Farewell to Fiji and Other Strange Occurances

Port Vila, Irinki Resort Just across the Bay. For $15.00 you can spend all day swimming in one of the 5 pools, play pool and ping pong, eat drink and be merry. Your $15.00 goes toward food and drink as a voucher! Cool!

Port Villa Waterfront cafe, 2 minute dingy ride from Slow Dance. They serve Kava Cola, a mixture of fresh carrot, papaya, and ginger juice! Yummy

We escaped from Fiji and it was truly an escape, as you will see from the story below...but we are currently sitting on an amazing bay in Vanautu, where you can see 40 feet into blue azure waters where the coral is alive with every color of the rainbow. New crew faces and lovely new places. Vanautu is truly the most amazing place I have ever seen and we look forward to the great adventure that awaits us.

Vanuatu means "Land Eternal" and is an amazing colorful string of lush islands of many cultures, full of surprises! It is the youngest country in the South Pacific. Born out of ponderous Anglo-French New Hebrides Condominium, the Ripabik Blong Vanuatu, received worldwide attention in 1980 during it's painful emergence into a nation.

There are no tourist attractions such as museums and ruins, but rather great beauty and a very relaxed way of life. It's unlikely you will find a country of greater contrasts, with glamorous duty free shops, gourmet restaurants in the cosmopolitan Port Vila, (French territory) all juxtaposed against the primitive villages of the outer islands. This jewel of the South Pacific is still a land of adventure and I believe Ron will find the paradise he remembers from his travels so many years ago when he sailed the South Pacific.

There are no corporation taxes, no personal income taxes, estate taxes, or exchange controls! This place is ultra-right and instead, revenue is obtained from customs duties export taxes, company registration fees, licensing fees, property taxes only in Port Vila and Espiritu Santo. Import duties alone account for 70% of government income and are the major cause of the high cost of living. Vanuatu offers excellent facilities for foreigners wishing to evade taxation in their own countries, with no public auditing, and secrecy laws. Today, 1,400 foreign companies and 100 dummy banks participate in the tax haven scheme, providing 400 jobs and contributing 12% of the gross domestic product.

WOW! if only Bollywood would have come here to do Warning 3-D, Ron could have saved himself from the horror inflicted on us by Fiji's harsh taxation. The water is so much cleaner here then Fiji.

This is how the story goes: when attempting to clear out of Fiji, we were detained by Customs with no explanation as to why Slow Dance was being detained. No one seemed to have a clue until several day's later a "Payment Advise Form" arrived via email from FRCA, the Fijian version of the IRS. The bill was forward from the investment company that handled the finances for the film and was addressed to that company in the amount of $96,000 Fijian dollars! The bill was forwarded to Ron and stated he must make payment before we could leave the country. That's like $80,000 US! Nowhere on this bill was Slow Dance named and Ron began to circle the wagons enlisting me to write emails to all parties involved, and copy to FRCA. In addition to the $96,000 VAT (Value Added Tax) and Duty, Ron was also expected to pay personal income tax as well as a local tax known as "social responsibility tax". All totaled Ron was expected to pay more then he made in gross profit for leasing Slow Dance for the film. This meant war! All emails from the production company stating they were responsible financially for the VAT and Duty ($96,000) were scanned, attached, and sent to the CEO's of Customs, Revenue, and head producer in Mumbai. After kicking ass and taking names, Ron rented a car and we drove to the capitol city (3 hours away) with an income and expense sheet prepared to do battle. Our contract with Bollywood was signed May 15 but the production was delayed until June 18, so we argued that our expenses for hanging around should be allowed as deduction from gross income. Ron and I quickly prepared a revised statement and after our costs were outlined, our net income was $25,000 Fijian instead of $189,000. Amazingly enough, FRCA agreed the production company was accountable for the $96,000 VAT and Duty, which they agreed to pay, as their 47% discount back from the government would have been seriously jeopardized.(That amounted to over a million Fijian, so they were happy to pay the VAT and Duty) FRCA could have made out lives difficult by requiring all the receipts for the income/expense sheet, but they didn't ask for a thing. Oh yeah, did I mention that our emails stated our lives were in danger because the Fijian government was detaining us from crossing the ocean before hurricane season and that we had contacted the American embassy for assistance in resolving the matter? Humm? So, in the end we were allowed to leave but not without a small sting.

We hiked to Melee Waterfalls from the beach bar near Hideaway Island. WOW! so beautiful. You have to climb steep steps carved from the stone, walk through the jungle, and then hold onto a rope as you climb the steps that are naturally formed from the water flow. You arrive at the top and can swim in the deep pools under the falls, although you can also swim in all the deep pools along the way. Spectacular!

The pools on the way to the top.

The Falls

I packed a lunch and we enjoyed it immensely after reaching the top.

 I want to post so much more but we have to be on our way now, sailing off at 5PM to our next amazing destination. I wanted to get something out to you all and promise there will be more awesome photo's and information about this extremely interesting place. Stay tuned....

Me, in the land time forgot!