Hi All,
We left Sunday morning, 5/24, for Lelepa Island outside of Havannah Harbor, on the northwest side of Efate, about 25 nm away. We were ready to leave and anxious to start our cruising season in earnest. Saturday was spent doing the last minute provisions, getting money, phone minutes/data and buying more TC Pam supplies. We bought tarps, nails, hammers, saws, rope and machetes. What we did not buy was school supplies which we will find out later is in much demand…drats!!!
Well…..we have had better starts to cruising season….our first anchor spot off Lelepa island was a real challenge….we had way points to enter a very tricky reef inlet on the west side only to find the anchorage was full of coral bommies….ugh….we made three attempts to anchor and never could find a spot that our chain did not drag across some coral….we have seen too much coral damage due to people anchoring in coral and we just do not feel good about it so we try to avoid the damage when we can. We were trying to anchor in 15-20′ of water but even with 50-75′ of chain we were hitting coral….30kt winds were predicted for the next 2 days and even though we were on the lee side we needed a good set with adequate scope….in fact Mystic hit and was stuck on a bommie….we easily reversed power off but that did it….we are out of here…..so we motored to a roadstead anchorage called Lelepa Landing.
We chose this rather exposed spot because an excellent Italian restaurant (think thinned crust pizza) was near by….but, due to TC Pam and the media advertising all the destruction tourism is way, way down….this is going to be a theme we hear all too often….the restaurant was only open on a limited basis due to lack of tourists….. closed all 3 nights we were there 🙁 (((
OK…..no restaurant, no picturesque anchorage with snorkeling and diving, and skunked at fishing AGAIN…..hmmmm…..well, one of the things the locals have been hurting over is lack of tourism and people spending money….Vanuatu has no income tax and derives all it’s public money from the VAT…but, no one spending means not much tax money in a time of crisis. Kathy says, I can help fix that….let’s call a local dive operator and book a day of diving…ok, we called Tranquility Diving who operates an eco lodge on Maso Island….maybe 2 nm away….yes, we can dive tomorrow and it will be about $95 each for a two tank dive…wow, that is really reasonable!!!
We had two excellent dives and surprisingly the reef was not damaged at all. It was like many of the reefs in Fiji….lot’s of hard and some soft coral, lot’s of variety of small fish and little medium to large fish. But, it was great to get wet, albeit it was a little cold. The water temp was 77 deg F…..a little chilly for us…ugh…..last year in Fiji in May the water was 80+…..looks like this might be a colder winter….does not bold well for diving in a few months!! And, we were the only 2 divers. The lodge has 8 bures, but only one was occupied. That was about the same for White Grass on Tanna.
Boat Stuff:
Dinghy: Well, somehow we have a crack in the hull/bottom….not sure how that happened…maybe lifting the dinghy onto Steve’s trailer in Auckland so he could take it to the service shop???? Anyway, we were getting 3-4″ in the bottom every morning….yikes….then the bilge pump went out…ugh…fortunately had a spare….it takes about 15 min to hand pump that amount of water and about 5 min running the bilge!!! When we raised the dinghy on Sat in preparation on leaving Sunday, we found a 3-4″ crack plus a lot of dings….whoa….epoxy to the rescue!!!! I cleaned the bottom last November and do not remember the crack or that amount of dings…oweeeee!!!!
GEN: We are not sure how, maybe the work on the rear seal and having the alternator cleaned, but the GEN was running low voltage. Kathy noticed this when it took extra time to melt the butter and pop the popcorn…..hmmmm, so I had to adjust the voltage back to 120 via the AVR and viola, back to normal!!!
Hope all is well!!
John
Mystic Moon