Just Posted: Tanna and the Volcano

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Volcano

As we stood on the rim of Yasur, the volcano on Tanna Island in Vanuatu, Yasur decided to shake us out of our complacency. Somewhere deep under the three steaming vents on the crater floor, three hundred yards from where we stood, an explosion occurred....

In 2002 we sailed to Tanna Island to meet the volcano which lives there. it was an exciting visit.

Click here to read the 2002 story about Tanna and the Volcano

Fred & Judy, Bangkok

October 4, 2002-Playing in The Surf

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The Surf at Lanakal

A beautiful surf pounding on the reef just outside the anchorage at Lanakal called to me that day and it still does even after the disaster.

Maybe it is what draws surfers: the blue sky, the blue ocean, the swells rising to form a wave, then the wave becoming a wall, then the wall curling over and breaking onto the reef in a pounding white fury of foaming thunder. And behind this breaker another swell rises, into an even higher blue wall. It is endless.

I couldn't keep my eyes off of them when we were anchored there and one day when I was in the dingy alone I felt compelled to motor in the direction of these beautiful waves.

I don’t know why; they just pulled me.

Maybe I just meant to go closer; to get a feel of the power by being near to its thunder.

There was a safe place where the reef ended and the breakers stopped. It was calm there and I stopped the dingy and watched. Then I wanted to feel the rise of the swell. I moved forward a little. Can you predict what happened? A big wave formed, and I was inside it, in its path, it was close and it turned into a wall. No time to turn and run, I hesitated, should I go straight over it? The hesitation was a mistake. I was sideways to it when it reached me, and then I saw it curl and begin to break. And that breaking curl flipped me as neatly as a surgical procedure. No drama, no splashing; just a quick toss and I was upside down.

The curl of the wave, the pouring white water, threw me and my dingy over in an instant. The next thing I knew I was swimming and the dingy was upside down about 50 feet away. I looked behind me to see if any more waves were coming. No…good! I looked back to the dingy and I expected to see the propeller sticking up into the air, but I couldn't see it. Right then I was just worried about the boat and the motor and getting it all right again. I reached the dingy quickly, the motor was there, just tilted, but it had been submerged of course. I righted the dingy, motor and all, like a Hobie sailor by pulling on a line from one side while standing on the other. It was all intact except one oar, which I saw floating in the surf. I decide to leave the boat and swim to retrieve the oar, which I did, but in the meanwhile the dingy started to drift downwind and then I got about thirty minutes of good but fruitless exercise trying to catch up to it, pushing my oar ahead of me, and finally tucking the end of the oar in my pants to keep it under me, thankful for its meager but welcome support as I grew tired and started thinking about how I'd like some help.

As I was swimming Judy noticed my plight: I could see her standing on Wings shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun, trying to see what I was up to. Soon she had started the motor and was pulling up the anchor. I wanted her to hurry. Meanwhile some local youths had also noticed and they swam out from the shore to the dingy and then paddled it to where I was feebly swimming. Ten minutes later we were all back on Wings and re-anchoring, and I was squirming under Judy's angry glare. But she was right, it was dumb, and I swear, I'll never play in the surf again, at least not with the dingy.

Lanakal, Vanauatu

Lanakal
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On the west side of the island of Tanna in Vanuatu in the South Pacific there is a small village called Lanakal. When we came to Tanna we had to check in at Lanakal. Some boats anchor at Port Resolution on the east side of Tanna and come over by truck, but that costs and we were cheap.

So we anhored at Lanakal and walked to the customs office.

Tying up the Copra Boat
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There wasn’t much at Lanakal; a few houses and a few Vanuatu people around. But there is a pier build by the Japanese as a gift to Tanna and a copra boat comes to Lanakal. I wandered down to the pier to for a look. Otherwise we didn’t do much at Lanakal, except go for a little fun in the surf.

Click here for a few more photos

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Lanakal, Vanuatu

September 23, 2002-TANNA AND THE VOLCANO

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Tanna and the Volcano

As we stood on the rim of Yasur, the volcano on Tanna Island in Vanuatu, casually pondering the smoking crater floor Yasur decided to shake us out of our complacency. Somewhere deep under the three steaming vents on the crater floor, three hundred yards from where we stood, an explosion occurred. It shook the earth and it roared. Its shock wave hit us in the chest and we felt it in our insides. We wanted to run away, but we could not move quickly enough. Then results of this explosion roared out of the vents and into the sky in front of our eyes: giant spouts of hot gases and molten lava shooting high over our heads, then lazily floating down onto the sides of the volcano and landing with clearly audible thuds. We were stunned.

This was more than we’d bargained for, but this was Tanna Island.

Two days before this we’d arrived on our sailboat Wings in Port Resolution, on Tanna Island’s east side, its most protected anchorage. But we had not sailed here for a good anchorage: we’d come to see the volcano. The day we arrived we were aware of the volcano’s presence just over the hill; it was making sounds. A cruiser from another yacht in the anchorage came over to welcome us. She said, “Yes, that’s Yassur, its very exciting." We looked at each other. Yes, this was going to be exciting. We just didn’t know how exciting.

Click here to see more photos from Port Resolution and Tanna Island.

The next day the volcano was talking loudly all day, as the natives say, with a voice that started like the rumble of surf, then grew to a roar like a jetliner on take-off, and then smoke and ash would roil up into sight over the hill next to the bay. In five seconds it was over, nothing left but a fading mushroom cloud. The word reached the village, and they passed it on to the cruisers anchored around the bay, that the geologists in Vila had raised the volcano’s activity level to four, and maybe it wasn’t a safe day to climb to the top and peer over the rim into the crater. We quietly cancelled our plans to do just that; we’d go on another day when the level was slightly lower.

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Looming volcano

Meanwhile, even without the volcano’s ominous presence, Port Resolution had an air of primordial about it. On the hillside above the anchorage steam rose lazily from vents in the jungle, and around the bay there were cracks in the rocks where boiling water shot out like from an over-filled tea pot. On the beach local people were cooking vegetables in natural pools and further down towards the water’s edge, where it is cool enough, they were doing their laundry.

Port Resolution is remote and life here is primitive for the villages in the area, but this might be changing. The Vanuatu government now allows yachts to check into or out of Tanna, making Port Resolution an easier place to visit. Before, when formalities had to occur in Port Vila, it was a tough beat to weather to get here, and only the hardy came. Now there are boats coming and going every day. The villages have been quick to capitalize on the new opportunities that all of the visiting yachts present. One thing they do is organize tours to the volcano.

When, a couple of days later, the volcano had quieted down from its previous level, we asked at the village if a visit that night was possible. They said it was. At 5:00 PM a beefy 4WD Mitsubishi pick-up arrived for us and seven yachties piled into the back for an expedition. After a stop to pay for admittance to the area to a village near the volcano’s base, the driver shifted to 4WD low and ground up the hill to the ash field where he parked. “You walk from here”, he said, “too dangerous for me.” We looked up at the rim of the volcano. It seemed quiet, but maybe he knew something that we didn’t. With some trepidation we got out of the truck and started to walk up the hill over the same kind of black sand found on beaches all over Vanuatu. It was a short climb up and then we were on the rim of the crater of the volcano. We were just standing there when the eruption occurred.

After that first eruption some of those watching quietly returned to the truck where the driver and our “guide” waited. The rest couldn’t get enough, watching spellbound as the volcano roared again and again. Hot lava soared skyward and fell on the rim east of where we stood. Some of these molten rocks were as big and garbage cans and they made the ground shake and the sand hiss when they landed, but they were landing well clear of the watching cruisers, so people stayed where they were a little longer before the last of us finally wandered back down to the waiting truck, and piled in for the return trip to the shore of Port Resolution and back to our boats, our minds filled with images of fireworks better than any fourth of July, and memories which we will be a long time forgetting. The adventure on the rim Yassur, on Tanna Island, was really a highlight of our cruise in the South Pacific.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Tanna

Click here to see more photos from Port Resolution and Tanna Island