Namani at Sea

Over past 24 hours we had a wealth of impressions and experiences - it almost feels that we have to go on stand-by for a few hours to avoid sensory overload...

It's been a week since we arrived on Aneityum/Anatom in Vanuatu. What was originally intended as a short convenient stop over for clearing in before continuing to Tanna has turned into a very nice experience. It feels that we could easily spend another week in our anchorage at the village of Analgawat on the SW corner of the island. The volcano on Tanna beckons though and so we have moved to the north end of Aneityum today to get an early start for the 45nm to Port Resolution on Tanna tomorrow morning.

We arrived yesterday (Sat, 17AUG) around 10am and dropped the hook in a sandy bottom at 11m in Anelghowhat Bay on the south side of Anatom Island/IsleAneytioum (the southern most island of Vanuatu). Very beautiful - on first sight it looks like a mix between the Marquesas (hilly, wooded island with lush vegetation) and the Tuamotus (a motu protecting the bay with palm lined beaches, coral, ...). Not a bad combination... We were happy to find Helena and Kari on Merilelu still anchored here before they'll take off for points further north and our paths will split for good.

Just over 100nm to go to our destination on the south side of Anatom as of this morning (Fri, 16AUG).. The "more comfortable ride" mentioned in the previous post turned out to be short lived unfortunately. A few hours after sending the post off the wind veered again and stayed at solid 20-30kn until midday yesterday. With the wind just ahead of the beam and confused seas it made for a bumpy ride. On the plus side it was fast as we were still averaging over 6kn under a triple reefed main and a tiny genoa.

Under way to Anatom now, the southern most island of Vanuatu. Exited the Navula Pass out of Viti Levu's outer reef yesterday (Tue, 13AUG) afternoon around 1730 local time. A bit of bumpy start after that but now the wind has backed from SSE to SE, making for a more comfortable ride. About 380nm to go. All is well aboard, stay tuned...

Lots has been written and said about "Cloud Computing" where you have storage and computing capacity available "on tap" as a service via the Internet. Sounds very abstract and we've always wondered where the likes of Amazon and Google keep their respective "clouds" with gazillions of terabytes of storage. Well it's not so abstract after all: We found the Google Cloud right here over Waya Island in Fiji's Yasawa island chain! It may not be covered by the NSA's backup service but you can clearly see it on the Google Earth image above.

A bit of background and explanation:

When we were in Panama's San Blas Islands, almost two years ago, everyone was eagerly awaiting the "veggie boat" as fresh supplies were running low. It never showed while we were there...

...but today it came - 20 months later in Fiji's Yasawa Islands! A local family does some small scale fruit and vegetable farming on one of the islands in the lagoon and they stopped by this afternoon, offering papayas, cabbage and other goodies. We love Fiji!

Last Monday (29JUL) the weather was right and we left Volivoli Point on Viti Levu for an overnight sail to the Yasawa Islands, WNW of Viti Levu. We dropped the hook 98nm later off Nanuya Levu - also known as the "Blue Lagoon" for the 1980 movie that was filmed here. We had heard stories of "tourism overload" in this spot but were pleasantly surprised to find a very relaxed atmosphere. There is a small resort on the island, but it comes across as very low key and friendly.

On the passage from New Zealand to Fiji we took some video clips along the way. Nicky cut and edited theses into a 4:40 min movie about the passage. You can watch it on Nicky's Page.

We' ve also added a few pictures to our recent posts below from the Lau Group - enjoy!

After a month "away from civilization" we were starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel of our supplies - even flour and rice were starting to run low... That state wasn't helped by the fact that over the past week we had three big fish strike the lure we trawled behind Namani only to free themselves just before being hauled aboard (we have now beefed up our lure...).