We all meet some interesting characters when we’re travelling – that’s one of the things I love most! My interaction with Jeff with a J was brief, but he made a real impression.
Meeting Jeff with a J
Today I’m trying to visit Aore Island, an even more remote island than Espiritu Santo, where I’m currently staying in northern Vanuatu.
It’s been difficult to figure out how to get over there, even though I can see it clearly from here. But someone finally told me there’s a ferry that goes twice a day, at 11:30am and again at 2pm. I show up early, but no ferry comes. We’re on island time so it’s possible it’s just late, though there are literally zero boats in sight.
I’m relaxing on the dock when a giant man carrying two bursting luggage bags comes running out of nowhere. He plops himself down next to me, absolutely exasperated, and starts speaking as if we’ve already been in conversation. I’m both flabbergasted and instantly intrigued. He’s wearing a captain’s hat, so maybe he’s a pilot or the captain of the ferry that was supposed to be here 10 minutes ago?
He tells me he’s had a terrible morning and missed his flight. He was busy “having a yarn” with someone and didn’t realize he was sitting in the international terminal when he should have been in the domestic terminal. Instead of taking the next flight, he decided to charter his own plane and doesn’t want to tell me how much it cost him because “it’s embarrassing.”
This is heartbreaking because I desperately I want to know.
Apparently, he even got to fly the plane for a little bit, which maybe explains the hat.“It was all an experience,” so he’s beaming about it even though that plane must have put him back several thousand dollars.
He stops abruptly in the middle of his next sentence to ask for my name. Then in one breath, he says, “HiNaominicetomeetyou, I’m Jeff with a J,” before continuing with the accounts of his day.
Guys, I talk fast. I talk a lot. But I can’t even get a word in edge-wise. I’m mesmerized.
He’s wearing reading glasses that have a magnetic clasp across the bridge of the nose. He unclips them and they fall to his chest, now held together by a string hanging around his neck. Jeff with a J then pulls out a pair of white Raybandz from his bag. He slaps them against his arm, and the glasses collapse and fold around his wrist like some kind of transformer bracelet; he doesn’t even put them on.
He’s covered in various scrapes and bruises from his knuckles to his shoulders. When he asks me where I’m from, the conversation (if you can call it that) quickly pivots to tell me about a woman he married “briefly” in Calgary.
Jeff with a J has lived a LIFE.
The ferry comes and we try to board, but apparently this particular boat is only for people staying on the island resort. Tourists can only go for a day trip if they catch the 11:30am, and it’s now 2pm. Well… that’s my plan for the day ruined. I accept my fate and start to walk back to the town, but Jeff with a J calls after me.
“Young lady!” I turn around. “Now wait, let’s just sit here for a minute and figure out what we’re going to do.” We?????? I mean, I have nothing better to do. This is probably the highlight of my day, so he’s not wrong. I sit next to Jeff with a J and his two massive suitcases that still have Star Alliance Priority Boarding stickers hanging from them.
Who is this guy?
He pulls out a little flip phone and tries to call his friend, who lives on the island and who he’s on his way to stay with. He doesn’t know the friend’s name. “Dale? Dave? Something like that.” I ask how he knows this guy if he can’t remember the name, and he says they’re from the same small town in New Zealand, but it sounds like they’ve never met.
Dale is in for an absolute treat.
Jeff offers to bring me with him to the island when his friend comes with the boat (the one he’s never met and has not answered his phone) but he doesn’t know if there’ll be space for me at the house.
Why do I low key want to go to this house? lol
But instead, I decide not to risk getting kidnapped and explain that I’m not desperate to visit the island and he doesn’t have to worry about me. He says he likes my attitude and is trying to use this vacation to teach himself to slow down and relax. From what I’ve seen, he has a long way to go, but I say I think it’s a marvellous idea.
I also considering asking for his contact details to see how this saga ends, but before I even have a second to think, he insists I go enjoy my day and that he’ll figure it out. And I’m absolutely sure he will, one way or another.
On my way back into town I pass a man on a small makeshift stage singing “Sweet Home Vanuatu.” You know, the 1973 hit by Lynyrd Skynyrd? About their favourite Pacific island? It fills me with joy and I can almost feel Jeff with a J’s whirlwind energy shaking off me as I settle back into the carefree island lifestyle.