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Walter says that "Emoa (Emua, Emo) , Buma and Lavage all speak one language. 
Lale speaks a different but closely related language, he says. 
... 10 • 30 p . m. . . 
I have just called home and at 7:00 a.m. found only Mororui awake. Of 
all the boys I needed television telephone for it was Mororui who commtmicates 
so much more and better by gesture than by word. All others were still in 
deep slumber. Yavine, Tamel, Mororui, Mbagintao and Mathias were all at 
home and well and the boys, at least so Mororui says, are all doing well 
at school. Morris Schaeffer is also at the house. Thus things appear to 
be OK and I am only concerned about whether Mbagintao will join me for the 
Pingalap Atoll work and whether Mathias will be able to live a more stable 
life than he has. He could be causing a real problem for Joe and the others 
at home and I only hope that this is not the case. He apparently did make 
it to Ulithi, but more than that I did not learn from Mororui. I told him 
that we had finished work on Anuta and Tikopia and were now at Vanikoro but 
I do not know whether this registered. 
It is pouring now and intermittent showers of wind driven rain hit our 
ship. If the bad weather continues we may find it a real problem to see 
more of the Vanikoro people for I do not know whether we can navigate the 
narrow channels through the reef in bad weather. The Navacanero channel 
between Tevai Island and Vanikoro is only 12 feet deep at times and too 
narrow for us to navigate it. To get to EmOA we will have to go back out 
to sea and around. The smaller costal and interisland vessels of BSIP 
make the channel. 
Vanikoro, Emoa village (Emua on the maps) 
November 2, 1972 
,We are returning to lay off Buma for the night, from Emoa where we 
have worked successfully all day. We have just made it out through an un- 
charted passage thru the outer reef of Vanikoro to the sea and are sailing 
now for Buma on Tevai Island again, but we cannot make Hayes Channel into 
Manevai Bay any longer today. In fact, it is so hazy out that we had great 
(jifficulty navigating out of the Bay of Emoa between the Inner and Outer 
Reefs and the many coral heads. It was a tricky entry and exit and Captain 
Phinney handled it cautiously and well. At Emoa two Vanikoro canoes with 
four and three Buma people in them, respectively, came out to meet us and 
carried much of our equipment ashore for us. They are large, wide canoes with 
no outrigger, they are made for open sea but they did handle the high surge 
out where we finally anchored very well. 
Walter Sinevio, the Vanikoro dresser from Buma, came onto the ship with 
me this morning when Roy, Walter, John and I went ashore at very low tide 
to collect all our supplies which we had left at Buma village last night. 
The small girls and women of Buma helped us carry it all far out over the 
almost dry reef to the Whaler and we were underway, at 8 a.m. on the two 
hour trip out to sea thru Hayes Channel and around Tevai Island to the 
southeast point of Vanikoro — Astrolabe Point — just beyond which lies Emoa 
1 village and here there is also the 18 student, class 1 and 2, one teacher 
, school of Vanikoro. 
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