower cigar boat outrunning the coast guard and shooting down helicopters. Drugs only become truly evil when governments outlaw them. Let me back up. I was cruising around the Banks Islands, thinking about the 125 and 250 mile crossings to the Solomons, and watching the weather, and I began seriously thinking that I might die out there. Oh there's a way to do it, I suppose, but the winds have been coming out of the north east all too frequently for my liking and I'm not aiming for a continent but small, or relatively small islands, it doesn't much matter. From my perspective whether the island is 2 or 20 kilometers in diameter is like the difference between aiming a spaceship to either Jupiter or Pluto. I can't paddle for five days and nights with no sleep, and I've cut my outrigger loose because it makes the boat veer to port all the time. So, I've been seriously worrying about being blown off course. As a result, I decided to bail. But when I asked around when the next ship might show up, to take me back to civilization, the universal response was, "Oh, we don't know." "Well, take a wild guess." "Sometimes it comes three times a year, except in the Torres where it comes once a year." "Great." I found a Ni-Vanuatu pilot who happily inconvenienced a few locals and small group of totally casual and accommodating Peace Corps workers from Mota Lava and we crammed the kayak in the isle of a Twin Otter aircraft, to Santo Island, where I found the kava boat the rest of the way to Port Vila.
Friends and sponsors will inevitably ask how I feel. I've been thinking about the whole issue over the past week, and I'll give a bit of a long-winded answer. I think that all people are driven by desires for three blessings: happiness, intensity, and creativity (which sometimes intermingle but are all different). At the same time we are haunted by the demons of selfishness and ego. For whatever reasons, related somehow to my continued inability to find peace after Chris's death, I haven't managed my desires and demons very well over the past year. I've been distracted. I made fundamental mistakes in planning this expedition. I underestimated this Ocean. I was a little cavalier. When the Ocean doesn't kill you, it is a great healer. Right now, I feel more content, strong, and happy than at any time since Cris's mysterious journey to the Other World. My short time soloing the Ocean Kayak Prowler on the open sea has been a gentle hand on my soul. The night on the long crossing to Gaua was one of the powerful days of my life. I'm alive. I made the right decision. I've got both boats, and I am leaving them here in Port Vila. I'll be back next year and then: Onward to the Solomons!
Exploring the Island: September 27, 2008
Jon has spent the week exploring the island that he crash landed into in the middle of the night last week. The people are very friendly and nobody has tried to eat him. Some locals took him backpacking Vanuatu style which involves grabbing a banana, a liter of water, and a very critical machete, and hiking around in the jungle for a couple of days. The people here live a fairly primitive lifestyle, almost entirely self-sufficient and without having or using money on any kind of regular basis. They do have some metal tools, machetes, iron pots, and a few nails, but there are no stores, no place to trade money for food anywhere on the island.
In almost every village, there is someone who speaks English relatively well. Otherwise there are over 100 native tongues on the 80 islands, and a pigeon dialect called Bislama. Jon says he speaks Bislama much better than he speaks Chinese, and as an example said "me wantem kaikai." which means "I'm hungry." If there are two of you and you are both hungry, you say - "yumi (you and me) wantem kaikai" And people don't get all bummed out if you get the syntax wrong. Jon has decided not to go on a suicide mission by trying to paddle the long crossings solo, and is still considering what to do next. I said - how will you get back to Port Vila? "That's an Interesting Question...." Apparently, Jon has done such a good job of getting to a very remote place, that now there is no way to get out of it. But he says that while most of the people here have never been to Port Vila, there are boats "around" and he will figure something out.
Long Night Out With the Ocean: September 19, 2008
Jon called a day earlier than I expected which should have meant that he was out in the middle of the long crossing. Instead, he had already reached the island of Gaua. I asked what happened, and he replied that trying to sail with the outrigger was like trying to dance with one foot nailed to the floor, so he cut it loose and spent a long night out, paddling the 50 miles in one 17 hour push.
He found his way to shore in the middle of the night, listening to the sound of the surf on the beach and calculating the calmest spot, surfed in and found a little clearing to curl up in. He would take a rest day, he explained, and then consider his options. Of course the original plan was to tie the two boats together to create a stable platform so that at least one person could sleep at a time. Alone out there with the big waves breaking over the hull of the boat makes for a bad night's sleep. He has a few days to think about it as he paddles around Gaua and across to Vanua Lava.
Mid-week Posting: September 18, 2008
 Jon called mid- week to give a heads up on his latest scheme. He has been camping in a little village on the North end of Maewo Island. The whole village got involved in helping him make an outrigger for his kayak and as I write this, he is out there with it, paddling around in the Pacific Ocean. He says that it creates a little drag which slows him down, but he's feeling strong and has been pulling long days already so feels good about spending the next 48 hours out at sea. Because of the strong NE winds, he has adjusted course slightly, planning to head for Gaua (which white people call Santa Maria) Island - farther, but more in line with the wind direction. On my map, Santa Maria island is no bigger than a speck. It measures about 20 km in diameter, has an 800m mountain, four villages, a lake, and no roads. I wish we had a picture to look at, but that will have to wait till later...
... and Onward, Solo: September 14, 2008
 The news this week is that for various reasons, Aundrea has decided not to continue with the journey and his heading back to Port Vila via local transportation. Jon has decided to keep going. He is hoping to get the local people to help him build an outrigger for his kayak to stabilize his craft for the longer crossings. He is currently traveling along the west coast of Pentecost Island and has a few more days of easy travel before the big crossings. The winds have been strong coming from the East and North-East, so he is adjusting his course slightly so that he will be traveling downwind for the long crossings, otherwise, no rest for the wicked, he would be blown too far off course. Meanwhile, the village communities have been wonderful, people are warm and generous. Jon says in one village there was a festival at the church where people were doing their traditional dances and afterward a feast including chicken! I asked him how his spirits were, setting off alone and he says that he's been thinking a lot about his friend Paul Attalla who last year rowed solo across the Atlantic, about his communities in Darby and Fernie, and about Chris who still travels with him in spirit and he is content and happy. Emae, Little Island: September 7, 2008
So it turns out that Jon lied to Aundrea. He told her that the first day when they paddled around Devils point in the big waves would be the hardest day of the trip. HA! They have had a harder day since, and perhaps more to come... Anyway, their travel around the Island of Efate was calm, but the crossing to the little Island of Mataso was stormy. The waves were overhead and there was a crosswind so that they had to fight to stay on course and not miss the island and drift off into the Pacific Ocean.
They made it there and beyond to Emae, and are now that much further away from civilization. Jon says that at any point on the island you can hear the surf crashing on both sides. The food stores are offering increasingly minimal options - they ate spaghetti with pad thai sauce and canned goose for dinner last night. They are both getting sick of manioc, the local staple, though Jon says not as sick of it as he and I got of mutton fat and fermented mare's milk in Kazakhstan. As we talked, Jon searched the horizon for their day's destination. -Aha! there it is, a little tiny speck. This will be a 17 mile day and then they will be moving along fairly large islands for the rest of the week. As they move closer to the equator and deeper into the calm weather season, the wind and waves should be dying down for their big crossings coming up.
Off Into Stormy Seas: September 1, 2008
 After a day and a half in Port Vila getting organized and oriented, Jon and Aundrea set off. Their second day met them with a confused sea, breaking waves and strong wind. As they paddled around Devil's point, Aundrea tumbled in a big wave, capsized, righted, tumbled again. As she was drifting in towards big surf breaking on the rocky shore, Jon paddled back to help. They turned the corner of the point and surfed down the waves of a huge following swell.  Evening greeted them with a calm bay where they were welcomed by rich people in villas who wined and dined them in good style. Not quite out of civilization yet! The next two or three days will get them to the north point of the Island and the beginning of their many crossings on the way to the Solomons.In Port Vila, Vanuatu: August 30, 2008
So far the expedition has been moving along flawlessly. We didn't even gut stuck in traffic in Los Angeles on our way to the airport. Now Aundrea and I are in Port Vila, Vanuatu, our starting point. The immigrations guy who checked us through customs thought that it should be no big deal to paddle to the Solomon Islands. So there. No big deal. The cab driver thought it should be no big deal, either. Joe, the man at the Vanuatu tourism board who is being so helpful wants to join us next year. We rigged our Ocean Kayak Prowler's today and they look great, ready for sea. The plan is to buy food and pack tomorrow and head out Sunday, August 31, from this side of the dateline. Next update will be from Noey, via satellite phone in a few days.
My Partner: Aundrea Tavakkoly
The other day while I was out kayaking with the dolphins, I began to imagine myself in warm tropical waters, and strange new surroundings. Now that our departure date is less than two weeks away, and the preparations nearly finished, all I can think about are the new experiences I'll have. The tests of my physical and mental strength is really interesting to me, but more than that I'm looking forward to getting away from the western world, and into a new culture that I have only read about. Meeting new people, living closer to the land, eating different types of food, and exploring unfamiliar places will effect how I see the world, and I can't help but wonder what I'll learn from this experience, and how I'll feel upon our return.
Our Route
We fly to Port Vila in Vanuatu, pick up our Ocean Kayak Prowlers, and follow the trade winds north and west to the Santa Cruz Islands, where small communities of people live in relative isolation from the rest of the world. It's about 100 miles from the last island in the Vanuatu Chain to the Santa Cruz group, and another 250 miles from the most north westerly of the Santa Cruz to the Solomons. Long way in a kayak.
In California: August 27, 2008
My daughter, Noey Turk, will be updating the blog as Aundrea and I travel. But I still have my fingers on the keyboard. I've been at the organic farm run by Noey, her Step-dad Shu, and Mom (and Grandma), Debby, for the past week. We've had a family reunion with lots of grown-up kids and less than grown-up grandchildren. We've been picking, eating and selling vegetables (and flowers), and playing at the beach. Today is Weds, August 27 and Aundrea and I cut loose and go to the airport this afternoon. OK, time to focus, even get a little scared. My son, Nathan, put the Google map up on the site. So you can follow our progress from the sky. The map below shows downtown Port Vila, Vanuatu, where we will land. Zoom it out and you can see the whole journey.
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