26 June 2015 Ratua Island, Santo
I pottered about in the morning and then went for a snorkel. I tied the dinghy to the buoy next to the anchorage and found a shoal of about eight Broadclub Cuttlefish. About 12 inches long, they were very large and seemed to be as curious about me as I was about them.
At first they kept their distance, but gradually edged closer. I found that if I dived down, hung onto a rock and stayed still, the cuttlefish would come near enough to allow me to take photographs. Unfortunately, there were a lot of particles in the water and I was getting “back-scatter” where the light from the flash gun is reflected back by the particles, causing white spots on the photograph. However, I spent an hour with the cuttlefish, trying different settings and positions and got a few reasonable photographs: photo 1 photo 2.
Glenys spent the day chilling out and even dragged out her ukuele.
27 June 2015 Ratua Island, Santo
We knuckled down and did some jobs. Glenys got out her sewing machine again and did some modifications to the bimini, then started to make some new larger side panels to keep the nasty rain out of the cockpit.
I removed the aft toilet pump and gave it a long overdue service. It’s an unpleasant job involving stripping it down and then scraping off a couple of years’ worth of stinky lime scale from all the components. Once I had it all clean, I replaced the various seals and we now have a smooth working toilet again.
It’s been a windy day with strong gusts and a little bit too cold to go snorkelling. It’s been good to have a rest from travelling for a few days, but we need to get moving onto Papua New Guinea, although neither of us relishes the thought of a seven day, 900 mile passage in these 25-30 knot winds.
28 June 2015 Ratua Island, Santo
I had a serious look at the weather forecast and downloaded two weeks’ worth of GRIB files. There’s a band of unsettled weather to the north west of us mostly over the Solomon Islands, which is caused by the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ). The GRIBS show that low pressure systems keep forming in this area, and then head south down over our route to the Louisiades, causing higher winds, squalls and rain.
Unfortunately, the forecast of the movement of these lows is unreliable and it’s hard to predict what we will encounter. Ideally, we would wait until the SPCZ calms down, but that might take weeks and we can’t wait that long. I tried to work out the best time to leave next week by looking at the weather each day along our route, but there doesn’t seem to be a perfect weather window.
It looks like we might have to leave in the middle of next week and take whatever comes, which is a bit depressing. On the positive side, the winds are constantly from the south-east, so with our north-west course, the winds will be directly behind us. On the downside, we’re likely to have a couple of days of squally weather with high winds and rain.
While I was muttering and moaning, Glenys finished off the new side panels for the bimini.
29 June 2015 Ratua Island, Santo
The unsettled weather north of the Solomons has now turned into a Tropical Depression, which is serious enough to have been given a number - TD17F. It’s heading south-west towards the Louisiades, so we won’t be leaving Vanuatu until that has dissipated.
We decided that we ought to go back to Luganville to get some food and to also see who else was around. Maybe some of the other cruisers might be heading in the same direction as us and we could compare notes on the weather.
It was just after low water, when we upped anchor and the tide was perfect - we had a 1 knot current with us around the south of Aore Island, then a 3-4 knot current with us through the narrow channel up the west side of the island, so the 15 mile trip was quick. The wind was blowing a hooley from the SSE, so we first went over to the Aore Resort, which is sheltered. Unfortunately, all the moorings were taken, so we had to go over to Beachfront Resort, which had a 30 knot onshore wind and breaking 2-3 foot waves in the anchorage - bloody horrible.
We anchored amongst eight other cruising boats, who were all gritting their teeth and coping. I didn’t want to leave the boat unattended, so I dropped Glenys off at the beach and she caught a taxi into town. While she was out, I went and chatted to Karen & Graham on “Red Herring”, who are also heading west to join the Sail Indonesia Rally. They were hoping to leave in the next couple of days like us, but are now waiting and watching the low.
Glenys was soon back on the beach with two cases of beer and enough meat to last two weeks. We both got wet through as we left the beach, bashing into the 2-3 foot waves. Back at the boat, we dumped the shopping in the cockpit, hauled the dinghy up on the davits and got the hell out of there, heading back to Ratua, which we know is a nice settled anchorage.
The tides were kind to us again and we had about a knot with us for most of the way, although we had a tough bash directly into the 30 knot winds when we turned the corner for the last three miles to the anchorage. What a difference. We anchored in 6 metres on white sand, surrounded by blue water and reef. The wind is still strong, but is moderated slightly by the island and we’re gently rocking as a little bit of swell sneaks around the corner - lovely.
Two hours after we arrived back, “Dreamtime” came back after their excursion to Luganville to extend their visas. They feel the same as us - why would anyone stay at the Beachfront anchorage?
30 June 2015 Ratua Island, Santo
At four o’clock in the morning, we were woken up by a very strange noise, which sounded like the white noise that you get from a radio when it’s between stations. We leaped out of bed and rushed into the saloon, but couldn’t find the source of the very loud noise. At first I thought that I’d left our stereo on, or it was a laptop, but everything was turned off. I went up on deck and couldn’t hear the noise - it was down below. Weird.
After a couple of minutes, the sound died off and then stopped. I checked the bilges, but they were dry. I checked the engine room - all looked okay. Mystified, we went back to bed. I lay there for an hour, trying to work out what the noise had been and the best explanation that I could come up with was an underwater volcanic eruption - so were we going to get a Tsunami? I didn’t sleep well. (Update - a month later, the mystery was solved when I found that the over-pressurisation disk on one of our dive tanks had burst - we’d heard the sound of high pressure air rushing out of the tank, buried deep in the cockpit locker.)
After my sterling efforts at servicing the aft toilet a few days ago, the damn thing stopped working yesterday. I found that the outlet pipe was blocked. This was strange because I’d changed the seacock in New Zealand and had also removed and unblocked the two inch diameter outlet pipes. I dived down to ensure that the skin fitting wasn’t blocked, then traced it to a valve in the outlet pipework. It took a few hours of grunting and groaning to remove the valve, clean it out and reinstall it.
Glenys continued working on the various rain protection panels. We now have panels that zip onto the bimini and cover the sides and back of the cockpit both at sea and in port. They’re much bigger than the old ones, so it will be difficult to see out when we’re at sea, so she’s currently sewing clear plastic windows in the side and aft panels - it’s turned into an epic job.
A couple more boats turned up today. “Deese” and “Red Herring” are both waiting for a weather window to sail to Indonesia, so we compared notes and the consensus is that TD17F is going to stall over the Solomons and intensify, so we’re all stuck here for the next few days.
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