TOTAL MILES TRAVELED ON SAIL to SEE EXPEDITION: 13,822
THE LAST PASSAGE
Total Miles traveled on last passage – 1732 NM
Miles traveled using SAILS – WIND POWER ONLY: 991 NM
Miles traveled using both SAILS & ENGINES together: 491NM
Miles traveled using ENGINES – FOSSIL FUELS ONLY: 250 NM
Ship Sightings: We saw several large ships including the Container Ship Forum Samoa 4 headed to Lautoka, Fiji. We also saw many inter-island ferries in Fiji and Vanuatu.
Animal Sightings in Pacific Ocean: Skipjack Tuna, Brown Booby, Whale Spout, Yellowfin Tuna, Shark of unknown type (probably Tiger)
Reef Fish Sightings: Long-nosed Butterflyfish, Coral Beauties, Regal Angelfish, Coronetfish, Anenomefish, White-tip Reef Shark, Maori Wrasse, Three Band Damselfish, Sargent Major, Cleaner Wrasse, Chromis, Humbug, Moorish Idol, Sunset Wrasse, Squirrelfish, Picasso Triggerfish, Barracuda, Flagtail Grouper
3 VOS Reports Filed: -- VOS weather reports were filed with NOAA on this passage through our satellite communications.
Average Air Temperature: 86 f/ 30 c
Average Sea Temperature: 85.6 f/ 29.8 c
Strongest Wind: 20 Knots (knots are a wind measurement of Nautical Miles per hour)
Plastics Collection: We did a trawl for micro-plastics between Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. We are sending our results to 5 Gyres Institute for a world database of micro-plastics in the oceans. You can find out more here.
PASSAGE NOTES:
Watch our latest video about our adventures in Fiji.
The crew arrived and we sailed to an island of Fiji called Malolo Lalai for a wedding. Two of our new crew were getting married!
The wedding was fun. There were two Fijian warriors who blew conch shells and drummed as the bride walked down the beach. The celebrant wore a tropical shirt and a sulu (a type of formal skirt that men wear). Captain Richard wore a sulu as well. The rest of us enjoyed getting dressed up in something other than our usual boat clothes.
Before leaving Fiji we sailed to an island called Waya. It was a boisterous sail with strong winds. This was helpful in getting the new crew used to Elcie and the motion before heading out to sea. After about five hours of sailing, we pulled into a calm bay behind a tall island and dropped the anchor. As it was a traditional village, we had to present some kava root to the chief in order to anchor and fish there so we all headed ashore with our offering. Kava is the root of a pepper plant that is ground into a drink that is used in ceremonies and for relaxation.
In the village was a school with about 160 students. 100 of them were boarding at the school between Sunday evening and Friday afternoon. The boarders came from surrounding villages. The dormitories were very basic. We met the headmaster named Mr. Joe who taught and took care of the students with six other teachers. As we had arrived right at the end of the day, the children were singing a farewell song. Afterwards, they were very excited to meet us and to show us around the school grounds.
In the morning, we hiked up to a waterfall before we sailed back to the big island of Viti Levu in Fiji. To get ready for the next passage, we needed to buy some more food. Shopping in Fiji is fun because there are great markets of colorful produce as well as supermarkets. There are many people of Indian descent living in Fiji. They came to farm sugar cane and many stayed. This means there are many Indian spices and foods to be found in Fiji as well as more traditional Fijian foods.
We cleared out of Fiji with the customs and immigration officials and left through a pass in the reef. Not far from the pass we caught a tuna so had fresh fish for dinner. The 350 NM passage to Vanuatu had light winds and we had to motor part of the way. A brown booby sat on the top of our mast and rode around in circles on the wind vane for one night of the voyage. He must have gotten very dizzy.
We arrived in Port Vila, Vanuatu in the evening but had to stay on the boat until the officials could come and check our passports and ship’s papers. They came out promptly in the morning and we were cleared in without too much difficulty. They did have to send a vet out to see Moonlight who hissed loudly but passed the examination.
Alo algeto is how to say hello to a group in Bislama, the common language of Vanuatu. There are over 100 local languages in Vanuatu and 81 are still actively spoken. We sailed around to the Northwest corner of Efate to Havannah Harbor. It is a large enclosed bay that was a base for some of the US Pacific fleet during WWII. A boat, with a family aboard, stopped and asked if we could sell some of our gasoline so Richard decanted a couple of gallons into his tank. Later, they brought us a large bag of grapefruit in return.
We sailed around to a bay on the outside of Moso Island that had a good snorkeling reef and several white sand pocket beaches with rocky headlands and overhanging palms. We explored one area with huge boulders, caves and many small pocket beaches. We spent the night anchored off of Survivor Beach which was named this after the TV Show Survivor was filmed here.
Back in Port Vila the following day, four of our crew departed so we would have just five on board for the next leg up to the Solomon Islands. We planned to stop at a few more islands in Vanuatu along the way.
Saturday morning, we left early from Port Vila and had a fast sail up to Epi Island. Along the way north, we could see three volcanoes. Some create a glow at night. Now, in daylight, wisps of clouds and steam are hanging from the tops of the cones. Clouds have also settled down into the valleys below the cones and along the coasts.
The second night, was spent in a calm bay off of Malekula, a large island of Vanuatu. Several folks from the nearby village came by to see us in small boats. One older man, in a very rough and leaky outrigger canoe, thought Elcie was very impressive and he asked Richard a million questions about the boat and where we had come from. His name was Abrahm. He also asked us if we had a generator to give to his village. They had been without electricity since a cyclone in March of 2015. It is hard to imagine what life is like in a small village without any electricity.
We arrived in the island of Espiritu Santo and the town of Luganville on Tuesday afternoon, anchoring just off of the town where there was a dinghy dock that belonged to a big hardware store.
Cultural Sidebar:
Have fun trying to translate some of the local rules. How do you say "Throw rubbish in the bin provided"?
Richard, Emma and I went ashore to check out the town. It was busy with lots of traffic on the one main street. We did some shopping at a store that had familiar foods like pasta and frozen broccoli and also went to the fresh fruit and vegetable market. There are many interesting carvings all around Vanuatu.
The weather was looking a bit windy and rainy so we raced back out to the boat with our food purchases and moved to a mooring across the channel. Here, we had a quiet night of sleep before our several night’s passage to the Solomon Islands starting the next day. In the morning, we got in the water and spent about an hour and a half trying to scrape and scrub some of the algae and weed off the bottom of our hulls. It really slows us down.
Science Sidebar:
"Why on earth would cleaning the boat hull be on a 'to do' list of preparations before making a long journey? The answer: fouling organisms. "
"As every boat owner knows, that gleaming, slick hull surface on a new boat in the showroom does not stay that way once the boat is put into the water, particularly salt water. Over time, a slimy “biofilm” of bacteria and microscopic algae adheres to the boat hull, paving the way for the attachment of other organisms, ...especially barnacles, seaweeds, and even mussels and worms. In the absence of regular maintenance, the boat hull becomes increasingly fouled, carrying its own marine microcosm along. The “drag” or friction that results from this [fouling] slows sailboats and causes power boats to use more fuel, which can become very expensive. Heavy fouling can decrease the [mobility] of a boat as well. Leaving a fouling community attached to a boat hull for too long can damage the paint and lead to overall [damage to]the boat." (http://media.ctseagrant.uconn.edu/publications/magazines/wracklines/fallwinter05/hullfoul.pdf)
The 5 Night – 6 Day passage to the Solomon Islands was a bit slow going as we had had to zig-zag downwind to get where we were going - the wind being directly behind us. We were just thankful to have wind to sail as we have had to do so much motoring the last few months. We had a yellowfin tuna on the fishing line but a shark ate half of it before we could pull it in. We did eat the half of the fish that we got. We also decided to make homemade bagels because they are a food that we really miss. This is not so easy on a boat as it requires boiling the bagels before you bake them. These 'everything' bagels came out really well and tasted delicious.
We arrived in Noro at New Georgia Island in the Solomon Islands with a couple of days to get ready for the arrival of the next crew. We will write about that and report on it in a couple of weeks.
WHERE WE VISITED: VANUATU
Other Names: Republic of Vanuatu
Former Name: New Hebrides
Population: 252,000
Area: 4,707 Sq Miles / 12,190 Sq Km
Capital: Port Vila
Type of Government: representative parliamentary system [the President is the head of the Republic and the Prime Minister is the head of government]
Currency: Vatu
Language: English, French and more than 100 Local Languages
Highest Point: Tabwemasana 6158 Feet / 1877 Meters
Climate: Tropical, Moderated by Southeast Trade Winds
Economy: Tourism and Agricultural Products
Major Exports: copra, beef, cacao, timber, kava
Natural Hazards: cyclones, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunami
Country Flag:
Interesting Fact: The island of Tanna in the south of Vanuatu has an active volcano that is easily accessible. It is called Mt. Yasur and tourists can sit on the rim at night and watch a fiery display of sparks and lava.
