Ups and Downs on the Ocean

Well, when you push off out of a nice, even though very rainy, harbor and head out on a long passage you have to be ready to take what comes. We were kinda, sorta. We started off from Vila on Tuesday morning (US Monday) with a weather forecast for some blustery conditions that would settle down and allow us to miss a nasty previously forecasted squash zone a little over half way to New Zealand. But it ended up being much nicer than that and we had a great sail and could even get some easting in to help avoid the nasties even more farther south.

However, the weather gods changed their minds. About 11pm the first night we had a dramatic wind shift which made us change our heading from southeast to south around Tanna instead of going north of Tanna. Yesterday morning it changed again though, around 9am, right after the morning radio nets. Our friends are scattered all over this area of the world with most of them going to Australia to park or to sell their boats and head on home. We had to deal with the conditions here though. The wind picked up, then picked up some more, then yet again. And, it was right on our nose of course. It was obviously a squash zone between a high and a low. I was hoping it would be a quickie so we adjusted course to go slightly north of east so we could make a little good towards our goal, but the seas got rougher, the waves wetter coming over the board over and over again, I got sick and we were just having a great time thinking of the promise of nicer weather any time soon.

That was not to be so about 3pm we decided to go up the east coast of Tanna. It took us from 9am to 3pm to go 25 miles and it was 21 miles back to the anchorage at Port Resolution on Tanna, where we originally started our visit to Vanuatu. It only took us 3 hours to go the 21 miles and we got there at the tricky entrance guarded by reefs just as it was getting completely dark. We had waypoints setup on our GPS and chartplotter though but almost managed to screw up any way as the wind was still blowing quite hard even across the end of the peninsula that forms the outside edge of the harbor. After some nervous moments we got in and the hook set the first go. There are two other boats here who had just got in from a hard passage from Fiji but there was lots of room to find a spot.

It is now Thursday morning and I am still feeling weird from the Scopalomine anti-seasickness patch I have on but with an excellent nights sleep. That is a real luxury when you haven't slept for two days running. Have I mentioned lately how much fun it is cruising about in your sailboat with lush little palm-tree covered islands and friendly natives and sand beaches, etc.? You have to earn all that the hard way though by getting from here to there and back again. We are reevaluating the weather situation right now. It does not look like we can leave here for a couple of days to go south anyway. We could go around and back towards New Caledonia which would mean checking in and out of a new country and more delays. Or we could stay here and wait it out. Since we checked out of the country we would either have to go check in at Lenakel (35 miles each way of four-wheel drive road in the back of a pickup on board seats) or just sit it out and hope the Van navy or Australian patrol boats don't show up and fine us. We have always prided ourselves in keeping 100% legal as far as each country requires. Lately we have been violating that position. May be once a criminal, always a criminal. Right now my head is too fuzzy and I need more coffee and will mull it over. Probably we will wait here a couple of days and leave later.

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