sailing maloo: dreaming of the god of fire

i fell asleep last night...or was it last week?

and i had the strangest of all dreams: i was walking up a hill so barren that no plant even dared to spread roots on it for it was the home of the god of fire.

and as i walked up i was brought back through time...10 years, a 100 years...maybe a many thousand years - to a time before planes flew through the air or music came out of little boxes, a time before running errands in the rain...a time before time.

and as i reached the top, i suddenly heard a loud voice shouting, screaming from a place so deep down, it sounded like the center of all things - a deep roar. even though i listened hard i could not understand what it said. that made the voice very angry. it threw rocks of fire at me with such a power that i all of a sudden understood my own insignificance, felt it with every bone in my shaken body, with every and each of my senses that i had no control.

and as i saw there was nowhere to go, no where to hide, i understood that i was defeated - nothing i would or could do would contain this force calling out to me. none of men's inventions would ever rise up to compete - as all that men could ever do was to destroy, where as this voice would forever create.

and so i took a deep breath, went a step closer to the abyss and smiled at the voice.

a lot of smoke and ash gently came from the deep as if to show me that my submission was accepted. and as if to reward me for my learning the god of fire rose from the center of all things and warmed me with his intimidatingly beautiful face, letting his firebirds fly through the air and show me, that he would make a new place which one day i could call home.

i closed my eyes and still could see his light until all of a sudden i found myself in a little village in the middle of a forest.

little huts made out of palm leaves were spread all over the place surrounded by flowers and gardens filled with wonderful fruits and vegetables. and in these huts lived people with the biggest smiles and the warmest eyes inviting me to spend some time with them. they gave me to eat and to drink from their gardens, they let me sit in the shade of their huts and showed me how to weave baskets from leaves. they laughed with me and also at me for being so far away from what is the soil under our feet, the sun on our skins...the one home we all have in common.

and even though i should have felt ashamed for knowing so little - though i once thought i knew so much, they gave me their hands so i would feel no shame, and told me not to worry, as i was now back to learn again.

as the guys were playing soccer and the girls played volleyball, the pigs, the chicken and the dogs came to sit and watch with me while the sun slowly went to sleep and the darkest night i ever saw set upon us.

and as the laughs went quiet and the birds went to sleep i put my head down to rest on the soft pandanus mats and i could not help but to smile the most sincere smile my face had ever shown, feeling utterly happy and content, humbled and grateful for being allowed to be.

and with this smile i woke up as i found myself out at sea not knowing how long i had slept for.

afterword:

we set off from vuda point in fiji on what was the worst trip, mark and i ever had.

in the first 24h we suffered from a bad bad bout of seasickness. funny enough, all the yachts we spoke to afterwards, who travelled roughly at the same time - without any exception - suffered form sea sickness. i wonder if it had to do with a strange wave frequency.

in the first night out we almost got run over by either a fishing boat or a coast guard ship - i would not be able to tell. i followed their course on the radar, which seemed to go parallel to ours but in the other direction 6,5nm before i could see them. my prediction was that we would pass starboard to starboard with just under 1nm between us. to make sure they would know we are out there i called them on the vhf about 10 times without success. as they were traveling without an AIS signal i could not call them by name....i am pretty sure though they knew i meant to reach them. as they were supposed to pass they turned and went straight for us. just as i was sure we would lose maloo, they turned behind us and missed us by 20 meters. after a bit of distance to the event, i do suspect that the crew was having a bit of fun scaring the living hell out of us.

but the night went by and the seasickness got better. in the second night, the snap shackle on the top of our headsail broke. as a result the genoa fell into the water and was dragged under the boat. of course it was 1.00am and the wind had just freshened up - to add worse to bad. it took us about 1,5h to get the sail back on the boat. luckily we managed to keep it whole without tears which is a little miracle in itself. we lashed it down and continued with the main and the engine.

as the sea conditions were too rough to go up the mast and get down the halyard, that was all we could do.

in the face of all drama though, we were very lucky not to get hurt and to keep the sail whole. i am a little proud of mark and myself as we handled the situation well.

and on the up side, we now have a blue headsail dyed with antifouling from our hull....and an immaculate clean underwater boat without any signs of growth ;)

and to have the first small problem after 17.000nm of sailing without issues is amazing.

after three nights we arrived in port resolution on Tanna.

Tanna is the most magical place we have been to on our trip so far, not only because we went up mount yasur, the home of the god of fire. yasur is one of the most active volcanos in the world and nowhere else is it possible to get that close to the "action". a humbling, scary, wonderful experience.

the villages on tanna are some of the most traditional or "kastom" - as the locals call it in pidgin english - you can visit in the whole of the south pacific. people decided to ignore the many missionaries and instead go back to their roots.

some villages are a bit more open to the western way of life, having found a way of implementing and coexisting our western lifetyle with their own traditions.

Tanna is also home of the "cargo cult" called "john frum" - wikipedia gives a well written explanation on that one...

we spent all in all 5 days on Tanna in Port Resolution and then moved on to New Caledonia. a fortunately again very uneventful 2nighter brought us to the last country before arriving in Australia.

almost there!