Vanuatu – Rowing to Port Vila in 1985

I remember rowing into Port Vila harbour in late June of 1985. Curt and I were on our last leg of the South Pacific row.

It had been a long row of 3 weeks from Tutuila Island, American Samoa. It was only by chance that one of us woke up in time, in the wee hours of the morning to  the sound of heavy surf breaking outside of the starboard port window of our 25 foot rowboat. In a panic, I stuck my head out the cabin door and there was land!  We hadn’t expected to see Efate island so close.  Curt’s navigation with the sextant was so accurate that we had almost arrived directly on the sand beaches of the island.

For the next 5 hours we rowed along the south west coastline to reach Port Vila. Inside the large and well protected harbour were a couple of Australian booze boats cruising back and forth while blaring loud music and loudspeaker adverts for 4 Castle beer. After 3 weeks at sea, it was all a bit overwhelming.

We dropped anchor not too away from the Greenpeace ship “Rainbow Warrior” who later went on to New Zealand where they were sunk by France for their anti-nuclear testing protests in the South Pacific. We spent a week in Port Vila resupplying the rowboat and making new friends before the final push to Cairns, Australia where we completed the row over 1 year after beginning in Callao, Peru.

I will never forget the extreme kindness and generosity of the Vanuatu people in our short time at anchor.