The Ship

So let me tell you about the ship I took to get here cause that was pretty exciting. I decided to go with the AOG youth group cause they had a ship confirmed and it was a good one too, Fresh Cargo. Which isn't very big but is considered very flashy because it has chairs to sit on rather than just sitting on the cargo the ship is carrying. Good thing I went with them because the other group that was supposed to go to the wedding still haven't gotten a ship together.

Our journey went from South Malekula then to North Malekula and then back South to Efate island where the capital city is. I looked on a map to find the name of the body of water we were going to cross to reach Efate island. It's called the Pacific Ocean. Aparrently it is the biggest body of water on earth. So it wasn't exactly a smooth ride or a short one. If they had gone directly south it could have taken as little as 12 hours but no, they had to go all around Malekula first. I was sumoned to the wharf to meet the boat at 8pm on friday night. I boarded the boat at midnight and disembarked in Vila at 11pm the next day. It took 23 hours yikes! The first half was fine because I had my ipod and a million comedy albums I got from Justine that I hadn't heard before. Everyone was looking so miserable and then I was sitting there with my headphones on cracking up. Then the battery on my ipod died. :( and I understood why everyone looked unhappy. They were all throwing up all the time which is hardly noticable if you can't hear it. but yuck ugh that was miserable just listening to people all around me get sick. Cause there's nothing else to look at. You can't read cause everything is moving too much. Once we left Malekula behind there wasn't another island in site until we reached efate. Nothing but blue sea and blue sky. Like a more drab version of an Yves Klein painting. Oh yeah and then one of the engines died. A ship journey is never complete without an engine dying. They managed to fix it and get it running again in about an hour. But we did have to deal with some nasty disel fumes for a while.

The highlight of the trip was either that I didn't at any point feel the need to throw up or catching a flying fish. Well I didn't catch it. The fish did all the work. It just flew at me and then I put in a plastic bag and took it home. It was a beautiful fish, with it's silver scales and translucent wings. But when I got back to the house I was suffering from land sickness, where the ground feels like its moving, for about 2 hours. so I didn't feel like gutting and descaling the thing. I gave it to the dogs instead. That worked out well because they were so grateful they escorted me down to the bus stop after.

It was a very long trip. but I think on the way back we should be going directly to Lamap first so It might take only 13 hours. That would be amazing. I would really appreciate that. So how much does this fabulours experience cost well. I got a special AOG youth discount so it was only $70 dolars round trip rather than $185 which is the cost of the plane. However the plane only takes 70 minutes instead of 35 hours. Bit of a difference. But the plane wasn't an option.Now I'm getting psyched about getting back on that speed demon, Fresh Cargo and heading back on Saturday.