Crab Bay to Aore Island
Date Wednesday 31/5/06
We set sail at 0630 for Luganville. There was a brilliant full rainbow
to see us off. The wind was straight behind and Flinders (the wind vane)
steered us well with the sails "goose winged"- which means on opposite
sides of the boat. Things went fine until the wind went to 25->30kts and
we needed to reef the sails. Then the brilliant, fast run continued all
the way with the boat running at 7 to 8 knots. We only pulled down the
sails about 100metres from our destination. The fast trip got us there
several hours before our estimated time.
We decided to moor (rather than anchor) at the Aore Resort, which is on
a sheltered shore opposite the town of Luganville, on Espirito Santo. At
Luganville, we visited the markets and extended our cruising permit
Northwards.
We had a very pleasant time with sundowners at the resort each of the three
evenings we were there. We met lots of people including a German/Columbian
couple with baby. They are circumnavigating the world in their catamaran.
We also had a very pleasant dinner at the resort.
We will hopefully soon send a photo of Penny and her "twin tub" washing
machine. For two days, we had torrential downpours of about 200mm rain.
These enabled us to refill our water (the Waterlog watermaker is again
defunct- probably terminally). The rubber ducky was also full of water &
Penny also decided that she could stomp on the clothes in one half of the
rubber ducky (with detergent), then carry out a rinse cycle in the other
section. This worked exceedingly well, with David providing the final two
rinses in buckets on the yacht. The large amount of money saved paid for
many Pina Coladas!
The rain also helped remove more of the black volcanic ash from the boat.
I forgot to mention previously that we could hear the volcano's explosions
from our anchorage which was 15kM distance. That area is obviously a dramatic
one. In 1453, the island of Epi was blown apart by a volcanic explosion
(of Kawae) equal to 20 million atomic bombs! The ash and other effects were
felt around the world- including at the fall of Constantinople.
Best Regards,
THE CREW
