For some reason the morning hours seemed to slip away and just before eight o’clock Carl was ready to lift the anchor. Heck, I had not even had breakfast yet! SV Seeka had anchored close to our anchor and we found out just how close as we raised it up, coming within 5 meters of them and needing to motor around to keep clear while securing the anchor. Off we went to the next island.
The wind was weaker than we expected so we would motor and make water. We did deploy the screecher a few times which gave us a knot and a half boost. Unfortunately, after a bit of time it would start to backwind and we’d need to furl it in. The swell was quite large, rolling us around pretty good but I still spent the second half of the passage reading in my berth.
The actual entrance was quite interesting with a number of zigs and zags around reefs. The final set of reefs had a small gap on either side and we had heard of a monohull damaging their rudder on the entrance and had to be towed to Port Vila for repairs a few days ago. So all eyes were out and satellite images double checked. No drama for us and soon we were looking for a spot to drop the anchor. The best we could do was in 16 meters of water. Shish.
A couple villagers approached as we tested the anchor and once secured, we had nice chats with them explaining the various tours and offerings of the village. Some lunch and relaxing was called for after the short but tiring four hour passage.
After a nice rice bowl for dinner, I jumped in the dinghy over to SV Beluga to take advantage of their Starlink internet and to chat a bit. They had heard of a spot nearby that likely had dugongs and were heading there tomorrow. Huh, maybe we will change our plans to go on the hunt as well…
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