A very grey wet start to the day. We had the anchor up at 7am and waved goodbye to Lella. It maybe was a warning, but they said the conditions were too windy for them to sail to the Banks islands today, about 60 miles away, we thought the predictions were good for us, up to mid 20’s. We set off with a reef in the main sail, and any thoughts of getting Sporty Spice (now we have the furler fixed) were abandoned. Once we got away from the small islands the wind was in the mid teens, but from right behind us in very choppy short waves. It was pretty uncomfortable and a real strain on the sails as we had the boom right out. Finally we must have got out of the wind shadow of some far away islands, the wind came from the predicted angle and we had a good fast, comfy sail. The wind crept up and up and stayed in the the low 20’s. We were flying along, our time to destination on the chart went from 6 to 2.5 hours which was encouraging.
We had plenty of squalls and dark clouds along the way, a couple of heavy showers, no blue sky at all today. As we got nearer the land the wind was pushing 30 knots and we kept thinking it would drop as we got behind land, but there appeared to be an acceleration zone, the wind got stronger and stronger. We headed into our bay, thankfully no other boats to deal with, at a real pace that was a little nerve wracking with dark clouds all about, we had arrived in a squall. We had to get the sails down too, it was a relief to get into calmer waters as we got right close to the land. Our average speed was 11.5 knts on that passage, a new record for us, and that is with a reef in the sail. We could not believe a young lad came out to greet us in these miserable conditions, just as we are setting the anchor. Jimmy tied up his outrigger wooden canoe to us and came on board. He is 22 with a wife and two kids and his grandfather is the chief. So sad that the younger generation have much poorer English, the schooling was obviously a bit better40/50 years ago. Jimmy had the most extraordinary hair, it looked like he had touched a live wire, it was all combed straight up. I was desperate to take a photo of him, but restrained myself, as we were still pretty frazzled from our dramatic arrival. We gave him a coke which he never opened, he took it with him. We arranged to go in tomorrow morning and trade for fruit and vegetables. Plus he said he could arrange some ladies to do water music for us. This island is called Gaua, and is famous for its water music.
Our passage today
Gaua island is another big volcanic island, there is a big lake around the volcano, which last erupted in 2011. No cars or roads on this side of the island. The windward side of the island has a section of road but not to get to the volcano, it is a huge hike in apparently.
Black volcanic beach with huge Banyan tree on it
The village in the next bay along
Another down pour about to hit us
The sunset appeared briefly between some clouds
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