Arrival in Vanuatu

Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 9 Aug 2009 22:46
15:22.205S  167:11.433E
 
Lucky for us the changeable weather never happened and we sailed calmly for a few hours last evening before having to turn the engine on once again for the final stretch to Vanuatu.  We never ran into the predicted rain squalls and instead, the sky cleared completely to reveal a nearly full moon as we passed between two of the eastern most Vanuatu islands sixty miles out from Oyster Island, which is where we are anchored now.
 
Aside from nasty night #2, this trip was unusually uneventful.  Although it can't quite be termed a motorslog, we did run the motor almost as much as we ran it during that memorable motorslog from Ecuador to the Galapagos last year.  At least this time we weren't fighting a two knot adverse current and collecting spewing transmission oil into a plastic cranberry juice container.  Speaking of such things, even with all the hard use, our engine performed in a stellar fashion with no cooling related problems.  It seems all that work Don and John put into cleaning the gunk out of the exhaust elbow paid off.  We'll still be happy to see the new exhaust elbow the pack mules are bringing out to us though.
 
A passage summary and pictures will follow shortly.  Today is Monday and the pack mules will be arriving in Port Vila, Vanuatu tomorrow evening and then joining us on Oyster Island Wednesday evening.  They don't know it yet, but one of the boat tasks they will be assigned during their 3ish week stay is blog duty.  Should be fun to read what they have to say about the boating life and the wonders of Vanuatu.  We are very much looking forward to having Tracy and Billy on board and viewing all of the above through their eyes.
Anne