A late afternoon dash to Awei in the Maskelyne Islands

Caduceus
Martin and Elizabeth Bevan
Mon 6 Oct 2014 23:54

Position           16:32.01S 167:46.19E

Date                1745 (UTC +11) Saturday 27 September 2014

                       

Distance run – 25.1nm over the ground, 24.6nm through the water

Time from Lamen Bay – 3hr 35mins

 

The weather she was a changin’ rather earlier than expected so instead of waiting until Sunday we made an afternoon dash west to get to the protected anchorage of Awei before the wind started to anti-clock around and blow with the passage of a front.

 

The anchorage off Awei Island as we approach from the South and across the protecting reef

 

The anchorage viewed from the East as we round Awei Island (on the left)

 

As it was getting towards dusk we could not see the reef and Sefran, a man who lives with his family on Awei came across in his canoe and showed us a safe place to drop our anchor.

On Sunday it started to blow and the wind backed around.  We would not have had time to get here from Lamen Bay if we had left it a day.  We had a visit from Will and Karen from the yacht Chantey.  They were anchored next to us and we had last met in Koro.  Whilst they were with us having a coffee we had a visit from Chief Kaisa from Avokh Island bringing some Pork Laplap for both boats.

 

Laplap is a local cooked food and I found it very good, if in small quantities

 

Before we left on Monday we had a return visit from Sefran this time accompanied by his wife Jocelyne with a gift of bananas and papaya.  In return we charged his mobile phone and gave a tee shirt, some shampoo for Jocelyne and some rope “for their cow”