The last travel log from NOR SIGLAR in this millennium better get out before the Y2K bug explodes Anne's old PC! This year, with its many crazy experiences, both good and bad, will be difficult to condense in a few pages, but we'll give it a try.

When we were back in Vancouver last winter, we saw on TV that a cyclone had hit Fiji. The city next to Vuda Point Marina, where we had left NOR SIGLAR in a hole in the ground, was flooded with over two meters of water in the streets. As you can imagine, we were terribly worried about our dear "floating home". But when we returned in early April, there she was, sitting in her hole, just as if nothing had happened. She was totally dry inside, so dry, in fact, that all the cockroaches had died of thirst!

Since labour is incredibly cheap in Fiji, we decided to do a big refit and a lot of maintenance, incl. raising the water line another 3 inches, painting the whole boat, installing a new fridge, replacing the foam ceiling in the forward cabin, the bulk heads in the stern cabins, etc. etc. Thank goodness, we didn't have to paint the bottom this time around as this was done in Trinidad under a 3 year warranty, compliments Jotun Paint (of Norway). In spite of casual labour being only $2-3 per hour and trades men only $6-10 per hour, we still managed to leave over $10,000 behind! Unfortunately, the infamous "Fiji Factor" reduced the efficiency rate by about 50% - a bit like our experience in Trinidad. At any rate, we left Fiji quite happy with most of the jobs done. Still, we were quite tired and frustrated with all the supervision and delays - and "arse wiping" required!

By now, we (at least I, Martin), had decided to finish our circumnavigation in year 2000 - and to leave the boat in Norway, instead of sailing her all the way back to Vancouver. I was the one who dragged Anne away from her great job and out on this crazy voyage, and now that she has got the taste for it, she could quite happily go on forever! I am the one who is getting a bit tired, and although I still enjoy it most of the time, I am fed up with the increased boat maintenance. This meant that we really had to hoof it this year to make Thailand by Christmas and the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to the Mediterranean during the favourable months from January to April.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to see everything, so we had to make some choices, and we decided to see less of Fiji in order to spend more time in Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Indonesia. We have not been disappointed. But first, before we got out of Fiji, we saw more of it than we liked. We managed to run poor, old NOR SIGLAR up on a coral reef the first day out of the Marina! I guess we had been ashore too long and were not careful enough. So although we knew of the reef, we didn't really concentrate properly on where we were, and then, suddenly: Crunch! Bang! And the next thing we knew, we were right amongst a whole bunch of coral heads. Our hearts sank. But we were lucky. A dive boat from a local resort came to our rescue within minutes and pulled us over on the side with our spinnaker halyard and managed to get us off the reef fairly quickly without any major damage other than to the Skipper's pride. We were lucky to escape so easily. It was a tough but good lesson. It was also a reminder not to leave the harbour on a Friday!

Our first long trip this season - abt. 600 nautical miles from Fiji to Vanuatu went without a hitch, although during the last couple of days, we worried about a half submerged container which was reported to be in the area just ahead of us. It is impossible to see something like that at night, and as you "scream along" at 5-6 knots (!) in the pitch dark, you can't help but think what would happen if you hit something like that.

In Vanuatu, we enjoyed 3 weeks of cruising in the islands of Efate, Epi, Ambryn, Pentecost and Espiritu Santu. We had some wonderful and unique experiences, so Vanuatu really lived up to our expectations. Especially fascinating were visits with the local population away from the major towns, where natives still live a very primitive life in huts made from bamboo, leaves and straw and their main mode of transportation is dug-out canoes with outriggers.

The Vanuatu Islands (New Hebrides) were right in the centre of the heavy fighting in the second world war. There are still lots of remnants to be seen from the war; sunken war ships, fighter planes, old barracks, bits of roads and air strips made of concrete and coral, and not to forget the many odd, tunnel shaped American "Quanset" huts with their ugly, rusty corrugated roofs. These are a real eye sore, but very practical in this cyclone prone areas and still widely in use all over Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. Unfortunately, we were exactly a week late for the famous "land diving" of Pentecost Island. This is where men throw themselves off 20 meter high bamboo scaffolds with their legs tied to long lianas which are so exactly measured, that when the elastic vines tighten, the head stops just a few inches above the ground! At least that is how it is supposed to work. It didn't many years ago during a visit by Queen Elizabeth when a man broke his neck and died. It is on isolated Pentecost Island that the poular bungie jumping sport originated.

Other than beautiful scenery, great snorkelling and interesting visits to primitive villages, we tried to get drunk on Kava, a tranquilizing drink made from the powder of a pepper root. It looks and tastes like dishwater, so we didn't find it very enjoyable. It just made us sleepy and gave us a headache the next day. One of the highlights in the islands was a hike way up into the hills to a remote village where we watched a traditional "kastom" dance. The girls particularly, liked this performance. A group of pretty wild looking young and old men danced in a circle accompanied by a drummer who banged away on an "ating-ating", a carved, slit gong. While stamping their feet, they chanted war songs. It was a sight to behold! The men were stark naked except for a narrow string around the waist which held a "penis wrapper", a woven cloth covering the penis, balls swinging freely below! Unfortunately for the Skipper, there were only men dancing and no bare breasted women. Talking about women, a man who wishes to marry a girl must pay from $500 - 1,500 in cash for her and at least 2 pigs, depending on how rich the family is, how good they are at bargaining and how keen the man is on the girl!

Ambrym Island is famous for their superstition and belief in magic. We traded a bottle of old Pisco Sour from my days in Peru 15 years ago for 3 magic tricks, fruit, vegetables and a kava session. This obsession with magic can be serious as well - a bit like the old "woodoo" in Haiti. The day we arrived in Luganville on Espiritu Santo, two young girls had been killed. They were found with no marks on their bodies, only cracked skulls and a broken leg each. A local couple we got to know quite well, said it was done by a small group of "hill people" who believe in Black Magic. They believe that if they kill and get ahold of another person's organ, they get to possess the dead person's spirit, strength and capabilities. Our friends were scared and didn't want to talk too much about it. The "hill people" are almost like pygmees living such a remote and isolated existence that they are hardly ever seen. Some have apparently never seen a white man. It is not hard to believe that cannibalism was practiced on these islands as late as the 1930's. As in most primitive societies, the white man, through desease, alcohol and "blackbirding" (slave trade), managed to reduce the population in Vanuatu from about half a million around 1800 to a shocking 40,000 in 1920. Not bad, eh?

Despite the recently declared state of emergency in Honiara, the capital of Solomon Islands, we decided to proceed anyway on the advice of radio amateur sailor friends who were already there. They assured us that things were calm in the New Georgia Group and raved about the area. As long as we avoided Guadalcanal and Malaita Islands, the centre of the civil unrest, we should be safe. Anyway, we stayed in daily ham radio contact and received up to date information as we went along. We sailed the 750 nautical mile distance from Vanuatu to Ghizo in 5 days non stop. On the way, we crossed right over a live, submarine volcano, which last erupted in 1965! A bit scary!

In the Solomons, we spent some time in Gizo, a quaint little hicktown that looks like what one would imagine it was like at the turn of the century; dirty and primitive, but friendly, laid back and charming. No sooner had we dropped anchor when a very dark fellow approached us, paddling his tiny dugout with his hands and called out: "Hello! My name is Bill. Have you ever heard of JFK"? Without waiting for an answer he continued: "My grandfather saved his life when his MTB 106 was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer during WWII!" Then Bill held up a beautiful mask, which became our first purchase in Solomon Islands. Imagine having a carving done by the grandson of JFK's saviour.........

While in Gizo, we met a single hander, David on "Onderina", whom we had talked to on the "Mississagua Ham Radio Net" when we were in Panama almost 2 years ago. Due to both the time difference and poor propagation, we had not checked in with the net since then. David said he had got through from Gizo, so we tried that same night - and succeeded! It was very exiting, almost emotional to talk to our friends back in Canada again after so long.

Most of our time in "the Happy Isles", was spent in Marovo Lagoon, one of the "seven natural wonders of the world", according to James Michener. A string of reefs and islands shelter this enormous lagoon which is teeming with marine life. It is incredibly beautiful and is currently being considered for Unesco World Heritage Site status. Besides enjoying the gorgeous, remote anchorages in the lagoon, we went simply wild trading all sorts of things we had onboard (plus money, of course) for the most fantastic wood carvings. The men of Marovo Lagoon are world renowned carvers. Some villages even use mirrors to flash signals to passing boats that carvings are available! We went straight to the village which was best known for its crafts and no sooner had we dropped anchor, when the dugouts arrived alongside.

The carvers create fantastic items, such as "Nguzunguza" canoe figure heads, life like war masks, intricate bowls, model canoes, and a wide variety of artistic sculptures inspired by motives from the sea. They use kerosene wood, rose wood and black and queen ebony inlaid with mother of pearl from the beautiful nautilus shell. Despite the high quality of workmanship and artistic execution, the carvings were very reasonable from our perspective. We especially enjoyed getting rid of a lot of old, and to us worne out clothing, tools, utensils and "stuff" in the trading sessions, which were very entertaining and could last hours. Fortunately, the islanders spoke "pigeon English", so we could communicate which made the experience all the more interesting. The women in the islands are good weavers, and Anne got some beautiful "bukaware" baskets, tightly woven from a stiff type of grass in different shapes and geometric patterns.

Solomon Islanders are wonderful people; helpful, hospitable and happy. Personally, I think the Solomons are today's best kept secret in the South Pacific. It is a land of contrasts and adventure, with jungle clad peaks, mighty volcanoes, uplifted atolls, wonderful lagoons, rain forests and brilliant coral reefs. The people vary from blue black Papuans to chocholate coloured, almost blond Melanesians, bronze-skinned Micronesians and fair Polynesians. The children are among the prettiest we have seen anywhere.

Like the "Ni-Vanuatu", Solomon Islanders were also exploited and killed off by the white man. And like Vanuatu, the Solomons figured centrally and decisively in the South Pacific battles between Japan and USA during WWII. Today, scuba divers from all over the world come to explore the many sunken wrecks, ships and planes which lay strewn on the ocean floor of this pristine area. Since that time, a sad development in the archipelago, is the irreparable logging exploitation done by Japanese and Malaysian timber companies which has almost ruined the magnificient rain forest. They are still cutting 11 times more than the sustainable annual growth. B.C. isn't so bad after all, is it?!!

After Solomon Islands, we had planned to relax away from people for a while, in the large and sheltered lagoons of the Louisiade Archipelago, which belong to Papua New Guinea. But we enjoyed the Solomons so much that time slipped by, so when we finally got away, it was getting late for our August 10 rendez-vous with 6 other boats in Gove, Australia, with whom we had arranged to sail through Indonesia. With the unrest in East Timor, Ambon and many other places there, we thought it adviseable to cruise the area in company with other boats.

The stretch from the Solomons to the first island in the Louisiades, Misima, was one of the toughest in our 8 years of cruising. What should have been a downwind run with the south east trades became a close hauled nightmare bucking into strong headwinds and rough seas, dodging nasty rain squalls most of the time. Even going through the Louisiades turned out to be tough due to very strong currents in the major passes through the reefs. The next leg from the archipelago to the Torres Strait was also very rough but at least we had the wind behind. By the time we entered the strait via Bligh Channel, it felt like the entire Pacific was trying to get rid of us as fast as possible, by shoving us into the channel at a speed of 8 knots! Torres Strait is huge and wide and full of nasty reefs and small coral islands. It is shallow, the greatest depth being around 15-20 meters all the way from Papua New Guinea to Australia. How Captain Bligh and his 16 crew members managed to find their way safely through these treacherous waters without charts or modern navigation instruments is unbelievable. He came 6500 km all the way from Tonga to Timor, the longest ocean voyage ever in an open boat.

After exiting Torres Strait through Prince of Wales Channel, we had beautiful flat seas and good, steady winds all the way accross the Sea of Carpenteria to Gove in the Northern Territory of Australia. Looking back, the Pacific really was not at all that pacific to us. In fact, we had better conditions both times across the Atlantic than we had across the Pacific. So we were glad to be out of it.

After a 10 day R & R (read: rest and reprovisioning) stay in Gove, we left again in the middle of August to spend two full months in Indonesia. For security reasons, we stayed in SSB radio contact with the other 6 boats twice a day and on VHF contact whenever we were close enough. Five days later, we made land fall in Saumlaki, in the famous Spice Islands of the Moluccas in eastern Indonesia. We received a warm welcome and good advice on where we could travel safely, and continued west through the Nusa Tenggara chain of islands between Timor and Bali. On August 30, we actually passed within only 40 nm of Dili on East Timor while they were having their referendum vote of independence there. We were a bit anxious, but their problems did not affect us at all. Cruising can be quite insular at times - fortunately...

Some of the most impressive attractions of Indonesia are found in Nusa Tenggara; Spectacular volcanoes, the highest being over 3900 meters, the unique three coloured volcanic lakes of Keli Mutu, remote mountain villages of Flores with their traditional "ikat" fabric weavers, the dangerous dragons of Komodo, and the native arts and crafts villages of Lombok - we saw it all! We particularly enjoyed the mountain village of Moni with its fantastically colourful Monday market and traditional dance performance. I went wild with the camera and got some great shots for next year's slide show!

The small fishing villages with their prominent golden domed mosques were also interesting as was seeing the 4 meter, 130 kg. giant lizzards, known as Komodo dragons, in the wild. These dragons are extremely blood thirsty. They can eat a whole buffalo in half an hour! They can neither see nor hear too well, but can smell blood far away and like a shark go wild when getting a taste of it. They are known to have attacked and eaten tourists so one is not allowed to walk around without a guide. A woman who is "at that time of the month" should definitely not be around these wild animals if she treasures her life!

The peaceful, yet spectacular villages of central Bali with their beautifully terraced lush and green rice fields and quaint tempels, were among our favourites in all of Indonesia. And a 3-day journey up the Kumai river in Kalimantan (southern Borneo) on a primitive river boat to play with the orangutans was an unforgettable experience. The orangutans are very human-like. The babies are especially charming. Being very affectionate, they like to hang around your neck and walk hand in hand. Of course the real big old males that weigh up to 200 kilos can be very dangerous.

While in Indonesia, we managed to go aground for a second time this year. Again, no real excuse except that the chart copy we had was very poor and did'nt really show any reef, at least I couldn't see it - (obviously!). This time, the grounding was much more serious. Not life threatening or anything like that, but for a few hours it sure looked like we may not be able to get the boat off at all. We hit at high tide, at a speed of about 4 knots, and landed far onto the reef in a large bed of nasty coral heads.

In one way, we were lucky to land with both the keel and rudder in holes between a bunch of large coral heads. This probably saved the rudder. On the other hand, this made it very difficult to get us off again. We are incredibly impressed with the strength of the boat - not the slightest sign of any cracks or any movement of the keel where it is bolted to the hull, nor a dent in the hull from all the pounding on the corals in the waves. We were lucky again as two sail boats we knew were in the area and came to our rescue. One pulled from a bridle on the bow, the other pulled us sideways with his dinghy, using our halyard from the top of the mast. You can imagine the stress on mast and rigging. We had to wait 6 hours for high tide. It was touch and go whether we'd get enough water under the keel to float off. So the relief was tremendous when she started to move. While Anne was going full speed and then some, I snorkelled alongside, watching the keel and rudder. It was fantastic to see how the keel smashed its way through the corals like a huge battering ram. In both groundings, it was heart warming to experience the comraderie and support we received from fellow cruisers. It's sure nice to know that you are not alone out here.

In Singapore, we had the boat on the hard for two weeks to repair the keel and rudder. Fortunately, the damage was only cosmetic, not structural. Even more scary was a problem we discovered on the way from Borneo to Singapore, when we almost lost the propellor and shaft due to electrolysis - electric current from a faulty alternator. During the repairs, we discovered all sorts of faulty grounding wires which date back to the time the boat came from factory and also from when we had the ham radio installed just before leaving Vancouver. Hope it is all fixed by now - especially after having left behind another pile of money in Singapore! Despite all the head aches with the boat, we really enjoyed this ultra modern fast moving cultural and successful capitalistic city state, a true oasis amongst some rather primitive and poorly managed neighbouring countries.

We were lucky to have a local contact, Dr. Kong Kit Yew, who took us all around this fascinating "Lion City", sightseeing, shopping, even boat errands with us crazy cruisers - culminating in a lovely luncheon at Singapore Golf and Country Club, where macaque monkeys roam the greens! Through him, we met another Chinese couple, who immediately took us under their wings and with their help, we stocked up everything we needed for the next 6 months - 3 large shopping carts piled high - which should take us all the way to Israel! And, no, we did not have a Singapore Sling at the famous Raffles Hotel. We did one better: Our local friends treated us to lunch at the very posh, prestigious and private Tang Lin Club, the oldest and most exclusive colonial establishment in Singapore!

As always, it is hard to say goodbye to nice people you encounter along the way, but that's life for us cruisers. We had to push on to Langkawi in Malaysia, where friends from Norway were meeting us. Not a bad alternative! Strapped for time, we did a four day straight run up the infamous Malacca Strait. Fortunately, we didn't encounter any pirates. They don't appear to be a threat to yachts any more. What was scary, however, was having to dodge hundreds of unlit fishing boats at night, as well as staying away from all the freighters that use this strait on their way to and from the Far East. A single hander friend of ours fell asleep at the tiller in the busy strait and hit a freighter right behind its bow. If he had been a few seconds earlier, he would have been hit by the freighter's huge bow and would not have survived. This way, however, he scraped all along the side of the freighter, only broke the rigging and incurred some damage to the pulpit - and his ego.

We spent a whole month in Langkawi, first having a leisurely cruise around these beautiful islands. Then we left NOR SIGLAR in Rebak Marina for a 2 week land trip to Thailand. It was a nice break after 5 months onboard and almost 6,500 nautical miles under the keel since Fiji. Now we're off to Phuket on the west coast of Thailand where we'll be spending Christmas and New Year with cruiser friends. From there we'll leave for the Suez Canal and Israel via Sri Lanka, Maldives, Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. We expect to be in Israel by early May - where we hope to celebrate the completion of our circumnavigation. Inshallah! And since we have become very homesick lately, we'll take the fastest route to Norway where we hope to arrive in early September 2000! And that's the end of that! Now we are looking forward to starting a new era and lifestyle ashore in the brand new millennium!

Anne Brevig and Martin Vennesland

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