The forecast for the next few days didn’t look great for sailing and we had to decide whether we could risk going to the Solomon Islands, problem with it was the fact it could take a while to get there and we could get stuck there with little or no winds. We decided that we could not risk it and would be better to head straight for Papua New Guinea.

Even though the weather forecast wasn’t great we returned to the boat thursday lunchtime and found the wind had increased in the bay so normally is slightly better outside the bay. The decision was made to leave there and then so we got the boat ready and headed out around lunchtime for PNG.

The destination was Port Morsby which was around 1250 miles away, this was the port where we would have to check in for Customs, Immigration, etc. Well, 1250 miles later and 12 days at sea we arrived in PNG. It was a mixed crossing with some good winds, sometimes lack of winds, occasional choppy seas or pleasant bright skies. It became slightly tiresome around day 6 when there was very little wind and there was no good news on the weather forecast.

We changed route slightly and headed west to pick up some wind which worked for us, we sailed most of rest of the way and made a great last day sailing averaging 6 knots for about 20 hours solid.

We got into PNG mid afternoon on monday 1st July, it was a tricky entrance as the seas had large swells about 4 meters high and winds blowing 25 knots. There is a reef that runs around the entrance to Port Moresby so you have to be very aware when entering what your exact location is. One of the marker bouys was of course missing which made it more tricky than it should have been. We sheltered inside the marina entrance at the Royal Papua Yacht Club and dropped anchor, the longest sail I’ve done so far was completed.