Today we welcome our two new crew members, Wolfgang and Cindy. Unfortunately Port Vila has turned on the rain so it was a wet ride from the dinghy dock to Imagine.
Both seem glad to be here after their really long days. Wolfgang has travelled from Germany to Hong Kong, Brisbane to here (with long hours stopovers). Cindy boarded her flight in San Francisco, travelled 10 hours to Fiji where she had stopover for 9 hours. We are glad they both made it and both still with big beautiful smiles on their faces. Andrew is making dinner. After that I think they will crash!
It took all morning yesterday to get cleared and are officially temporary Vanutuers, Vanuatuans, well we can stay in Vanuatu for a while.
Au Revoir Marion! This afternoon we sadly said goodbye to Marion. She was off to catch a plane to Santo to meet up with another boat which will take her around a bit more of Vanuatu and then to New Caledonia. No more French or English lessons.
We’ve collected additional info from Vanuatu tourism and this afternoon spent planning a flexible itinerary for the number of days we have left in Vanuatu. For some reason Andrew thought it might be a great idea to sail over a submarine volcano from Port Vila to Epi. Sue thinks the more direct (not over submarine volcano) route will be better!! Tomorrow we will stock up ready for our new crew arriving on Thursday.
We arrived in Port Vila about 12 noon yesterday and customs came to see us just after 3.00pm. That was fine but immigration and biosecurity were busy, so we still aren’t here. Their offices reopen on Monday so we will be able to go to the office and complete booking in.
On our way here Marion tried out another seasick remedy. Masking tape across the stomach. Not sure if that did any good.
Port Vila is the nicest and cleanest city/port we have been in so far. Waiting for customs we were anchored in 7m of water and could see the coral bottom. Two Dugongs swam past to greet us. We were too slow to grab the camera. We have moved closer into the harbour on a mooring ball and the water is still clear. Isle of Wallis may not be our number one spot for long.? Today we went to buy data and fresh fruit and veggies. The local market has the best quality and range of produce we have seen in all the islands.
Due to bad rain on the morning before we arrived the road from the other side of the island had been washed way. This meant customs could not get here.
There are 4 other boats in the bay with us some trying to book in some trying to book out. We all went ashore to look at the volcano yesterday evening. What an experience! What’s health and safety?? We were picked up from the bay by two Toyota 4×4 dual cabs. Five in the cab + driver and six in the tray. 45 minutes later we arrived at the base of the volcano. We were each issued a plastic helmet to protect us from falling ash (health and safety). This is where we get transferred to single cab 4x4s this time ten of us in the tray. The tray did have seating, 50mm x 200mm planks nailed together and a pipe framework holding up a trampoline. We all clung into the pipes as the seating slid around as we went up the mountainside.
We arrived at the top of the mountain just before sunset and we walked up to the rim of the crater. We were then lead around the rim of the volcano which in places was only 500mm wide. The hand rails along the track ended just before reaching the rim. Who needs hand rails?? They probably kept burning up.
But there is nowhere else you could get so close and see so much. There was loud bangs as the lava exploded into the air with such force that the air pressure would push you back if you weren’t steady footed. We stayed there for about two hours after dark and then made our way back to the 4x4s using torches or our phones to see the way.
An amazing experience. Now we are off to Port Vila to clear customs and officially be here.
We are unofficially in Vanuatu. Before we left Fiji we emailed Vanuatu customs of our arrival date and they confirmed they will be waiting. Three hours before arriving we emailed them to say we would arrive at 2pm and again they confirmed they would be waiting. It’s now 5.30 pm and we are still waiting.
It’s been an eventful day. It started with a series of squalls overnight and into the morning. Daybreak revealed several kamikaze flying fish lying on the foredeck. As we approached Port Resolution (about 800m off the narrow entrance) under motor, the motor died. Quickly we put out the headsail, no time to put up the main. Sue and Marion now with a bit of sail power turned away from the entrance, while Andrew figured out what has happened to the motor.
No fuel getting to the motor! One of the two fuel filters dirty? No time to replace filters. Turning the valves over and reroute from the tank to the secondary filters (back up system). Oh, no fuel getting through. Check the main tank valves, yes they are turned on. Okay blocked fuel line from tank. No time to do anything about it while bouncing around in these waves. Grab the jerry can with diesel, into the engine room and put the filler hose into it. The filler hose is connected to a pump leading to the backup system. Turn the pump on. Fuel now running through the back up system, turn on the engine. With a few coughs and splutters it fired up.
We furled the sail away and motored into the bay. Finding a place to anchor was easy, not too many boats in the bay. Dropping the anchor, well that wasn’t quite as easy. With all the bouncing around going through the squalls, the manual handle and mechanism on the winch had jammed. The anchor only went down 1m. By this time the wind had caught the boat and pulled the bow around pointing towards the rocks. Sue being on the helm knew to put it back in gear and with full revs do a 360 to bring it back into position. By the time the boat was back in position Andrew had sorted the anchor and we were set.
Marion is cooking dinner tonight. As she is French it must be something good. Ooh la la!
Not a lot to report. No dolphins, no whales, no fish! Marion had second day flu. The majority of people get seasick usually the second day. We’ve discovered one of the seasick tablets we have on board can have the adverse reaction of sending people to sleep, as Ben (my son) discovered and with Marion today.
Still making good headway today, weather permitting we should arrive at Port Resolution on Tuesday.
Saturday 31st August. On Thursday we welcomed onboard our new crew member Marion who is travelling with us to Vanuatu. Marion is French so will have fun translating to English then Kiwi!
At sunrise this morning we headed out of Fiji for Vanuatu making reasonable headway. Although we have the main reefed to number 2 and no headsail or staysail out, we have been doing 6.5 to 7 knots. We are still practising fishing!
We have moved back to Denarau. We ran out of data so we had to come back here on Thursday afternoon so Andrew could bus into Nadi to buy more data.
Shit, shit, shit (not just from Sue) rang out most of yesterday, as unpredicted high winds and half metre waves hit the bay. A catamaran dragged anchor first. As he was resetting the anchor we saw another ketch start moving. The crew from the ketch had gone ashore earlier so Andrew jumped in the dinghy and went to see what could be done. He was met by someone in a dinghy going to do the same thing. The two of them had enough time to work out that the ketch had no more anchor chain to put out, when Sue radioed Andrew that Imagine was dragging. Andrew left the ketch for the other guy to figure out and headed back to Imagine. By this time Imagine had dragged 100m and was almost on another boat and getting closer. Sue had already got the motor running and headed into the wind and waves while Andrew hauled up the anchor. Three attempts later to re-anchor we got the anchor to hold. 4m of water with over 40m of chain out.
Over the radio we heard two guys off different boats were trying to save another boat heading to the sandbar. We then saw another ketch on the move. Andrew jumped back in the dinghy and off to the ketch. There was only a young guy on the ketch who wasn’t sure what to do. The skipper was one the we had heard on the radio saving another boat. Dropping another 30m of chain out seemed to get the ketch under control.
Heading back to Imagine Andrew saw yet another yacht sliding back. As he approached he could see a woman at the helm starting to motor forward and getting it under control. It turns out her husband was the other one saving the boat from the sandbar. It wasn’t long before the two skippers were back on their boats and hauling anchors. They came and anchored either side of us.
With the fun over and the wind slowly dying, Sue stayed glued in front of the helm the rest of the day and then semi slept in the cockpit checking on our position regularly. Sorry no pictures, we were a bit too busy.
Thursday 22nd August We left Denarau on Sunday and have been sheltering from the high winds just around the corner from Musket Cove. It’s funny all the boats are in Musket Cove bouncing around with the white capped waves because it’s the trendy place to be. We are anchored out of the wind about 600m away in a bay that was all to ourselves (another yacht just came in). It’s much nicer here, not crowded, lovely water, some nice reefs to snorkel and just a short walk around to Musket Cove if you wanted to use their facilities (we joined the yacht club so can use facilities if we want to).
Nothing much to report. We have just been chilling out and swimming. Oh and been feeding the fish. Funny that some locals have come out a couple of days in a row, anchored about 150 meters away and they caught all the fish we’d been feeding!!! Andrew spent some time today working on a client’s website.
