Up until Yesterday lunchtime the conditions had been pretty much spectacular. We were going up wind, but winds were fairly light and the sea was flat. Since then, the wind and sea have built, and progress is slow.

Over the next 6 hours the wind is supposed to back by about 40 degrees allowing us to point to where we need to go, and the wind is supposed to ease a little. For the last 12 hours, we have been hard on the breeze with the about 5kts and 1m more than forecast.... Memories of sailing across from Lord Howe!

Anyway the wind is backing slowly, and hopefully by dinner tonight things will have improved a fair bit. As I write this we are seeing 25kts, gusting 27kts on giving us 30+kts of apparent wind.

And on other news, we have abandoned our plans to go to Noumea (for now) and are instead going to Port Vila (Vanuatu). The reason is despite weeks of communications with the three major Marinas in Noumea, we have not been able to secure anywhere to leave the boat. In fact I would say they have all been most unhelpful.

Poor old Vanuatu on the other hand could not have been more accommodating responding to emails within minutes, and bending over backwards to accommodate our needs.

This will add a couple of days to the trip, but we are left with no choice. Those 2 extra days are forecast downwind conditions with around 15kts. Should be ideal sailing conditions.

This puts us arriving Monday Night or Tuesday morning at Port Vila.

That's it for now, time to put some pies in the oven.

Andrew.