The day started with brilliant sunshine and boiling hot. Rowan spent all morning trying to fix our engine problem, thanks to Stinky we have comms to people all over the world. Of course it is a fault nobody has seen before, Rowan resorted to ChatGPT and gets the best response, with a very clear list in an order to check things! Sadly the problem is not resolved. We also have another problem in that our chain counter has stopped working, we don’t have markers on our chain either, so we will be counting out the length of chain we put out from here on. But in the scheme of things it is not a serious issue.
School must have ended at midday as we then got a stream of little boats circling us with loads of youngsters. They don’t get a lot of yachts here, as it is a dogleg off the beaten path, so we were a huge curiosity. Sadly we didn’t want to invite anyone on board or hand out drinks and biscuits as it would have been a never ending stream. Plus Rowan was finding it very hot to concentrate in the intense heat, with the added distraction of kids chatter. We finally asked them to leave and said goodbye to them, they took it very well and departed. One boat of young boys dropped off 6 coconuts which was very sweet of them.
Absolutely roasting by 2pm, we decided to cool off by having a snorkel on the reef. It was very impressive with a drop off of good coral into deeper water. We saw loads of big fish, big schools of smaller fish and a turtle. We had just finished drift diving on the one section and decided to get back into the dinghy to head to another spot when we saw a huge squall coming. Suddenly the light was gone and that was the end of our snorkel, we skedaddled back to PolePole. It poured down, and was like a whiteout you get on the ski slopes. What it did bring was very welcome relief from the heat, it was bliss. Good wind to cool the boat down and give us a good wash.
Baking hot sun with clouds about
Surrounded by canoes filled with kids coming to check us out
Others paddling around the islands
Laden boat. Spot my ensign I made, already perished in the sun
The squall arrives
It is a whiteout. Our coconuts from the young boys, the water filled two jugs, the liquid is under such pressure, it squirted everywhere when we pierced them. We bought a new machete in Luganville, Rowan has mastered opening the coconuts, after having a little lesson in Vanuatu
The squall heading off
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