119 
Vanikoro to Graciosa Bay, Santa Cruz off Utupua November 3, 1972 
Judy and Ray Harber, our crewman who help^ Walter with the shore boats. and 
who gets on marvelously with Judy, Frangoise and me and John and Ray Roos have 
spent an hour on the bow looking at the flaming sunset with the silhouette 
of the many peaked horizon of Utupua to our northwest on the horizon and 
Vanikoro receeding behind us. It was the calmest and most pleasant hour 
we have spent on deck of the entire trip and by far the most marvelous 
sunset. Utupua is the first inhabited island we shall "pass up" since 
we started on Merelava and I had debated hard with myself whether to 
curtail our stay on Rennell and Bellona and instead add Utupua and the 
Reefs and Duffs to our trip instead. I decided not to do so and to leave 
Utupua, Santa Cruz and the Reefs and Duffs to another visit. We have 
undertaken too much as it is I 
Earlier this evening a large school of bluefinned tuna swam along with 
our ship just at the bow for about an hour, keeping up with our 10 knots 
and always the same fish — one individxoal of the school had a large rear 
white patch which we could not diagnose but which identified him specif- 
ically. I took cinema of these interesting fish. We have seen no whales 
or porpoises yet on the trip. 
Work at Buma went slowly today. We collected blood smears, Hct, Hgbs 
on only persons and feces on only 8 children ( stools for virus isolation) 
and urine on only 9 persons. We examined the six adults and one boy who 
had returned from Emoa. There were no others xintil, in late afternoon, 
with the high tides, two canoes sailed around the point of Tevai Island 
far down Matevai Bay and then along the shore of the Tevai they pulled 
in the sail and poled along the shore to Bumai I wish we had had several 
more days here on Vanikoro for it is a fascinating island. I should like 
to visit Lale or Lavaka by canoe and return by canoe to Emoa. 
Before leaving^ I purchased one cylindrical wooden bowl, nicely curved 
and used for making "puddings" and one oddly shaped deep ellipsoidal bowl 
decorated in typical Vanikoro style. There were another half dozen larger 
beautiful bowls in the village but none of these could be sold since their 
owners were not present. 
On the 1970 Census, Utupua had 227 Melanesian and 5 Polynesian residents. 
Strangely Vanikoro had 163 /Melanesians and no Polynesians yet we have bled 
six Polynesians (5 Tikopians and 1 Sikianan) now at Emoa on Vanikoro. 
The Utupuan populace is listed as belonging to 49 households including 
2 Polynesians. 
In the late morning I sent 10 adults to the ship for chest X-rays. 
Thus, we have done a lot here on Vanikoro but we also leave a great deal 
undone. Don did six additional fingerprints and palmprints and thus we 
have a total of only 15 from Vanikoro. 
If all goes well, I shall try to get a good deal done on the school 
boys from everywhere in the Eastern District and perhaps extend our work 
even to those from the Reefs, Duffs, Utupua and Santa Cruz I 
