Poindimie to Vanuatu

Hello Again,

Now we are back in civilization (well the closest thing around here to civilization – there is power here in the form of batteries and a generator and some magical internet connection ) I can send you the next update.

Noumea - Isle of Pines - Poindimie

Hello One And All

Well to fill you in on what we are up to. On Tuesday 2nd June we finally upped anchor from our little bay just outside Port Moselle and motored in to clear custom etc. With a little ‘help’ from our new kiwi friends on board “Nutcase” ( Graham and Sandra) parked just outside the Port with us, clearance went very smoothly. Most of our fruit and veges were taken from us - and this we had expected so had run supplies down. We were allowed to keep anything we had cooked!! So potatoes and my kumara were cooked up along with some hard boiled eggs. They let me keep my carrots as well. Then there was our ‘export’ meat, all $300 plus!! The rules have just changed and one is now allowed to bring in meat from NZ and Australia as long as it has the export sticker on it. Thank goodness ours did. “Nutcase” gave us help here! Can’t go into too many details!!

Opua to Noumea

 Hello to you all out there

Well with all jobs done, our crew of Dave and Kathy settled into the guest cabin, custom formalities all completed and a lovely fresh coffee from the new marina cafe, at 1030 we motored out from Opua on a lovely sunny but cool winters morning on Leg one – heading for Noumea. We then motored for the nearly 20 hours with not enough puff to raise a sail. The seas were calm with hardly a ripple. So much for the Bob McDavitt’s Voyage Forecast in which he said we would have SSW winds of 15kts. Alec said he owes him 50Lts of diesel!!! Then just after 0700 the next morning when we were off the top of North Cape we were able to raised the sails with the wind increasing to a good 20kt from the SE. At last we were on our way. Squalls have been about most days, until today - day 6 – but nothing to worry about. The strongest gust in those squalls was 30kts and only lasted a few minutes.