OK ESN:0-7402902

Fra de seilende:
Egil og Øyvind seiler avgårde og har det bra!
Egil and Øyvind are sailing happily along and are OK
ESN:0-7402902
Latitude:-11.6075
Longitude:169.8449
Nearest Location:not known
Distance:not known
Time:06/25/2009 07:28:01 (GMT)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-11.6075,169.8449&ie=UTF8

The rise, fall, and resurrection of the inflatable sailing dinghy

We don't know much about the earlier days of our bright yellow sailing wonder. We suspect it was probably 10+ years old, and that it must have been a brilliant boat when it was new. Both color- and quality-wise. It had a rig to it, so it could actually be sailed. Brilliant if you should need to learn how to sail, for instance if you intend to sail home to the other side of the planet. Consider the «rise» covered now.

As mentioned in earlier blogposts we fought bravely to keep the dinghy alive, and for some time it actually looked like we might prevail. However someone borrowed it for some time and when we found it again only the memories remained of its once superb qualities. No more «Sailing 101; learn how to sail – in an inflatable dinghy that needs re-pumping every 5-15 minutes». Now consider the fall covered.

No, hang on a second! There's something more to the fall:
After some time we were able to secure ourselves a new inflatable from the brilliant NZ net-auction site TradeMe. For 100 $NZ we were the proud new owners of a grey, «new» Avon Redstart, the «Grey Ghost». Probably about the same age as the previous one, but in better condition. There was now absolutely no need to hold on to the sad, sad remains of the Yellow Wonder. We carefully dismantled whatever might be usable, or otherwise come in handy in the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.

All usable parts gently scavenged we could now say our last goodbyes to the yellow wonder in a respectful and honourable little seremony.

As we at this point were still anchored off Whangarei, New Zealand, a lot of things were happening around the boat. We were busy getting ready for the big journey. Despite this Egil found the time to try to somehow fit the sailing rig for the Yellow Wonder onto the new Grey Ghost. I strategically omitted to inform him of the absolute futility of the project due to the new Grey Ghost being half the size of the old Yellow Wonder, a completely different construction and not equipped with any of the gadgets necessary to mount the rig. After all the more hopeless the project, the longer it would keep him off my back and thus allow me time to undisturbed do all the important stuff I was doing at the time, such as... such as... Important Stuff!
However after less than a week (impressively short time considered the projects impossibility!): lo and behold: Egil had succeeded in ressurecting the inflatable sailing dinghy! Hats off!

We have now used the sail-rig for a couple of trips, one quite an extended one. It takes an hour to rig for unexperienced people, but we're aiming to reduce that to about 20 minutes with some more training.

The most amazing thing however is Egil's complete lack of «I told you so» - attitude. I'm not sure if he is aware he has comitted a miracle unsurpassed by anything the world has seen for a couple of thousand years.

VANUATU

We have arrived and checked in. Now: in Vanuatu.

The land of cannibals and bungee-jumping lunatics. No offence, that bungee activity, (which by no means has that bungee-feeling), they’ve got going here is the coolest thing. (And: honestly Im not sure about that cannibalism thing, but it kind of feels right).

In any case, we came on Saturday after some days of seasickness, rough sea, but fairly good speed and winds. Unfortunately, since this country is closed during the weekends, and when we realized there was no chance of reaching here till Friday, we had to wait till Monday for it to open up again. Enjoyed a day of a ever lasting sweating competition and a late night Batman Forever screening.

After 7 hours of desperately trying to reach customs on our VHF-communication-radio-thing this morning, Oyvind had to paddle ashore and find them (search and destroy). He took their pet-turtle as a hostage, located an ATM, paid them bastards their Vatus and finally we were passport-stamped and ready to hunt for enjoyment.

From Luganville, where we are at the moment: sweating, but feeling good, we head south east along this island of Santo and towards the Banks Islands. From here we check out, in some week’s time I reckon, and take on that little leap over to the Solomon Islands.

If not before that, we hope to see you all at the Solomons.