A thrashing entry into Vanuatu

When sailing offshore in the big open seas you’re always looking for a so-called ‘weather window’, a slot where conditions are good to go. Most of the time these windows do not and will not coincide with your nicely worked out itinerary and you sit around waiting. Arriving into Vuda Point Marina in Fiji it was the opposite – the weather window was waiting for us ahead of schedule. Drat. Knowing that meant we would have to work extra hard, we decided to push for it. For two days it was all go, go, go. As well as the usual provisioning, laundry and boat prep, we had some maintenance planned and Susie said at one stage we had eight workmen on the boat at once. Rigging checks, a scheduled engine check, an electrician working on our VHF radio and amongst all of it a friendly elderly man who was doing some much needed polishing of our stainless steel. I’d be talking to the rigger discussing the technicalities of whether the pre-bend in our mast was right and he’d pop up and say “Did you know your Queen has visited our country?” A lovely distraction, he was a gentle old man and we piled him with love, cups of tea and the two fried egg sandwiches he wanted for his lunch.

The marina office were a well-oiled bunch and tipped us off when customs arrived so we cleared out quickly and headed out for a night at anchor close to the main pass in the reef to get us out and off to Vanuatu early the next morning. The distance was 455 nautical miles and we estimated we could do it in three and a half days. In fact, we had to do it in three and a half days as we’d arranged for a special clearance into Port Resolution, Tanna, and were paying extra to get customs to visit us there. The simple reason being it is a much more convenient place than the other official port of entry on the island to see the Yasur volcano which is the highlight of a visit to Tanna.

Five am, still feeling a little jaded from all our preparation work, we headed off. If there is one piece of advice we can pass on to anybody sailing in these parts of the world, it is to take the weather grib files and multiply the wind predictions it gives by two! Grib files are computer forecasts that give you vital information on what weather you can expect. For us, key things like how strong the wind will be, what direction it is will blow from, how big the waves will be, from what direction and will it rain and will we get wet. Furthermore, they will be accurate for two days ahead, no more!

Day 1 was forecast to be 7 to 8 knots with the wind from our aft port quarter. Adina weighs 21 tonnes and usually needs 10 knots from that direction to get sailing so we were thinking we would be motoring. It was more like 14 to 16 knots. Splendid! Up went our big downwind parasailor and off we shot! We still have good old debates about when it should come down as Susie is more conservative and I’m more bullish. All that is tempered with the knowledge that it is me who has to stand on the foredeck in rolling seas and pull it down which can be quite challenging when it is powered up, charging us forward. It came down before nightfall with the forecast for winds to increase.

The winds did increase and furthermore the wind was now from behind. For regular followers of our blogs you’ll know that means we have to goose-wing and that it’s easily our least favourite point of sail. The big main sail gets pinned to the one side of the boat and we use a spinnaker pole and lines to pin our big genoa (front sail) to the other side. Goose-winging is an apt term given we now had two wings, but depending on your views of a goose and how its looks and walks, we don’t like it as the boat then rolls around, making life unpleasant. On the up-side the wind was now 20-24 knots and we were racing along nicely to meet the Vanuatu customs men on time. At times the wind died down and we were a little slower; not a problem, we had spare miles in the bank.

It’s now cyclone season and back in England our friend Gareth Wear was doing a nice job checking the cyclone forecast and relaying the all clear to us. Relief and grateful thanks Gareth!

Day 3 and the forecast was for 14-17 knots. Did I mention the multiplication factor? And it was due to rain. And then the wind was shifting so we kept having to change the sails. Remaining positive, we were now well on schedule for our meeting and customs might even have to have a speedy breakfast.

Overnight it started raining and the wind sat at 20-24 knots on Susie’s shift, the waves were big and we were powering along. My shift came and the winds went up, we were soon sitting with winds of 32-34 knots regularly gusting up to 38 knots. Never mind the fact that we think our wind anemometer (wind meter) under reads. It was becoming relentless. The sea was turbulent, big crashing waves from different directions and the wind was howling making a terrific noise.

Being ahead of schedule, I’d worked out we were faced with a 2am night time arrival in the bay of Port Resolution. The entry has reef to the left and walls of rock to the right. Checking all my waypoints against satellite images I had felt we could do it at night. But with the mounting sea state I knew it was now plain dangerous. We had to slow the boat down but with only 20% of the main sail up, we were still doing 4-5knots of boat speed. At this slower speed we were underpowered to deal with the big seas and were rolling badly. Furthermore, we had to sail Adina off course to delay our arrival. It was now hell, it was positively one of our worst sailing experiences. The rain was coming down, the wind was deafening, and the big seas crashing everywhere were throwing us around. Both of us sat wanting to be somewhere else. The wind shifted suddenly, I had to quickly re-rig our lines and with the boom swerving around, my thumb took a crushing in the dark. Now not only did we have a boat being thrown around but I was adding blood to the scene. Susie came up and fighting seasickness, bandaged it up.

Finally the predicted drop in winds came and eased to 16 knots with some relief on our part. We headed for the entrance to the bay as dawn broke. But the drama wasn’t over yet, the seas were still big and rolling towards the bay. You start questioning it. I love helming Adina and now have a good feel for her in waves, time at the wheel was paying off. We powered the engine up and went for it. Timing the waves, trying hard to ensure she was not thrown off course, willing her on – come on Adina! Dropping the anchor was sheer relief, drama over. We did the bare minimum tidy up and went for a sleep before customs arrived.

The man from Customs was as friendly as could be, cleared us in (US$120 car ride across the island, somebody is making a healthy profit) and we headed off to the local village with the advice to seek out a man called Stanley. The first man walking up the road with a bow and arrow in his hands introduced himself as Stanley. Perfect – just the man! Off we went for a tour of the village.

Now we thought all those pictures in National Geographic magazines of people living in huts made with palm leaves were a thing of pre-internet days. Wrong. Here was a big clearing in the lush green bush and everyone was living in them. It was beautiful, almost surreal and we immediately fell in love with it. We knew we were in an old French colony when we saw boys playing petanque. We were shown the area where men drink kava every day and Susie was informed it was taboo for women to enter. Port Resolution is a popular spot for yachties so visitors are not uncommon but everyone waves hello and we were given some fruit. We made plans for our stay with Stanley who organises trips to the volcano, around the island etc. The volcano is rumoured to be as close to an erupting volcano as you can get. We hope to spend around four days on the island of Tanna before moving north to Erromango and finally Port Vila in around ten days time. It all depends on that thing called a weather window. With plans in place, we hopped into the dinghy, back to a rolling Adina and promptly fell asleep! Good night!

** No internet access at the moment, pics to follow.