Apologies for the lack of blogs for the past few weeks, but we have not been going anywhere. I have been at Oyster Is following Simon's progress in the Mini Transat on the free wireless internet. Currently he is coming 13th in his class.

The last few days have been occupied with preparations for the voyage back to Bundaberg with the Port to Port rally. My brother Damien joined me on First Light III a couple of days ago and since then we have scrubbed the bottom of the boat (Australian Quarantine don't want you to bring in foreign sea creatures stuck on your bottom!!) and done numerous shopping trips into Luganville to provision the boat. Australian quarantine are also very strict on what food you can bring into the country so we have been going through our lockers and trying to eat anything that we think may be confiscated. In our efforts to store some foods for long periods we have taken them from their original cardboard packaging and vacuum sealed them. They have lasted very well, but will probably not survive the visit from Australian Quarantine eg powdered milk vacuum sealed in a plastic bag looks just like any other white powder!!

We have taken on some extra fuel, but not full tanks as we are expecting good wind. We have prepared to stop at Chesterfield reef which is about four days sailing south west of Santo. If the weather is good and we arrive there in good light conditions to navigate through the reef, we will aim to spend a couple of nights there.

There are about 10 other boats leaving from Luganville with the Port to Port rally. Some leaving tomorrow with us and some leaving later. This evening we all met for pizza at the Beachfront resort just onshore from where all the boats are anchored.

Standby for further Blogs as we make the seven day voyage back to Australia.