The night of the 30. Sep – 01. Oct was really quiet. I could do a lot of readings on next destinations and a bit PC work. The wind was not strong and constant in direction.

In the morning hours it turned a bit more SE and we could set the main sail. As winds of 20+ KN were forecasted I only used reef 2.

What did not happen, was the wind increase and after a few hours the wind turned again towards E and we needed to take the main down again. It blanked the genoa too much at 130 deg AWA. Thus, we sailed very comfortably with the genoa.

Tobias experimented with the lure, trying passionately to catch a fish. Looking at the excellent meals he prepared so far, I’m curious about a fish he prepares in the kitchen. It’s very obvious that he loves cooking. It’s the second Austrian cook I have on board. (Thanks Guenther, for all your delicious meals in during the Atlantic crossing.)

I then started to look for information about entrance permissions and inbound clearance for the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia. For hours I had to work on my PC. This morning I could sent the application mail to Micronesia.

Last night was quite again. The wind varied between 13 – 18 KN but kept direction.

Towards 0100 a group of 7 Chinese fishing boat required first mine, and then Tobias’ attention. Fortunately no real problem occurred also they were pretty close.

Now it’s 0715 on 2. Oct. , while I’m writing these lines a group of 5 Chinese fishing boats are heading in a about 45 deg about angle towards our course. They crossed our course on safe distance
Only the last one boat was a bit close with approximately half an NM.

However, these were not all. Several Chinese fishing boats operate in this area.

The wind is currently at around 16 – 19 KN TWS and about 150 deg AWA, which gives us a SOG of 5 – 6 KN. This is a nice sailing with wind and swell from about 150 deg PRT.

Will the wind still increase? If not, we will enjoy sailing as it is since it’s very comfortable.

As we want to see Mt Yasur, a 360 m high active volcano, I reached out to my customs & immigration contact and asked if we still can make inbound clearance in Lenakel, Tanna Island. A lady asked the Lenakel team to reply and I got very quickly a positive reply.

Thus, I changed already course to Futuna Island west side. It’s a small island west of Tanna Island and we need to pass it.

The emails exchanged gave me the feeling we are welcome.

It just after 0700. The sun is already above the horizon. He rose at 0600 at our position.

Tobi got up and after a first chat he started trolling again. Will we catch a fish? I hope so!!!

My breads are formed and doing the last proofing. In an hour we will have freshly baked bread.

I’m waiting for a mail from Vanuatu’s custom & immigration. I consider to change the port of entry to Lenakel, Tanna Island

When I started my first watch, we had to get the main sail down. The wind turned to much towards E thus the main blanked the genoa too much.

Then, at around 0545, during my regular radar check, I saw a big signal in front. It turned out it was a special purpose vessel without transmitting its AIS signal. Why? I don’t know. Checking MaRe’s AIS system it showed all is functioning. Things like this can happen and they are my reason to check every 20 min the surrounding of MaRe with radar. I don’t understand why some other sailors don’t make night watches but go to bed and sleep.

Now, at the end of my last watch, I’ll bake bread. Fresh bread for breakfast is not too bad.

We are sailing now with about 8 KN SOG in short but high swell. About 3 m waves. MaRe runs already in her pajamas very fine, rocks a bit in these waves with a 6 Bft wind blowing from SE.

The passage through the outer reef, the Malolo pass was okay. About half an NM out we set sails and MaRe started running.

Around 10 NM ahead of us sails an US, a German, and a Swedish yacht. Most likely they are heading to Vanuatu as well. Never I saw 3 yachts out in the blue ocean so close by with about the same heading.

We started our day rather late. Only at 0730 Tobi started with the breakfast and I took out the log to clean it. Didn’t want to do it before to avoid having to do it twice. The waters we were in during the last weeks let fouling grow pretty quickly.

At 0900 I called the fuel station on CH 11. With a waiting time of about 10 min we got clearance to go in. Although outside the wind was strong, inside the marina it was almost no wind. The marina is pretty well protected by high and dense trees.

The staff at the fuel station is really professional. Thus docking was quickly done. Refueling diesel and gasoline (outboard motor) was my routine. While I did this, Tobi got from Henk a wheelbarrow to bring the gas bottle to the Blue Gas station for refilling. We now have 2 spare bottles on board.

Henk gave me a hand with the outboard motor. For a distance of roughly 500 NM I want to have it stored in its mounting in the behind the helm station seat.

I then went into the marina office and asked for Ma, a very attentive lady with whom I communicated so far only by email and phone. It was nice meeting her. She gave me all the information I needed for outbound clearance, paying my fuel. With her, I could already pay the fees for outbound clearance. Fuel I paid a few doors further down.

When I went back to MaRe, a group of people, one carrying a guitar, approached me for singing a farewell song. I was surprised! “Please wait until my crew is back” I asked the leader. When Tobi was back, we listened to the song. It was just a very nice finale to the great time I had on Fiji.

Then Ma came and told us, we should stay at fuel dock and walk over to the customs & immigration office for clearance. Ma also had some clearance documents prepared for us. So Tobi and I walked over to the customs & immigration office and were quickly cleared for departure within 1 h.

However, the daily menu of the “Boat Shed” restaurant attracted us. We decided to have a farewell lunch. It was nice because Henk & Marja joined us. The meal was called “Fish in Lolo”. It was fish cooked on coconuts sauce with onions and other vegetables, a green vegetable and deep fried taro cane with it. Very delicious!

When we left the restaurant, Ma was already waiting for us. We overstayed the one hour period after receiving the stamps in our passports. Ma called customs & immigration and got an extension for us under the condition that we leave ingredient immediately. Leaving immediately was what we wanted to do anyhow.

Farewell hugs with Henk & Marja. Then they released the lines and off we took. A last waving farewell to Henk & Marja and we went through the narrow channel out of the marina and headed towards the Malolo pass into the blue ocean.

Yesterday we went to buy provisions because here it seems we have the last chance to get packed/canned food. Vegetables and fruits I expect to get on the islands to come.

The supermarket close to Denarau Marina is not good for provisioning. So we took the bus to Nadi. In 3 supermarkets, almost next door to each other we got almost all we wanted.
For vegetables and fruits Tobi, the cook, went alone to the municipal market just across the street of the supermarkets, while I took care of the full shopping bags.

When he returned we moved all inside the eatery being just behind us. While it was raining, we had a small, simple, good tasting, Chinese style lunch.

When we wanted to look for a taxi, I asked the lady of the neighbor table if she could watch our stuff until we are back with a taxi. “I have a taxi!’, said the man at the table with the lady. How lucky we were. Price was OK. Everyone helped us getting our shopping items into the taxi.

He brought us almost to the dinghy dock. I went to look for the tender and asked the guy of the fuel station if we can load our stuff into the tender just here. “No problem”, he replied. So Tobi moved our shopping bags to the fuel station and drove the tender around the corners.

Pretty heavy loaded, we returned to MaRe.

Then we got busy. Clearing all vegetables and fruits that no ants etc remained. The cans got their content and “2509” written on each of them. After removing the papers they were washed with a sponge to ensure that no insect eggs stuck on them. Some of the packed stuff needed to be filled into five liter bottles or glasses.

Storing things away took again some time. Exhausting work, especially as some storage locations needed to be changed. At the end I was too tired to finish all. When Tobi got the pasta salad ready I stopped working and decided to the rest the next morning. This morning I was happy with my decision and completed all in a short time.

Hulls are cleaned. – It was a bit difficult today because the water was a bit murky. A lot of sand floats on water. Tobi and I worked together before we lifted the hook in Denarau. There we did the big chunk.

After lifting the anchor we motored the 4 NM over to drop the hook again outside of Vuda Marina. We had 13 – 15 KN AWA on the nose, but beside this, there was nothing special. Here in front of Vuda Marina, we are hanging at 50 m of chain safely.

I went again into the water to continue cleaning the hulls. Tobi stayed on board as he has a badly running nose and one eye is a bit infected. We hope it goes away quickly.

At 1700, I took the tender inside the marina. To prepare for tomorrow, I looked at customs and fuel dock; all is okay. Then I went to Henk & Marja for a farewell drink. They will stay for a about two weeks more to change the rig and do a few other things before they cast off the lines to sail non-stop to the Solomons. There is a chance that we will meet again. Let’s see. The Pacific Ocean is so small.

I returned to MaRe with the last daylight. The wind turned almost 180 deg and increased to solid 15 KN. The waves rose to a meter. Very quickly I hooked up the tender for being pulled up, got out of it, called Tobi, and in the shortest time possible, it was up and out of the waves. Right now MaRe is rocking a bit. Forecast says wind goes down in about 4 h.

While I’m writing these lines, Tobi is preparing our dinner. I’m looking forward to it. He is a pretty good cook!

The last days where filled with boat jobs, giving Henk a hand by transporting his outboard motor to shop to get a small repair and maintenence done, pick-up my newly made gennaker (warranty!) do some food and boats parts shopping and a lot of admin work.

I also met for a few hours with Tobi, a young Austrian guy, as candidate for replacing Joe, who flew home because of homesickness. The interview with him a few days ago turned out well and today Tobi came on board. He has sailing experience (from Panama up to Fiji) and a technical background. On top of this he loves cooking that he considers a career as cook once back to a more extended life at land. His personality seems to match mine. Thus, we have a good chance to enjoy sailing together up to Japan.

Documents for outbound clearance on Monday on Vuda Marina are out including the itinerary for refueling diesel and gasoline, refilling one propane gas bottle, and outbound clearance at the end.

Once cleared out, we will departe immediately and go through the Malolo pass to the open water outside of the reef around Viti Levu island. The next WPT is already at the SE corner of Efata island, the island of Port Villa the capital city of Vanuatu.

Customs of Vanuatu is informed on our arrival
and got all the documents they would like to receive prior to arrival.

What’s ahead of us?

17°46.363′ S
177°22.730′ E

Together with Henk & Marja, I visited the Denerau Island around the Denerau Marina.

The water towards the marina is getting so shallow that even with the tender it’s necessary to stay on the well marked channel. As Henk pointed out they must use dredgers annually to keep the water deep enough.

At a pier there is a courtesy dinghy dock available for 1 h. A sign states that and one is supposed to make a reservation on CH 16. What a bad utilization of CH 16! A port-ops channel would be the right one. Additionally the sign doesn’t states who needs to called. Fortunately there is nobody standing around to list up which tender arrived at what time.

The area is of a type, I haven’t seen for years and I don’t miss such areas at all. A highly developed modern area with restaurants, coffee shops, fashion shops, wine & liqour shops, supermarkets, and a few chandleries. For me it was a bit shocking after all these years in nature and on small islands.

We checked 3 chandleries, got some stuff but have to come back on Monday again then shop assistant will go with us to their other facility, which is closed on Saturdays.

Needless to say that we only spent the necessary time in this area.

S 17° 45.533
E 177° 23.167

The leg was only 10 NM through several reefs visible in the often not correct Navioncs charts. Im using more and more satellite images to identify reefs not indicated in Navioncs charts.

At 1130 I dropped the anchor at 4.5 m sand or heavy mud. The water is a bit murky to see the ground well.

The anchorage is a rather huge area outside of Denerau Island in which – uncounted – at least 20 yachts are at anchor.

The ground holds well and this is important to me.

S 17° 38.789
E 177° 22.359

After doing a bit of boat work and a lot of admin work – I always thought I’m a sailor and not an administrator – I brought Joe to the beach this morning at 0800. There, she got picked up by Meme from Naigani Island, who will bring her to her hotel close to Nadi Airport.

Joe left because she got homesick. She has a good start position into her future because, she got an excellent grade for her bachelor thesis she worked on for quite a while on board of MaRe; submission was can while we were in Suva at anchor. It was only after the submission that we left Suva.

This morning Henk proposed to move to Denerau and drop the anchor outside the marina. There is a better infra structure than in Lautoka or Vuda close by Saveni Bay.

On the AIS screen I’m seeing a lot of boats in this area. Therefore, find a good spot might be bit difficult.

I always found a spot to drop the hook…