We left our anchorage in front of Vuda Marina about 16:30 on Monday, a little later than planned but Andrea had a couple of maintenance projects that kept him busy and we were all kind of tired anyway. This meant we arrived at the pass leading out of the lagoon just after sunset and getting dark. No problem passing though safely and soon we reached the Pacific ocean.
Turning west we put out the main and genoa. Soon the winds were up to 18 kts and we were flying along under a brilliant set of stars. The moon came up a little while later and it became bright as daylight. Andrea had spent some time cleaning the hull the other day and it paid off as the boat really performs!
Overnight we did four-hour watches each overlapping so we had someone new to talk to every two hours. Over the evening the winds dropped down and the seas calmed a bit. By this morning we had 1m seas and 10 kts of wind so we put the motor on to assist us a bit. Throughout the day, it’s been glorious to see the clear blue sky and cerulean sea. Flying fish scampering across the surface but no whales or dolphins yet.
Note: contrary to all the doom-sayers about the oceans covered in plastic and floating trash we have seen almost nothing in the past three years of sailing the world’s oceans. The trash we do see is in the harbours and marinas, not in the ocean. The oceans are clean and beautiful!
For our first day we’ve done over 210nm and now are 335nm from Port Vila. The forecast looks like it will be like this all the way perhaps with the winds dropping down a bit more.
Both Tea and Tracy are filling in on the watch schedule for this passage as we’re short-handed and they are doing a great job!
Life is good on Feelin’ Good!
Currently we are motoring, the mainsail is reef1 and the genoa is out. The sky is clear, we have good visibility and the sea state is slight. Wind is 9.6 kts from 103°T, the air temperature is 25°C while the sea temperature is 25°C. Our SOG is 9.2 kts with our COG 255°T.
A good crossing to Vanuatu, a good crew, a good performance, enjoy the beautiful weather, Ciao a tutti, Feelin'Good