We got up early so we could get to the fuel dock in flat waters before the wind picks up. We just went outside to release our mooring lines, and found our neighbour, the NZ solo sailor just leaving his mooring ball. He told us he was off to the fuel dock to get water. We knew that would take a while so we waited before releasing our mooring ball and crawled to the fuel dock where we had to idle outside the Rottweiler’s boat! It is quite a tricky fuel dock to get onto as it has a very small area to tie up to. Luckily the boat guy was there and it all went well. This is our last fuel stop until the Solomon Islands. I quickly went off to an ATM to draw money, taking Rowan’s two cards to draw loads of cash as we wont see another ATM for a while. Well 3 of the 4 cards were rejected as we had exceeded our daily allowance! Our cards are all on British time, and we had drawn money yesterday. I did however manage to go to the little Foreign exchange shop, to get some Solomon Island dollars.
We were off the fuel dock by 9:30am, just setting off when the rain started tipping down. It is a long wiggle making our way out of the harbour, between the islands and crossing one very shallow area. Luckily we had our old tracks to follow as their was zero visibility at times. We got out into the main bay and the waves were hitting us side on. It was an incredibly uncomfortable 20 minutes until we were out the bay and round the corner.
Rowan had earmarked a nice bay on Moso island, but the wind was swirling around and not doing what was forecast. Big squalls were really messing with the wind direction, we were going to have to motor the whole way, just when we want to conserve our fuel as much as possible. So we changed plans and went into the big bay off the mainland, protected by both Lelepa and Moso Island. We anchored in front of some houses clearly owned by non locals.
It was beautifully calm which made it a good afternoon to do a few chores, Rowan did a brilliant job of replacing Stinky with our mini satellite. Threading the cable all the way into the guest cabin. It was quite a job, with Rowan twice dropping bits into the water and having to dive overboard to rescue them. Miraculously he only lost one bolt which sunk like a stone in our 18m deep water! I made another repair on the trampoline, we are wondering if it is perishing, fingers crossed its not that.
We were surprised during our brilliant sunset to find the Kiwi solo sailor dropping anchor next to us. Another boat joined him in the dark, they obviously know the area well.
The down pour as we were leaving
Rowan fixing on the new mini satellite
It was a stunning sunset, you can see the narrow pass we came through between the two islands
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