Winter Garden couple traveled to Vanuatu to deliver food, medics and supplies

Anytime a devastating natural disaster strikes a far corner of the world — Haiti, Nepal and the South Pacific among recent examples — charitable organizations rush aid.

But sometimes that aid does not reach the remotest of the remote. That is when Sea Mercy and Donna and Jonathan Robinson, who have a home in Winter Garden, spring to action.

Through financial, material and physical aid of nations, companies and volunteers, three-year-old Sea Mercy executes a mission to deliver floating health care and emergency relief to distant island nations, such as Vanuatu, sometimes via small vessels such as the Chez Nous — the Robinsons’ catamaran.

In mid-March, Tropical Cyclone Pam decimated numerous Vanuatuan villages, killing dozens, injuring more, displacing thousands and cutting off water, power and planes for the whole archipelago, according to CNN. Gusts reached 200 mph, equal to a Category 5 hurricane.

Meanwhile, the Robinsons were more than 500 miles away in Fiji, taking cyclone precautions before Pam jerked toward Vanuatu, Jonathan Robinson said.

“We wanted to help Vanuatu, so we contacted Sea Mercy,” he said. “We set off initially and then had to turn back because another cyclone was heading to Vanuatu. We were advised for safety to return to Fiji, which we did, and had to wait for that to pass before we left again.”

In a word, Donna Robinson called the trip “Hell.”

“I precooked three meals because usually on a journey you never know what it’s like, and you need to eat,” she said. “It’s easier to just throw something in the microwave that’s already cooked. We had to do that every meal; we had to use them all up. We managed to make one stretch into two.”

But the Robinsons made it to their first stop, Aneityum — the southernmost island of Vanuatu — among a three-boat Sea Mercy team dubbed the Mosquito Fleet for its small size, crucial to getting aid where bigger ships cannot dock. The Robinsons worked with the World Food Program to get supplies where it could not, based on impossibly blocked roads and no option but the sea, Jonathan Robinson said.

With special fee waivers and visas from Vanuatu, the Robinsons delivered a Swedish pediatrician, an American emergency doctor, an American chiropractor and about 1.5 tons of goods, with other boats at similar capacities, they said.

“We’d loaded in Fiji with food provisions but also life provisions,” Jonathan Robinson said. “We had medical stores, survival stores and food stores. A lot of that was due to self-funding, people funding for Sea Mercy and some donations by people of Fiji. Sea Mercy relies entirely on donations.”

The Robinsons entered self-funded and paid from pocket once they sailed, ensuring no funds from ongoing Sea Mercy projects would shift to Vanuatu for its disaster, a common theme of donations jumping from disaster to disaster with less concern about redevelopment, Jonathan Robinson said. 

REBUILDING A VILLAGE

Although 100% of donations go to provisions, the Robinsons wanted to leave more than rice, noodles and tinned meat with the Vanuatuans, especially when they were offering the Robinsons breakfast, Donna Robinson said. The Robinsons provided buckets of crackers that could be reused to store rainwater, some villages’ main water supply, she said.

Despite some difficulties for the Robinsons in providing the rations they could, the people made it work, she said.

“Most of the villagers there are subsistence farmers who live on what they grow and trade with other people,” Jonathan Robinson said. “Their gardens had been destroyed by the cyclone. They weren’t asking for help at all, because it happens a lot. They just needed immediate aid to keep food growing. We’d prepared ourselves for sites of human misery and starving children. But these people were very upbeat, delighted to see us but independent, without a doubt some of the friendliest people I ever met.”

Thanks to tools such as hammers and nails from the Robinsons, villagers rebuilt houses together, one-by-one, he said: first the sick, then widows and orphans, with the chief’s house rebuilt last.

“Two months after the cyclone, the chief still didn’t have a roof on his house,” Donna Robinson said.

But with good organization and respect for each person, islanders have united to rebuild, from a 3-day-old to a 102-year-old who helped Americans build airstrips in World War II, Jonathan Robinson said.

AROUND VANUATU

Among many islands the Robinsons reached was Tanna, a population of about 29,000 that was hit the hardest, Jonathan Robinson said. They took shelter from heavy rain and strong winds for four days before sailing to Erromango, where the local doctor said nobody had helped.

Despite reports showing Erromango as unsafe to anchor at, the Robinsons did and helped Erromango get supplies, clinics and a generator, Jonathan Robinson said.

Because not every village has a school, some children must travel to others, but cyclones made some roads impassable, so the Robinsons sailed children from one side of an island to the other for their first lessons in six weeks, he said.

“The reception we got when we came back into the village was tremendous,” he said. “But there, we were landing supplies and doctors. There was no way to get a boat to the beach — too rough — so we actually took dinghies against the rock, and they held us against the rock, where we passed food and people up to a higher rock. We then climbed a small ladder, went across a bridge and then walked across the coral to get in. We landed about a ton of supplies doing that.”

A CONTINUED MISSION

The Robinsons would like to establish a system for Vanuatu similar to Sea Mercy’s clinics in Tonga and Fiji, which have been running only a year or two, Jonathan Robinson said.

“I’m writing in conjunction with the disaster-response director a manual for future disaster response,” he said, noting attempts to coordinate many involved and organizations in place on islands. “I just received an email from the third rotation of Sea Mercy vessels down there now, and we’ll be back there July 6. We went through response, and now they’re in recovery phase.”

The Robinsons will work with an established charity there to provide Australian medical professionals for islands, Jonathan Robinson said. He also plans to coordinate supply movement, continuing to transport tools, clothes and water-related items.

Clinics have served about 1,000 patients, with more than 20 tons of food and supplies delivered, he said.

Given their position in Fiji, the Robinsons stressed their inspiration to help as wanting others to help if they had been in need.

The Robinsons seek donations, crew and medical professionals for the next non-cyclone season, typically April to October, with more information at seamercy.org. Even old reading glasses help, Jonathan Robinson said.

“The dates are already on the website for the next year,” he said. “We’re just looking for people to come and spend a couple of weeks in the South Pacific. We break up the clinics with some snorkeling or surfing, so it’s not all work, but it’s incredibly rewarding.”

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].