Mustang Sally’s current position at Aore Island Resort is “15:32.092S 167:10.829E”

We had a great week in at Oyster Island and we will be back again once we have Rick on board.

We took the dinghy up to one of the Blue Holes which is a big blue pool of fresh water that you can swim and snorkel in.  It is a quite a treat to swim and soak in fresh water for a while when you are swimming in salt every day.  We also did a bit of snorkelling at a few of the sites around the island including the entrance passage which had some nice coral and heaps of tropical fish.  We checked out the entrance for rocks and nasty bommies and found that it was all pretty clear as long as you stick between the marks and make sure you pass through at high tide. During our stay plenty of the ICA (Island Cruising Association of NZ boats) came and went and it was really nice to spend some time with some other cruising folk.  They are a really nice bunch and went out of their way to make sure we felt included which was great. 

We have had lots of good news lately in that Team NZ seem to be doing really well in the America’s Cup and also that Carlton had an awesome win over Richmond in the elimination final *yay* - think it might be a big ask though to beat Sydney in Sydney next week.

We do have a bit of a funny story about the Kiwi’s in the ICA fleet.  During our various discussions we kept hearing about this wonderful anchorage at Lemon Bay where you could snorkel and swim with turtles and all the amazing stuff.  Naturally we were wondering what we had missed out on and how could we miss an anchorage like that.  We searched and searched through all the info and cruising guides on board and just couldn’t work out where this place called Lemon Bay was until we worked it out that because they were Kiwis they were actually referring to Lamen Bay at the top of Epi Island (yep the place where our Vanuatu Survivor Leapy Lynda had to leave the ship). 

Monday morning and there was an armada of yachts leaving Oyster Bay – the wind has dropped right off and it is high tide at 6am so everyone had the same idea to get moving again.  The ICA boats need to get back down to Port Vila by the 18^th September so they all need to get a bit of a wriggle on.  We had heard that Aese Island is a pretty good place for a snorkel so thought it would be a good place to head to for the day plus it is only 6NM which is a nice comfy distance to travel.  Aese Island did have a big Copra Plantation on it in years gone by but these days it is deserted apart from the odd cow and chook.  We had a good think back and this is one of the few anchorages we have been in that doesn’t have people!.  We went for a walk following what we think were cow tracks and found the remains of some old buildings from WW2 and machines from the copra days,  there is also a wreck of an old barge next to the old wharf.  In the afternoon we went for a snorkel which was pretty interesting.  We saw lots of pretty coral, heaps of fish and even 2 moray eels which are pretty ugly looking things.  The old barge wreck is a bit like an aquarium with heaps of fishes so well worth a look.

Tuesday morning and we are off to Aore Island which is on the other side of the Segond Channel to Luganville.  They have a few moorings available so will be a nice place to hang out for a while.  When we arrived we also found Courageous (the old Rager) in on a mooring – we caught up with them again in the evening for drinks and dinner and found out that they had just checked out and are starting the long trip back home to the Gold Coast.   The resort here is a really nice place to stop for a bit.  It has good food, cold beers and they even have a pool that is quickly becoming a bit of a ritual for us before we head in for sundowners at the Nakamal.

Wednesday and we are up early as we are booked on a tour – Mark is diving on the SS Coolidge and I am doing some snorkelling at Million Dollar Point.  Both of us had a great time – I was amazed at the amount of stuff that was just pushed off the pier and into the water.  There were all sorts of things including bulldozers, barges and plenty of trucks etc.  The really nice thing was also the number of fish and big fish that are here so spent ages just floating around with the fish.  The trip was arranged through Santo Divers and they were great so we have now booked into another tour for Friday afternoon to check out some of the best snorkelling places on Aore Island so really looking forward to that. 

When we arrived back at the resort after the diving we were surprised to see that Gramac V (our neighbours at Martha Cove) were anchored off the resor.  We have run into them a few times during our time in Vanuatu but thought they would have been on their way home by now.  Anyhow we wandered over to say hello and found out that Mick and some of the crew are flying back to Melbourne on Thursday and the boat is just waiting to fuel up and will be on its way back to Noumea before heading into the Gold Coast to get some work done.  During the conversation we mentioned that we were running pretty low on water.  Quite some time back during our stay in Pentecost our cockpit shower developed a very slow leak (that was very quickly fixed) which emptied us out of half our water.  You think that is bad – it is even worse when only a few days earlier we had carted, in jerry cans, around 200lts onto the boat and now it is all gone.  With only around 250litres left we have to keep a really close eye on our on our water usage until it rains or until we get to Luganville.  Luckily a few of the anchorages have spring water that we can use for cooking and washing etc so each day we go in and fill up our small jerry which is great.  Anyhow now that we in at Aore Resort, where we can get good drinking water, we are finding it a bit of a battle to convince them to let us tie up to their little pier where the tap is to fill up.  They seem pretty keen to get us to load around 500lts of water onto the boat in cans which is not a job we are looking forward to.  Anyhow Mick and the Gramac team have come to our rescue and offered to fill our tanks on Thursday morning which is just awesome – we owe them big time!  We will continue to collect extra water when we can for washing and cooking as we are more than likely going to have to top up before we head home using jerry cans but it certainly has saved us a lot of hard work for now.  As you may have also figured from all this is that we have pretty much had no rain for the past couple of months (apart from the odd shower) so on that front we can’t really complain as we have had great weather for most of the trip.

We have Rick (aka Jaques) arriving on Saturday to join us for a few weeks.  We are now thinking of changing his name to spare parts man as he is bringing quite a few bits and pieces with him.  One of the main items is the fuel pump for our Gen Set.  It has been struggling on for the last couple of weeks and is now very much on its last legs.  We can sometimes get an hour out of it in a day and then charge for a bit with the main motor but will be glad when it is back up and running properly not only as it is a great way to charge the batteries but I am quite keen to give the boat a vacuum!