The wind is blowing for quite a few days so we will stay here until it quietens down. Even though we are in a very sheltered bay we are bouncing around a bit. All the yachtie talk is about the approaching cyclone over Vanuatu. Some boats headed off to Minerva reef this morning, this is a reef where you can anchor in relative calm waters until a weather window opens for NZ. As the weather seems to work in 5 day cycles and it is hard to get an accurate forecast more than 5 days in advance, it it the way most people do the passage to NZ. It is our plan for November.
We went out on JediJeldi to a reef dive site that is out in open water, it was a bit too rough for me and it was very tricky trying to anchor JeldiJeldi, I generally don’t go in unless it is really worthwhile and Rowan reported it was nothing special. He thinks it must have been damaged by the earthquake. Which reminds me we had a warning about volcanic activity between here and Vava’u a few days ago, we wonder if it was that steam spout we were watching from the resort there.
We headed to the beach and did a lovely long walk around the tip of the island and then crossed back through a resort that we thought was closed. There was a real old local character there, he looked like a real yogi, very chilled. He said they were closed until November when they have some more guests but said he could cook us a fish supper if we wanted it tomorrow night. We were in, it will be nice to have some fish.
We went to the Israeli boat for supper, they had invited us around for a simple supper, chicken curry, so we offered to take pudding. I caramelised some bananas with my yoghurt and toasted pecan nuts from the farm in SA. They are an interesting couple, he is Indonesian Dutch heritage and seems to have worked all over the place and lived in Israel for quite some time. Ruth his Israeli partner is not the mother of his kids, she is tiny and not a hugely keen sailor, gets very seasick, and very nervous about the trip to NZ. They both went to Cape Town just before lock down to get their RYA qualifications to go sailing. He is trying to find crew, as she hopes to fly to NZ. It turned out to be a egg curry, Indonesian style, with lots of sides like chutney and sambal. It was very tasty, poor Rowan was hoping for a bit of chicken though, and thought I had done him out when I dished up only eggs for him! It immediately took me back to boarding school food, as curried eggs was a regular on the menu and I don’t think I have ever had it since. Ruth had also made fried bananas as a side dish, so it was a very banana heavy meal. Most probably like me her bananas need eating!
We couldn’t stay too long as Rowan had some work calls to attend to when the UK was waking up. We are enjoying watching the series of Lessons in Chemistry, we have both read the book and enjoying watching it.
Great long beach, we walked around the spit to the other side
PolePole in the dazzling water
Down to 7 boats in the anchorage
Serendipity resort where we are having a fish meal tomorrow
The spit is eroding, it could also be hurricane damage
On the other side of the island to us, there are more uninhabited islands
These marks in the sand was from a family of pigs rootling around for things to eat in the sand, they squealed off as soon as they saw us, I bet they are wild and hunted
You may just be able to pick out a rustic tent, there was a guy there fast asleep, real Robinson Crusoe existence
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