Here we are in lovely Petersen Bay . The main feature is a “blue hole” up a river. We went yesterday to experience it and it was great. The river and the hole have white sand bottom and the hole itself gives a blue glow that is quite lovely. It was amazing to swim in like a pool but with no chlorine. We took Jonah and Marisa (from the boat “Tevakanui”) and they had a great time. There was much laughing and pushing people in. The water was very cool and gave one quite a shock apon entry. There was a vine the kids swung on and it was a bit of paradise.  

Jonah has been having a good time with Marisa and the little boys off the boat “Kaya”.  I doubt we will be seeing a lot of kid boats for a while and so it was fun. We are headed for Hog Harbor next and the legendary Champagne Beach . It is one of those places they put on the cover of every article and brochure about Vanuatu . Picture perfect.  

This morning Christy (from Wind Runner) and Marlee (from Green Nomad) went to the small island that has a resort on it to talk to the owners about marking the entrances as they can be tricky particularly the northern entrance. The owners are French and the place looked adorable. We offered to do the work if they had some metal sticks but they seemed uninterested as they have put up markers repeatedly and have them stolen. We chatted pleasantly about things. They complained a great deal (as all ex-pats do) about living here. The conventional wisdom is that the people who come here to work are people who cant make it anywhere else. I think many ex-pats come here because of the lifestyle and are great. But some follow the mold. Unfortunately these French people are clearly losers. The woman kept chatting on and asked us if anyone of us had picnic-ed on the other side of the island. No we said and we vouched for a bunch of boats as we were all together yesterday. She said she had taken the names of all the yachts and was considering giving them into Immigration. Christy nicely told her not to paint everyone with the same brush. I mentioned briefly maybe it was someone in the outer anchorage as the other side of the island is more accessible from that anchorage. The French lady responded that all those people had come in to eat at the restaurant and it couldn’t be any of them which was pretty much an accusation that it was one of us. I told her in a firm voice just because I hadn’t come into eat doesn’t mean I would leave trash. She told me not to shout at her and I told my friends I would wait on the beach as I thought she was rude. It is ironic as I had been thinking that I would try to talk Jordan into going out to eat tonight but of course now I wouldn’t. I guess I am too much of “East coast” mentality to put up with people being rude. Of course, we tell people about the rudeness and I hope Yachties don’t go there. I have noticed a disturbing trend about some of these small resorts the yachts park in front of and patronize. The Yachties are treated somewhat like second class citizens. I think it is envy. They are more polite to the boorish tourists (or  in for a week visit then to the Yachties. Very odd. All paradises have a underbelly.