After a fast crossing from Fiji we arrived in Port Vila on Monday the 2 of September.

The wind was 30 knots+ at times and some of the new crew had to do some offerings to the fish.

The only mishap was that the sheave for the genoa halyard broke and cut off the halyard in the top of the mast.

This resulted in Genoa 2 coming down. We then had to slow down a bit and sail with a reefed Genoa 1.

 

    

                     The weather calmed down the last day.

 

We arrived at Port Vila early monday morning. We had to wait a few hours for the Bio Security man to come onboard and inspect us.

After we were allowed to go ashore I spent the rest of the day with Immigration and Customs filling in heaps of papers.

The rest of the crew got to know town.

 

    

                        On one side Happy Taurus.                                                                       On the other side a helicopter.

 

   

           Local dug out canoe.                                                                                    On the right “Brigitte Bardot” from the Sea Shepards. 

 

 

Tuesday after spending another couple of hours at Immigration we  took the boat out a bit and anchored near the reef to do some snorkeling.

To our joy we saw a Dugong swimming past the boat. It stopped at our anchor to check out who we were. Everybody was fast in the water

to try and get a closer look. After the swimming we went back to the harbour and ended the day with a nice dinner at the restaurant in the marina

“Yachting World”. After a nice steak a a few bottles of wine we ended up chatting to Linda and David from Australia who were here as tourists.

Off course we all ended up on the boat for some more refreshments.

When a lot later we were taking them back to the shore, Linda decided to go for a swim with handbag and all.

 

   

                      Alice, Linda and Sanna.                                                                                           David, Sanna and Jona.

 

Wednesday morning we were a little tired. All the crew rented a Taxi for some sightseeing while I spent the day in the engine room repairing

the exhaust system on the Generator which had come apart filling the boat with fumes and cooling water. A nice dinner on board finished the day.

 

     

                    We found a stowaway.                                                                           Singer still going strong.

 

     

                The best Kava comes from Vanuatu.                                                                Peanuts on the market.

 

Thursday we again went out to the reef for some diving. As it was Jonathans last day on moard he wanted to do some scuba diving before going home.

In the evening the girls served us some very nice “Fois Gras” as starters. This was enjoyed with some nice red wine.

We invited a young French couple, Julien and Nina from a 30 foot boat next to us. This demanded some more wine.

 

   

                           Julien and Nina.                                                                                              Jona with NoNo

 

   

                   One person even drank milk?                                                                           Farewell present from Jonathan.

 

Jonathan and Diego later went ashore to get some take away food. They came back two hours later with no food but instead two locals, Alex and No No.

Jona stayed up all night partying before I took him to a taxi for the airport at 04.30 Friday morning.

 

Thank you Jonathan for your time on board. We now need to rest for a week!!

 

We will now stock up on food before sailing north to visit some of the other Islands.

 

Lars