Tag Archives: Vanuatu

Blog, New Zealand To Thailand, Papua New Guinea, Sailing Trips, South East Asia, South Pacific, Vanuatu

Vanuatu to PNG. 20th June to 1st July.

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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.

Blog, New Zealand To Thailand, Sailing Trips, South Pacific, Vanuatu

Luganville Espiritu Santo.

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Been here for the weekend, todays monday and we had to go and see Customs and Immigration. Times like this i’m glad i’m not the skipper, the offices are always at the other end of town and things always have to be completed in triplicate. Luckily only the skipper has to attend so the rest can waste time in cafes and find the local wi-fi.

This island is not as well developed as Efate but thats part of the charm, a small high street runs down the sea front with the normal vegatable market and other small shops. There are lots of small taxis buzzing around the place, for some reason the car of choice for taxi’ing is the Daewoo Matiz, possibly the smallest car available !!   They are all in various states from fairly new to having no sills at all or having some front wings repaired out of cardboard.

luganville vanuatu
This one was in reasonable condition !!

 

Walking around the town today was exhausting, it didn’t actually feel that hot but it was so humid i was saturated with sweat, most uncomfortable. There was only one thing for it, swimming trunks on and off the back of the boat !! Boy did that feel good.

Left Luganville to travel a bit further up the east coast, we need to be leaving for the Solomon Islands but the winds aren’t favourable at the moment. As we had checked out with Immigration we thought we better move around the corner at least, we motored about 20 miles to a safe anchorage and did a bit of fishing and swimming, no luck catching any fish though. We will move to Hogs bay tomorrow, another little motor sail up the coast to another anchorage. Very, very hot and humid today, will be nice when the wind returns !!