You only as old as the country you feel. This ones a youngster at 30. Its the 30th anniversary of independence at down town Port Villa. Damn is it great. Maori pre-match huka meets X-Faxtor, Pontins, talent show stroke royal variety performance.

 
New Caledonia Dancers

Traditional dancers, from all over the Pacifc. Tae Kwon Do demos, through to 4 guys is drag dancing very badly. In the middle were the international Women's group. I cried I really did. They were fabulous, as was the compare. Neither they or the guy in charge hand the faintest idea what was what. The women were from many countries. Introduced by a Chinese (probably) woman. Who's English was band and accent so stereo typical comedy racist accent I wouldn't even dare say it. She got lost, forgot Thailand, introduced Vietnam at least twice, Fiji too.

Compare tried to help. Badly, he kept naming countries, then falling back to "Beautiful, Powerful" over and over again, interspersed with an incomplete or repeated list of participating countries. The suddenly as the Vietnamese women walked passed he just went "Wow nice hats" "I love your hats".

The trip over here was rough, despite it being over 500 miles and us leaving at 12:30 Monday we got here just after dawn on Thursday. Fast. Most boats came through pretty well. Briet and Chisel have damage, mostly due to large  quantities of salt water getting where they shouldn't. We've no generator. This may not come as a shock. Bloody alternator seized again. While we were trying to free it off, we looked at the broken voltmeter on the main panel. In doing so every last bit of electrics bar one light and the engine ignition (separate battery) died. Its flickered before, turns out the connector for the main DC circuit breaker had a huge cable on it - obviously, and couldn't take the strain. We've bypassed it and all is well. Were all very happy we broke it here and now. Not at sea in the middle of the night, twas on its way out already better now than later.