Vanuatu to New Caledonia

Sunday, June 10th – At anchor off Pentecost Island, we are up early and raising 270 feet of anchor chain. The seabed in our anchorage at Wali Bay falls off steeply. We had anchored in 45 feet of depth and let out the appropriate amount of chain. When the wind shifted to the east and blew us directly offshore, we found ourselves sitting in 100 feet of water with only 170 feet of chain out. That was a little disconcerting, so we let out almost all our chain. You do not want to drag here, so we had out lots of scope. It takes a very long time to get up all that chain and the anchor, but finally we are on our way.

We sail northwest to Espirito Santos Island under overcast skies and occasional light rain. After a long day of sailing, we anchor for the night in Palikulo Bay. The next day, we move about 8 miles up the coast to anchor off the Oyster Island Resort. There is both an outer and an inner anchorage here, but the pass into the inner anchorage is only about 8 feet deep at high tide which totally precludes our entry.

There are about 8 other rally boats here, and this will be our last stop with the rally. They are continuing north in Vanuatu and then heading for the Solomon Islands. We are heading south to New Caledonia where we plan to leave Avante for several months while we return home to Telluride for some of the summer. We should meet up again with the rally somewhere in Australia near the end of the year.

We have moved over to Oyster island earlier than planned because of weather. An extreme low is passing west of Vanuatu and forecast is to bring lots of rain and heavy winds which will shift counterclockwise from east to north to west. Oyster Island is a nice safe anchorage and a good place to be in bad weather.

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We take the dinghy ashore to the resort each night. Getting back to Avante in the dark and the rain is a real challenge. Avante is the only boat in the outer anchorage. We can see her lights, but due to the tide, we can not cut across the reef. We have to find the small, poorly marked, reef passage to the outer anchorage in total darkness. Once safely aboard Avante, we radio back to another boat letting them know that we had made it.

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Wednesday, June 13th – Luganville, the second largest town in Vanuatu, is not far away. The weather has begun to clear and transportation has been organized for anyone off the rally boats that wishes to visit Luganville. Avante is headed there soon, but we decide to go along on this trip. First stop for everyone is some place with the internet. We all need to catch up with friends and family, look into personal details and see what has been happening around the world. Victoria Cafe is found. We order coffees and something little to eat. It’s not a great place, but it serves our needs.

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Thursday, June 14th – We depart Oyster Island and sail around toward Luganville. We hope to stop and snorkel off Million Dollar Point. When the United States military abandoned Espirito Santos after World War II, it left behind all the roads, buildings and runways that had been built. Rather than take all the equipment such as jeeps, guns, supplies, clothing and food with them, they offered them to the British and French military who were remaining, as they both had colonial interests in Vanuatu. Despite the bargain price of cents on the dollar offered, the British and the French just laughed, telling the Americans that they would leave all the stuff anyway, and the British and French would get it for free. To spite them, the Americans moved everything to the southern end of the island where they drove all the vehicles into the sea. They used bulldozers to push the rest of the items into the ocean before finally driving the bulldozers into the sea. Millions of dollars worth of equipment and goods were rendered useless. Obviously, at the end of a war, waste and pollution were not a concern.

Unfortunately, winds are blowing 20 – 25 knots and seas are rough by the time we reach Million Dollar Point. Not good for either anchoring or snorkeling. So, we just continue on to Luganville where we anchor off the west end of town. The next morning, we take the dinghy ashore and check out of Vanuatu with Customs and Immigration.

With the investment we had heard about from Australians buying land around Luganville and especially on the nearby island of Aore Island, we had expected Luganville to show some evidence of that investment. We see no such thing. It did not seem to have advanced much since its WWII days when America had a big presence.

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We know one of the Australians who has invested near Luganville, and he has offered us the use of his mooring off Aore Island. He has bought a parcel of land there and had paid to have the mooring installed off his beach. He had never seen it, however, is pleased that we, fellow sailors, can check it out for him.

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The mooring works just fine except there is a small issue when the tide changes. The boat slowly swings around, and the plastic mooring ball bangs its way down the side of the boat for several minutes. This inevitably occurs sometime in the middle of the night, but having become used to noises on the boat, once we figure out what is causing the banging and that all is safe, we roll over and go back to sleep.

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Sunday, June 17th – We are ready for our passage to New Caledonia. The jacklines, our safety lines running around the boat, are rigged, and the dinghy is lashed on the foredeck with fenders stored underneath it. The forecast shows that we should have an easy weather window for this trip which we wanted since our autopilot has not been holding in difficult conditions. It’s pretty calm when we depart, but by mid-morning, we are sailing.

By early afternoon, winds are up to 16 – 18 knots and we are plowing into some heavy seas when the forward bilge alarm goes off. The Captain had installed an alarm that clangs so loudly that not only does it cause everyone to startle and jump, it is enough to “wake the dead” as The First Mate exclaims over its racket. He calmly says that he did that purposely so that we could hear it and not ignore it. Ignore it? They can hear it back in Luganville!

We switch the bilge pump to manual but do not get an indicator light which would be showing that the pump is not working. We cannot continue on with the forward sail locker flooding. Turning on the engine, we take down the sails and turn downwind to inspect the sail locker. As expected, there is water above the bilge alarm switch. The Captain rigs an emergency pump to empty out the locker. Once the locker is empty, the bilge pump is inspected. Diabolically, it is now working, and we suspect that something jammed the float switch earlier. This happened on our passage to Minerva Reef last year, but now that we have this insanely loud bilge alarm to alert us before the water level gets very high, we will not flood the front end of the boat.

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Monday, June 18th – 0300 – Wind is 15 – 19 knots from E, and we are sailing along at 6 knots under jib alone. Autopilot is handling it nicely, and we are very happy not to be hand steering with just the two of us. The wind drops as the day progresses, and by mid-afternoon, we have to raise the mainsail. It turns into a nice afternoon of sailing with 9 – 12 knots from E and calmer seas.

Conditions change somewhat during the night, and our autopilot disengages several times, but we are always able to get it operating again. By late the next morning, we are sailing through the Loyalty Islands. They are supposed to be a very lovely part of New Caledonia, but we cannot stop there without first going all the way to Nouméa to check into the country. The wind really drops off around noon. In a short while, we have to turn the engine on, as we want to go through the Canal de Havannah just after dawn tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 19th – New Caledonia has a reef around much of it, and we enter through the reef at 0800. As we go through this reef passage under motor, our speed climbs to 9 knots with the incoming tide. We wanted to go through the Canal de Havannah early in the morning because we still have 7 hours to go before reaching Nouméa, and we want to do it in daylight. The route across the southern end of New Caledonia winds through islands and around reefs. From a navigation perspective, our first impressions are good. The charts are detailed and accurate, and there are excellent navigation aides. That is probably because New Caledonia is one of the world’s major sources of nickel, and large ore ships use these waters regularly.

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We spend over a week here in Nouméa before flying back to the States at the end of June. Our time is spent doing boat maintenance, catching up with some sailing friends who are also here, and beginning to explore Nouméa. It is an interesting small city with a very strong French influence which means that the food is quite good. We enjoy some of the local restaurants, and after a quick peruse of the markets, The First Mate cannot wait to provision the boat when we return in the fall.