Mid May saw us leaving Vuda and motor sailing to Musket Cove where we spent a fun few days socialising with old (have known them since Dec 2022) and new boatie friends.
The following three weeks then saw us exploring the Yasawa Islands. We decided to sail passed the Mamanuca Islands as another season of Survivor Fiji was currently being filmed on a lot of different places around them and as the contestants are suppose to be in the wilderness far from civilisation the last thing they want to capture on film is a sailboat cruising past, so for a period of 4 months cruisers are not welcomed with open arms around those islands and in some instances have been asked to pull up anchor and leave.
We had a fabulous time exploring different anchorages on different islands, reading, kayaking, snorkeling and just doing whatever the heck we wanted. If the wind was not favorable it was quite nice knowing we could just put the engine on and motor to the next spot.
During this time we were aware that our 6 month cruising permit was going to soon expire and every day we would seesaw between spending approx $400aud each to extend for another 6 months or to move on. Each day we changed our minds before finally deciding that we would extend and stay. We went online and did the 6 month extension request and waited. After a couple of days and not receiving any replies we realised we must have done something wrong and decided to head back to Vuda and get the ladies in the office to help us with the paperwork. With that decision made we soon lifted anchor and 12 hours later we sailed back into Vuda.
The next day saw me rocking up to the office early to sort ourselves out a berth for a couple of days and to start doing the extension paperwork. After 90mins of various problems I gave up and made the decision that instead we will now check out. We organised for customs to check us out in two days time and we will head back to Vanuatu.
The next couple of days went by very fast with us provisioning, doing laundry, buying fuel and saying many goodbyes to all the friends we had made and before we could blink we were sailing out of the pass and leaving Fiji behind us.
We ended up having a very good sail and after 3 days and 16 hours we were back into Port Vila. This time we only stayed 5 days there on anchor before heading out to start exploring. Our general plan was to have a look around Havannah harbour on the west side of Efate while we wait for some decent wind and then sail down to Tanna to revisit with the village there and give them some things we had purchased that we knew they needed as they had been severely affected by the double cyclones a couple of months ago.
Unfortunately it seemed like the wind was not going to co-operate with us as we soon realised it was steadily going to blow in completely the opposite direction meaning if we wanted to head south we would need to motor into the wind the entire way, not something we were happy to do.
We decided to just keep exploring and slowly head north and trust that the universe would help us help the Tanna village. Sure enough in Lamen Bay at the top end of Epi Island we ran into a solo sailor who was slowly heading south. His intention was to get to Port Resolution to do the volcano and check out to move onto Noumea. We were able to offload all the supplies we had stowed knowing they would find their way to Stanley (the guy we connected with in Tanna). The day after doing this we were snorkeling and were able to have our first up close and clear encounter with a Dugong, absolutely brilliant (and maybe good karma coming into play).
Our journey north continued with us choosing both anchorages we had previously been to back in 2017 and new ones. Along the way we made more new friends as well as continually running into new old friends that we had initially met in Fiji and were also now in Vanuatu.
From Lamen Bay on Epi we sailed up the coast of Malekula stopping at a couple of anchorages along the way including a few days in Port Stanley where I along with a couple of other people did a guided waterfall tour with the chief of a local village whose father had been a cannibal – woah!
After Malekula we sailed across and into Luganville where we spent 8 days hiding from some big winds. Once they had blown through we headed out and up the east coast of Santos which is where we are now. We are currently in Peterson Bay which is a lovely big sheltered bay with easy access to a couple of amazing looking blue holes. We also have a couple of other yachts here with us and it is nice to explore and socialise with them.
There were two birthdays celebrated while on anchor here, one was mine and Stephen from Sweetwaters was the following week, as well as individual celebrations on the actual days we decided to have a fun party on the Friday in between.
We can feel our current adventures starting to come to an end. In a couple more weeks we will be sailing out of Vanuatu to head back to Australia. The plan is to find some motel management positions so we can build up another sailing kitty, as well as doing continuing upgrades on REAO, and if it all goes to plan we can set sail again early 2025.
Hey Aaron some stunning photos and you certainly do look very happy. Gx