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Mystery Island is a little sand spit in the lagoon that we anchored in at Anatom. The island is haunted—or so the locals believe—and this makes it uninhabitable for any ni-Vanuatu. The interesting thing is that they don’t mind going over there for the day to sell cheap “made in China” trinkets to cruise ship tourists. They get a lot of opportunities to do this too as a cruise ship pulls in every 3-5 days (in season) to barf out a few thousand pink gaudily dressed tchotchke-hungry consumers. As a result the island has been “developed” into a kind of Survivoresqe theme park, part tasteful thatch shelter, part gauche photo-op, but all very interesting if you happen to go over there when the show isn’t on. ...

We’ve visited four of Vanuatu’s beautiful islands. We’re now in Port Vila experiencing the touristy city life, with ridiculous cover bands playing loudly on the harbor’s edge, gift shops filled with Chinese made souvenirs, and inappropriately dressed tourist girls. While I love our access to the waterfront showers, the delicious juice bar, and the amazing produce market, this is a scene that could be experienced in any country. Where we’ve come from in Anelcauhat, Aneityum and Port Resolution, Tanna, is another world, a world I’m so grateful to have seen. ...

Back in July of 2011 I wrote a pretty geeky post about adding grib files to iNavx by first jailbreaking your iPad and then doing a series of complicated steps to get the gribs from Airmail (or wherever you download them from) to the iPad. I’m here to say that with newer versions of iOS (5+) there is an easier way. First I should explain why this is a concern. If you are bluewater cruising, chances are you will not be able to use iNavX’s built in GRIB downloader. This means that you will have to download them through Airmail, zygrib, Ocens, mailasail, or what have you. These programs all have decent grib viewers but it is sometimes nice to overlay these on your charts. Enter the solution. ...

We are in Tanna Vanuatu. Last night we drove on a dirt road that was cut through a rain forest. It was just unbelievable that they could make a road at all here , and it certainly required 4 wheel drive. Krister and I stood in the bed of the pickup with Olive and Ruby standing between our arms, staring up over the hood as it deftly negotiated lava rock, mud and volcanic dirt, up and over impossible hills all the way to our destination. ...

Here is a post that we really wanted to get up in Tonga but the slow internet stalled it out. We have been really fortunate to get a few very special places to ourselves on this trip. The island of Kenutu is located on the other side of a tricky pass and we happened to get in just before a low pressure weather system rolled through. The net result was that we had the whole island to ourselves (with our good friends on s/v Tao) for almost a week. I think the pictures will tell the story best.

This week we had a wonderful opportunity to reflect on our first year of cruising. A mother on a group that we belong to asked for suggestions for a reluctant soon-to-be-cruising 7 year old. We mentioned it to Ru and asked if she would like to write a letter to this girl and she jumped at the chance. Here’s what she said: Hi My name is Ruby. I am 8 years old and have been cruising for a year. I left from San Francisco a year ago today with my mom and dad and little brother. I heard that you might be a little worried about cruising and I want to let you know that it is really awesome. ...

As we made our way across the Pacific we were perpetually asking “can we spend a little more time here?” After ~10 years of putting off today’s desires in favor of tomorrow’s dream it was finally time to say “Yes, why not!” The down side to this was that we knew that every extra day we spent in today’s paradise would be borrowed from tomorrow’s. You can only defer for so long before the cyclone threat starts making your choices for you. ...

One of the things that our kids miss while cruising are typical stateside milestones like the First Day of School. Where I grew up the first day of school was the day after Labor Day, which happens on the first Monday of September. Five year olds begin kindergarten, and while Olive doesn’t turn five for another couple of weeks, she would be a kindergartener now. We were lucky enough to send our kids to the General Primary School in Matamaka Village for their first day last week! ...

When I heard Zinnia was planning to move to Penrhyn I thought to myself, her mother may never see her again. And I thought that my children may end up moving to a place somewhere in the world, a place so remote that Lonely Planet only has five sentences to say about it.

The Tropicana has become our hangout. It’s got good espresso, Internet, courtesy flags, a gluten free sensitized owner and is very cruiser friendly. Add to that the fact that Lisa(the owner) is our goto girl for local information and you start to see why we stop in every time we walk down the street. So yesterday we were walking down the street, the kids were doing well, and we had a few hours to kill before the laundry would be ready (or so we thought). I realized that it was high past time to get that haircut I had been talking about for the last 6 months. Knowing that Lisa would be able to point me in the right direction, I popped my head in and asked the question. “…the guy in the back is a barber,” she answered, turning back to her bookkeeping. ...

The aluminum tour boat pulled along side Convivia at nine am on a cool wet morning. It was the first gloomy day in 5 days and we wished we could change our reservation. Unfortunately we had put our money down and were committed. As the drizzle pelted our eyes the Operator (guide) gave us the spiel and implored us to help keep a lookout for whales. I got the kids settled and poked my head out into the spray to keep watch. I was struck by how fast we were moving. The boat’s 20 knots could have been 100. After moving no faster than 9 knots for weeks, it felt like we were flying. Soon we saw our first spout and doubled back to take a closer look. ...

I should have known that I would eat my words… We left Samoa this morning under a bright blue sun filled sky. The wind was fresh enough to move us along nicely and so we decided to go between Upolu and Savai’i (the two main Islands of Samoa) on our way to Tonga. As we rounded Upolu and started South I said to Vick “Shoot, I think we may have missed out by not going inland a bit.” It’s true, I’m sure. I can only justify so much with the tired “we had so much work to get done” line. In retrospect though we did end up loving Samoa in spite of some of it’s odd officials. We had one of the absolute best meals we have ever eaten (Vick compared it favorably to the Slanted Door, our old favorite) at Tatua Bistro in Apia. Our friends Mark and Jenny on Condessa took care of the kids for the night so we could have a downright sinfully slow meal. Great food, perfect service and personal attention from the owner (when he found out I was GF and wanted to make sure everything was prepared safely for me) made it a night to remember. ...

When I visit a new country I tend to see all the ways in which its culture is different first. A week or so into my visit the similarities with my native culture overtake the differences and I am overwhelmed (for a time anyway) by the beauty of our world’s diversity. Here on Samoa (pronounced Sa’ moa) I have yet to move fully into the second stage. Every time I feel like I am close, something alien is revealed to me that sets me back to seeing the differences. This (two) island nation is gorgeous. Its people are, by and large, incredibly outgoing and proud of their heritage, and they share a (second) language. I had expected this (amongst other things) to make it easy for me to fit in and feel welcome here. Not so much. ...