Monday 1 September – off to Boang island, meeting Profasea

Up at 1am with a huge squall hitting us with torrential rain. No point getting going in the rain, so we went back to sleep until 3am. We woke to mirror calm conditions which was good for exiting the pass in the dark. Thankfully it all went very smoothly, the only downside is there is no wind so we had to motor the whole way. 

Rowan spent the morning cooking up beans and pork belly, making our tummies rumble with the amazing smells. We haven’t had any meat in a while, Rowan is missing it! I made yoghurt and bread on the long crossing, only 87 miles but slow going with the engines on. At least the sea was flat calm and we had a bit of current with us, which helped. 

We had a huge black squall chasing us in the afternoon, Rowan picked up speed on the motors to keep us in front of it hoping to get the anchor down before it hit. We arrived at the bay around 4pm, just waved to the crew on Profasea, we were just trying to line up to get the anchor down when the squall hit with 32 knots of wind and torrential rain, which meant we lost sight of Profasea and the reef. I was trying to get Pinkz down from the furler, as wind was ripping into the sail even though she was tightly furled. I brought it down but in the wind it got caught up with the jib, so it took me ages to get it down in the pouring rain, while Rowan was struggling to keep the boat away from the reef. He finally reversed us out and we went back out to sea to sit out the storm. Of course after 5 minutes the wind had dropped below 10 knots and the skies cleared, we went back in and set the anchor down no problem. Ugh we could have been just 5 minutes either side of anchoring to have escaped all that drama! 

They all came over from Profasea for a drink, they are leaving early in the morning. They have loved it here and found it very friendly. Loads of canoes were out in the rain to visit us. They really don’t get many yachts here so we are white skinned novelties! They head to Kavieng tomorrow an overnight sail for them, which is just as well as Kary’s sore on his foot is not looking great, the bottom of his leg is looking very swollen. He needs some antibiotics, I tried giving some of ours to him, but he didn’t want to take them. Claudette’s sore is much better, as is Rowan’s. It was fun to catch up on what to do, on Saturday they caught a truck to town on the only vehicle that visits the village, and walked the 5kms back.

We said our goodbyes and will catch up with them in Kavieng, most probably on Saturday.