The boat ride to town today

Today I jumped on the boat this morning to head into Vila. The sea was a little rough, but nothing worse than I've been on before. I jumped on with a trip headed to a wedding in Vila so the boat was packed with people and things for the wedding (mats, bananas, root crops, etc.) For those of you that have forgotten or may have just started reading my blog, transport boats here are small (about 12 feet long) and are usually powered by small outboard engines (about 25hp. When I say packed I mean about 14 people condensed onto a small boat.
So I get on the boat and we're motoring away for a few minutes when suddenly one of the mamas screams. There is a small snake coming out of the bananas. In Vanuatu there are only two land snakes, neither of which are poisonous, including this small Pacific boa. Ni-Vanuatu, however, are deathly afraid of any snake or lizard. Ok, back to the story, soon all the mamas and a few men are yelling and screaming and running side to side in this small boat. I was probably the only one realizing that this was causing the boat to jerk violently from side to side. It was pure pandemonium. I was really scared that we were going to capsize so I stood up and started yelling for people to calm down and sit down. I put my body between the snake and them and explained to them that it would not bite them. They eventually stopped running about, but were still screaming.
With all the mamas jammed to the front of the boat (snake in back) we made for shore to put the snake in the bush. A local guy and myself got the snake out and we were on our way. The mamas had fun imitating me directing orders at them to "stap kwaet" (sit down, chill out) after the event, during our boat trip. I had a good laugh with the guy next to me as we described how close we all were from getting tossed into the drink. Some of the guys on the boat were being jerks too and throwing pieces of hose and sticks on women and yelling snake. I wasn't very amused. Just another fun transport ride in Vanuatu.
After the snake thing we were motoring for a while when I noticed a small pod of dolphins off the side of the boat. For the rest of the trip we were in the company of three spinner dolphins which was awesome! They were catching a free ride on our light wake.
So short blog here. Just wanted to relay my unusual boat trip this morning.