Rowan had a terrible night’s sleep. It was very rolly, steamy and torrential rain with wind coming and going. Thankfully I slept through it all! He was ready to leave by the time I woke up at 7:30am. We left the Banks islands under a blanket of clouds with many dark squally clouds ahead. It was a shame as there is rather a spectacular atoll we pass, also a very unique anchorage in a crater of the island Ureparapara. However it has a notoriously difficult and uncomfortable anchorage, so we pressed on. Mid morning we sailed into a huge squall powering over 30knts. With our full sail up, we pointed down wind and rode it out, we may have hit a new record as we hit 18.6 knts riding down a wave! At least that persuaded us to put a reef in the sail for the night.
The day continued in the same way, grey skies, squalls and rain. Mid afternoon we had a bit of a crisis with our satellite, they cut us off as we left Vanuatu! Luckily Rowan could still communicate with them but it wasn’t resolved, so a very quiet night with no comms. I did the first shift, Rowan drilled me into how I was going to turn down wind if we hit another big squall, he did not want to be woken up, he needed a good sleep. No pressure!! Rowan was in bed by 6:30pm. I had a relatively relaxing watch until about 9:30 pm, I was just feeling tired, struggling to keep my eyes open, did my usual look around and found a big red blob appearing on the radar, and then another. That fully woke me up. I watched anxiously as the two big squalls seemed to be coming together and heading straight for us. No way I could avoid it. Luckily the wind only got to 24 knots and the rain arrived. Rowan always tells me the rain lessens the wind and that was true, the next hour and a half was buffeting through this lot. Out the other side by midnight and the wind died. By 12:30 I was ready for bed, Rowan came up, got the engines on and got us back on course.
Hat volcano islands and big dark clouds
Leaving Sola under cloud
On our way to Nendo, last 4 islands of Vanuatu on our left, very remote and not many anchorages, we wont be visiting, legally we have to be out of Vanuatuan waters within 24 hours of check out. Although I’m sure there is no way to check this. The French boat coming our route is definitely not paying that any attention…….rules are not for the French we have discovered in our 5 years sailing!
Leaving the Banks Islands of Vanuatu, we passed the atoll and Ureparapara
My big squall luckily did not have too much wind, just lots of rain
Our path through Vanuatu
We are in Solomon waters, we passed two of the Santa Cruz islands, and will check in tomorrow at Lata on Nendo Island
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