Feb 9th, 2020 (7th Wedding Anniversary) – Luganville

Those of you who have been following closely may recall that today I was supposed to go to Malekula. Well there was a good bit of tropical rain yesterday, and this morning in particular the sheer volume of water falling from the sky had me pretty awestruck. There’s been a tropical cyclone, cyclone Uesi, brewing in the neighborhood – it’s forecast to miss most of Vanuatu and strike New Caledonia in the coming days. But while that means Vanuatu is by and large out of the danger zone when it comes to destructive winds, we are getting a dumping of precipitation from the periphery of the nascent cyclone like you wouldn’t believe.

So faced with this weather, I sent a message to Brigitte asking whether we were still due to fly out or not. She initially said not, as the plane had flown in from Vila this morning, had tried to land on Santo three times, then given up and gone back to Vila to refuel. But then she showed up at the front door, and said that the plane had refueled and successfully landed at Santo, so we were going to head out to the airport and load up the plane, waiting for a break in the rain to fly. The flight to Malekula is only 15 minutes, so we didn’t need much.

On arrival at the airport, we saw the plane was indeed on the runway.

It was going to be the first time I’d ever traveled in a light aircraft. At check-in, after weighing the checked baggage, the passengers then have to stand on the scales with their carry-on so the pilot can calculate the correct load!

Then we sat down at the airport café to wait for a break in the rain.

Alas, after a couple hours wait, we were told it wasn’t going to happen today, and that we’re going to have to try again tomorrow. On the plus side, I didn’t really fancy spending a night in the place I had been all week, as it isn’t really fit for spending more than a couple of nights, so I mentioned it to the programme managers, and they agreed to find me somewhere more pleasant to stay. I’m now at a place which is much less cell-like, and feeling much more human as a result.

And I’m told NZ won the cricket, so it’s all looking positive, despite the rain.