Samarai Island

June 17, 2010-We left the Louisiades around two in the afternoon and sailed out through Cormorant Pass. Actually, we drifted out the pass as the winds were very light but the ebb current was pretty strong. This pass was much, much easier than the one we entered a week ago.

We headed due west and around five o'clock, we approached Jomard Channel. This is a major shipping channel for commercial vessels going from the Torres Straights north of Australia to China, Japan, the Philippines, etc. we began to see a ship to our starboard, and when it was within five miles, our AIS alarm system sounded. The ship was 950 feet, and it was huge. It easily passed in front of us, as did the next ship. A few minutes later we saw one ship to port and one to starboard, and the AIS again sounded. At this point we are preparing to cross the channel so we are obviously watching very carefully. The AIS lists the closest point of approach, and both vessels were at one mile-no problem. Then one of the ships, a tanker, began to close on us, and the CPA was down to 0.2 miles. We had slowed down a bit to allow him to pass in front of us, but then we noticed that the tanker had changed course enough that he would now move behind us, which was very nice of him to do. That left the other ship to pass in front of us with sv Linda in the middle. It was an exciting hour or so. Even after we were through the channel, we kept seeing ships for several hours.

It was dead calm all night. In fact, I could see the Milky Way and other stars reflected in the water because it was like glass. It was a beautiful,calm evening; however, no wind meant that we had to motor, which we did the whole way.

We arrived at Samarai Island around 9 o'clock and were listening to Australian Broadcasting Company on the single-sideband radio when we found out that it was the Queen's birthday. That meant it was a holiday and we could not clear into Papua New Guinea until tomorrow. We decided to go ashore anyway and found out that Felix, the customs officer, was out fishing. Who could blame him-it was a holiday. We did locate some diesel and a place to exchange money so everything was fine. Our only problem occurred when we returned to our dinghy. The dinghy dock moves quite a bit because of the swell. Steve got in, and I was looking at the situation. Steve said to just lunge for it, so I did. As I lunged forward, the dinghy lunged to the side because of a swell. I did a beautiful face plant right into the dinghy. My left thigh hit something on the dinghy that has left a nice bruise, but I was otherwise unhurt-only my ego since about 20 locals were in the area watching.

On Tuesday, Felix met us on our way to his office, so we all returned to the boat so that he could check us in, take care of immigrations and also quarantine. This was a very laid back operation, which was just fine by us. We then got our jerry jugs and lugged them to town to fill up with diesel. We needed just four jugs this time so it was a bit easier. In the afternoon we took a walk around the island because we have had so little exercise lately, and it was interesting. We found the central market, and on around the island, we found the hospital. The island is only 64 acres, so it did not take long to complete the walk.

On Wednesday, we were preparing to leave for Port Moresby, but we learned that sv September was coming in to get diesel before they continue on to Port Moresby so we decided to stay. Hans and Gabriele arrived around noon and had us over for a tuna dinner because they had landed a lovely tuna on the way in.

Steve helped them get diesel today while I took care of chores. We prepared the boat to leave in the morning to do a two-night passage to Port Moresby. Since we can't find a weather window to cross to Australia, we will move along the coast of Papua New Guinea instead.

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Leaving the Louisiade Archipeligo

June 13, 2020-On June 9 we left Kimuta Island in less than ideal conditions. The wind was blowing nicely, and it was overcast, which made it difficult to see the reefs. Luckily, we had our GPS track in so we just stayed as close to that track as possible on our way back out. We were able to sail with 15 knots of wind just forward of the beam and were making good time until we had to make a course change and then the wind was on the nose once again.

We turned on the engine and motored toward No Name Passage just east of Wuri Wrui Passage in order to enter the fringing reef for a different set of islands. It rained off and on, and the winds picked up to over 20 knots. We had some difficulty seeing the pass as we approached but were finally able to see the entrance. I went up on deck to a watch and was amazed and the wind gusts and opposing waves while we were right in the middle of the pass. I didn't think that we were moving at all, but we made it through and finished the last 10 miles to Bobo Eina Island where we anchored in 30 feet of water. About 30 minutes after we arrived, it began to rain heavily and continued for the rest of the evening. At least the boat got a nice bath.

The next day the locals began to arrive at our boat. Tem and his wife Victoria were the first. They were very friendly and just wanted to welcome us. Several more came by offering fruit and vegetables for trade. It was another busy day. The next day we went ashore to walk on the beach. We also went over to Tem 's place to visit. We then returned to the boat so that Steve could relax. He pulled his back somehow and is having trouble moving around.

We stayed at Bobo Eina for one more day and spent the day with more of the locals. We picked up a nicely carved mask and a basket, and we gave out clothes, epoxy, pliers, fish hooks, sugar, flour, laundry soap, and even Ibuprophen. The people here are warm and friendly but are in such need. Right now there are just three cruising boats here, and we talked to the other two on the radio once but have not seen them.

We left in the morning on June 12. The weather was beautiful, but we had very little wind so we motored. We went about 22 miles west to the island of Panasia. Now we have a cruising guide with a drawn picture of the island and surrounding reefs; however, as we approached, we could not locate the pass through the reef. Luckily, we had very calm conditions, so I climbed up on top of the boom where I could see better and finally located the pass. I was calling down directions to Steve (we had given up on the chart plotter at this point), and he steered the boat accordingly to get us through the pass. The sun was out and slightly behind us and that made it possible for me to spot the coral heads inside the lagoon, and we picked our way through until we arrived at a good spot to drop the anchor in 30 feet of water. There were a few locals here fishing, but they left at sun down to sail back to their islands.

The island was once a volcano so you have the south side, which has high, steep, sheer walls, and then on the other three sides you have a fringing reef. The scenery is spectacular, and the water was wonderful to swim in. An old cruising guide indicated that there were crocs here, but we have not seen any. Never-the-less, my swim was a quick one with Steve joking the whole time he was standing watch for me.

We have done little sailing in this area and have had to motor most of the time. The lack of wind along with the squally weather has made it difficult to see all that we wanted to during our time here and that has been frustrating. This afternoon we will leave Panasia and sail, or more likely motor, overnight to Samurai Island, where we can get some provisions and more diesel, and wait for a good weather window to cross to the Raines entrance through the Great Barrier Reef. The forecast for the next few days has high wind and seas, so we prefer to wait it out.

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Bwagaoia Harbour and Kimuta Island

June 8, 2010--On Friday, June 5, we pulled our anchor at Rambuso Creek at dawn in order to make it to Bwagaoia Harbour by afternoon. We made our way back out through the reef entrance and motored the 60 miles to Misima Island. The entrance to Bwagaoia is well marked, although a bit narrow. There is even a flashing light to starboard. We haven't seen too many navigation lights lately.

We anchored at the end of the bay where we would be clear of any fishing boats or supply ships that might need to move around in the anchorage. The bay is lined with mangroves with a mud bottom that provided good holding. The bay offers excellent protection; however, that also means that there is not a lot of air movement--that means it was hot!

On Friday we arrived late in the afternoon, so we just stayed aboard and tried to get some things done. On Saturday morning, we took the dinghy ashore to look for diesel fuel. We were able to find a place to pull the dinghy up on the sand that was not too far from the diesel storage. We took our four jerry jugs up and had the man fill them for us. The cost was $4.30 kina per liter, which is about $6.00 U.S. We thought that that was pretty reasonable considering how remote this place is.

While he was filling our jugs, we walked over to the store to see about exchanging some money and found fuel for $4.10 per liter. After exchanging some U.S. dollars for kina, we picked up our four jugs and returned to the boat to put the fuel into the tanks, and then returned for more diesel. This time we went to the store since the price was better. We left those four jugs on deck so we now had a full load of fuel to get us to Australia.

We spent the afternoon walking around town, which wasn't much to see. However, when we walked up the hill, we found lovely homes with well manicured grounds. We met Peter, the local minister of the church, which was a open-air facility with a thatched roof. We also met a man who was making a boat out of a large tree trunk. We even stopped to watch a volley ball game that was in process. Everyone was very friendly.

At the market we discovered little that we could use. The main item for sale was beetle nut. This is a pod about the size of a lime, and it has a seed inside. The locals cut the pod and seed in half and then chew the seed. Just about everyone chews this--men, women, and even some of the kids. It makes their mouths red, and it does nothing for their teeth. There is red spittle on the ground all around where they have spit out the juice, much like chewing tobacco. We don't know if it is an addictive substance or just a cultural thing. One thing I do know is that we have not tried it, nor will we try it.

On Sunday we left the harbour for Kimutu Island, but the north winds would be make the anchorage difficult, so half way there we turned back to Bawagaoia. Monday morning we left again and motored into the wind the 13 miles to Kimutu. When we arrived at the island, we had to wind our way around and through coral in Dim Dim Passage to make it to an anchorage just down the beach from the village. We pulled in slowly and ended up in very shallow water, so we had to back up into about 20 feet of water, where we dropped our anchor. We are surrounded by coral; however, our little spot has a lovely sand bottom.

A local woman came by in her canoe with her daughter and her niece to visit with us. We then ate some lunch but decided to stay aboard for the afternoon as Steve has done something to his back and is moving very slowly. On Tuesday we had hoped to go ashore; however, Steve is still not moving very well, and I felt that unloading the dinghy and the rough ride ashore would not improve the situation so we stayed on board. We planned to leave on Wednesday but were disappointed because the weather was not very good. The skies were overcast, which would make it difficult to see our way to the next anchorage. It also looked like it might rain, so we decided to lay over one more night.

Last night was very uncomfortable as we are getting wrap around waves, and the boat is heaving in all directions. We slept on the settees for the second night. Neither of us slept very well last night and woke to the same dreary weather, but we have decided to move on because we are just too uncomfortable here.

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Arrival in the Louisiades

June 4, 2010-I just checked the date of my last blog and can't believe that it was May 28. Needless-to-say, I am really behind.

Our passage was a difficult one, not because of too much wind but because of too little wind. Our conditions were not anywhere close to the forecast we had received, so we ended up motoring much more than we wanted to. Because of the light winds, we could sail at only about 2 knots, and our wind vane just doesn't steer well at that speed, and we don't want to sit at the helm all day long. Therefore, when we could sail at 4 knots or better, we did. Otherwise, we motored with the main sail up. We also had pretty confused seas, which made for an uncomfortable ride and some difficulty sleeping.

Late in the afternoon of June 1, we got a strike on our fishing line. When we pulled it in, we had a nice little barracuda on the line. Now pulling in a barracuda is a bit tricky as they have some very nasty teeth. Steve was able to get it on the side deck, and we threw a towel over its head to calm it down. We figured that we would just let him expire, but he started flopping around so Steve had to speed up the process.

Now we realized that the lure, which had been thrown back in the water, had another fish on it. This time it was a Dorado, not as big as the others that we have caught, but a nice one to keep. We hauled him aboard, and now Steve had two fish to clean. He decided to filet the Dorado first and was working away with the barracuda about six inches from his feet. I noticed that the barracuda's gills were still moving, and sure enough, he started snapping. Steve jumped out of reach and then made sure that the "cuda" could do no more damage.

We got the Dorado and the barracuda all done and went to retrieve the line for the evening. To our surprise, we had another fish on the line. It was another barracuda, and this one was bigger than the first. We wanted to throw him back since we didn't have enough room in the reefer; however, he was securely hooked, and because there was no safe way to remove the lure, Steve had to kill him. At least when we threw him back, we knew that he would feed something else in the ocean.
We arrived at our destination late in the afternoon on June 2 and were worried about making it into the anchorage before dark. We were both very tired and did not want to spend another night keeping watch. Luckily, the tide was with us, and we made it through the opening in the reef and slowly motored into the lagoon at Rambuso Creek on Tagula Island in the Louisiades. The anchorage was beautiful with mangrove trees all around us.

Soon after we were anchored, a canoe with four local men came by to chat with us. Three were brothers and one was a brother-in-law. We visited for awhile, and then we told them that we were very tired and needed to get to sleep. They understood and left our boat and were kind enough to stop some of the local kids from coming by that night. We took a quick shower, ate a cold dinner, relaxed for a little while, and then went to bed.

The next day was filled with visits from the locals. Many of the children came by in their canoes on their way to school, during their recess, and after school. They all spoke very good English, and one group sang the Papua New Guinea national anthem for us. They were despite for school supplies so we gave them anything we had that might be useful. They brought us coconuts, papaya, and bananas in return. The clergy from the church, along with his wife and son, also stopped by to visit for awhile. One woman came by with her four kids and offered us eggs. She also had a live chicken with her, and there was a knife beside her in the boat. We decided that if we had wanted the chicken, she would have killed it for us. Thankfully, we have more than enough meat in the freezer.

Today we left very early to make it to Bwagaoia on Messima Island before dark. This is the only place where we can get fuel, and since there is still no wind, we are motoring the whole way. Luckily, we still have enough fuel to make it the 65 miles. From there we will have to decide which islands to visit during our two weeks here.
This area is lovely, and there are, I believe, just two other cruising boats in the area with us. More will arrive from Australia later in the season, but for now, we will enjoy the solitude.

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Passage to Louisiades

May 31, 2010--We are currently 300 miles from Tagula Island in the Louisiades, and the passage so far has been interesting. The winds were almost non-existent at the beginning, but they finally filled in on Saturday, so we were able to turn off the engine. They were still pretty light; however, we were able to keep the boat moving. The wind steering system begins to struggle when our boat speed goes under two knots, but it hung in there for us.

The good news was that yesterday the winds finally picked up, and we started making good time. The bad news is that the winds increased because there were rain squalls in the area. Now we loved getting the wind, but we would rather avoid rain squalls. Luckily, none of the squalls produced any high winds. Last night we saw lightning ahead of us and were worried that it was a thunderstorm. That system passed in front of us and was not problem.

Around eleven o'clock last night I came on watch, and the ski to the north of us was dark and there was quite a bit of lightning lighting up the sky. My watch went along fine until around two o'clock when the cloud was moving much closer to us. I woke Steve to begin his watch, and we decided to furl in the jib but left the main at the triple reef. I then went down to sleep. While I was asleep, Steve said that the winds hit 30 knots, and it was a boisterous ride. Gee, I must have been pretty tired to have slept through that, and I'm really glad that it wasn't on my watch.

Steve has had no luck fishing, which is disappointing as we were in the mood for some nice tuna or mahi mahi. There was a hit last night while Steve was sleeping, but there was no way I was going to pull it in or wake him up to help me. He has hardly slept since we left, and his getting some sleep is more important than the fish at this moment.

We should arrive at Tagula in two or three days. The forecast looks pretty good for wind, but we have a feeling that there will be squalls every night. At least that will keep the boat washed off as she gets pretty salty during the day.

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Under Way for the Louisiades

May 28, 2010-Our last few days in Vanuatu were spent preparing the boat for our next passage. Luganville is a very small town. There are old WWII U.S. military Quonset huts all around town, and old docks rusting in the water, but we did enjoy seeing it while we were here in Vanuatu.

As our visas will expire before the next good weather window, and since we received a decent passage forecast from our weather guru, we left Luganville, Vanuatu, yesterday around 10 'clock in the morning. We motored west out the channel bucking some nasty currents that were flooding, but cleared most of the land by nightfall.

Along the way Steve put out his fishing line because we are both craving fresh fish. Around 4 o'clock in the afternoon I heard the line pop, but I felt no fish. I clipped it again, and again it popped. This time Steve picked up the line to check the lure. He pulled it in, and we could see that something had taken a bite out of it. He tossed the lure back into the water, and then about a minute later a huge marlin broke the surface of the water just a hundred or so yards behind the boat. Both of our mouths fell open, and we just stood there staring at it. Finally, I decided to get the camera, while Steve was trying to figure out how to get rid of the fish without losing his lure. Before I could get back, the marlin was gone. Steve thought that he was caught in our line and not hooked on the lure, but we were both very happy that he got away because there was no way we could have brought him on board, plus Steve got to keep his lure.

The winds were very light for most of the day so we had to motor quite a bit. Around two o'clock in the morning the wind finally piped up enough for us to sail, and then we found ourselves doing 6.5 to 7 knots with double reefed sails. FEAST OR FAMINE! There was a lightning storm off to our port that we kept an eye on, and several rain squalls went over us; but, luckily, none had high winds associated with them, and the lightning storm passed us by.

This morning found us motoring and sailing off and on. It is tough to sit around while the boat is barely moving, but we have only so much fuel to get us to Darwin, some 1700 miles away. We knew that we would have light winds, but our forecast has not been exactly accurate so far. We hope to see the winds fill in tonight. This passage will take us about 8 to 10 days, depending on the winds. It has been awhile since we have been out this long, and it is a bit of an adjustment, but we are fine and all is well on the boat.

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Northern Vanuatu

May 25, 2010—On Wednesday the 19th, Steve and I left Banam Bay to sail northeast to Ambryn Island. We were interested in the carvings that the locals produce there, as well as seeing the Rom dance performed by the local men.

Ambrym would also provide a stopover on our way to Pentecoste for the land diving ceremony. Land diving in Vanuatu is where the idea of bungee jumping came from. Legend has it that a woman tried to flee her abusive husband, who pursued her up a huge banyan tree. She leapt, supposedly to her death. He leapt after her realizing, too late, that she had tied vines to her ankles. Now the jumps are made in order to insure a good yam harvest, and only males are allowed to make the jumps.

Well, we left the anchorage under reefed main with a full jib with the wind on the beam. What a great sail. Unfortunately, that lasted about an hour and then the wind clocked around on our nose and rose to 20 knots. We fought our way around the northwest point of Ambrym where the current and opposing wind created some nasty chop. When we were about 4 miles from our anchorage, we decided that it was just too rough, and we would be uncomfortable that evening.

We decided to change course to go directly to Pentecoste; however, the winds turned again and were right on our nose. We decided to turn around and return to Banam Bay and then try again in a day or two. Now we thought that we would have a nice downwind sail when we reversed our course. Instead we now had wind out of the southwest—right on our nose for the return trip. We traveled 40 miles and burned 5 gallons of diesel to end up right back where we had started. It was now four o’clock in the afternoon, and we were a bit tired, so we ate dinner and called it a night.

The next day was spent relaxing on the boat. We decided, along with Scarlett, that we would try the crossing on Friday. The grib files, files that we use to see the weather forecast, showed a system moving through that would give us north to northwest winds on Saturday, which was the day of the jump, and also on Sunday when we would be sailing to Luganville. Because of this both boats decided to head directly north to Luganville on Espiritu Santo.

We left on Friday morning and actually had a nice sail up the east coast of Matakula. We sailed the whole way, which has been rare during our time in Vanuatu. We pulled into Port Stanley, which is a large bay with several islands, and anchored behind Uri Island and between two reefs. That gave us good protection from the prevailing winds.

While we were at anchor, a local named Freddie came to the boat and offered to trade us two very nice Nautilus shells for a sheet and a beach towel. Since the towel was new, he also gave us a stalk of bananas that Steve said were ripe and delicious.

That evening the grib files did not look good. If we did not make it to Luganville the next day, we would be stuck at anchor for three or four days in heavy rain, so we all decided to leave at first light, catch the flood tide north, and arrive in Luganville, hopefully, before the weather moved in. We were away by six the next morning and had the wind and seas on our beam, which is a good point of sail for us. The skies were very overcast and after a couple of hours, the rain squalls began to pass over us. Luckily, only a few of them had any increased wind in them. We had our main reefed way down, so we had no problems. At one point, the rain was so heavy that we could not see Scarlett, who was just a mile behind us. By the time we entered a narrow pass into Espiritu Santo, the wind and rain had decreased so we entered with no problems and picked up a mooring ball at Aore Resort, which is just across the channel from Luganville.

Steve went ashore to check us in and arrange for dinner at the resort. We relaxed during the afternoon and tried to get things dried out a bit, but then the rain began again. Actually, it was nice to get the boat rinsed off because she had salt all over her. We were also able to collect rain water in our tanks and have water to wash some clothes in. When it was dinner time, we were lucky that there was just a very light drizzle. John and Renee soon joined us, and we all had steak dinners that were superb because Vanuatu is renowned for its beef. Just as we left, it began to pour so we were soaked by the time we got back to the boat, and then the rain continued all night. We even had thunder and lightning during the night.

The next morning the dinghy was half filled with water so Steve got in with a small bucket to bail her out. I washed some clothes and hung them out on the lines without rinsing them because I figured it would rain and rinse them off. I was right—it rained all day long. Everything on board is damp, and I am wondering if the clothes will ever dry.

On a sad note—we learned that a cruising couple we know, Mike and Cindy on Air We Go, lost their boat on a reef in Samoa. They were sailing back to the United States with Alan and Kristin on sv Charisma. We don’t know all the facts, but the important thing is that they are all right. As we understand it, they were able to salvage quite a bit from the boat, but it was a total loss.

We will spend a few days here getting ready to make the passage to the Louisiades in Papua New Guinea when a good weather window appears. We will go into Luganville today to see the town and get some chores done, hopefully, without any rain!