We finally made it out of Vuda Marina after a frustrating time getting the parts from New Zealand. In short we were on the hard stand for a week instead of the two days planned which didn't allow us enough time to go north to the Yasawa islands before heading to Vanuatu. This was a bit of a disapointment as we were looking forward to swimming with the manta rays and going to the Blue Lagoon. It ended up that our parts were never actually ordered...the Volvo Penta agent in NZ completely missed our order & the incompetence of the Fijian mob at Vuda Marina regarding communication was so frustrating. On brighter side we did go out to Malolo Lailai Island to Musket Cove Resort & Marina were the annual regatta was in it's last two days. Steve was invited on MATELOT for the race around the island which was great fun & Ange had a lovely morning at the resort day spa. We also went out to the famous surf spot Cloudbreak to find a nice 3-4ft wave breaking with no wind. After watching for a while all the surfers started to leave so we anchored up and Steve paddled out to find he had the place to himself for half an hour. One or two boats from the nearby island resorts turned upwith surfers but there were plenty of waves to go around.
On Sunday we made our way to Lautoka were we checked out the next day and set sail for Vanuatu. A passage of around 500nm. The first couple of days was spent in bumpy conditions with15-20kts on the beam. The good thing was we were making good speed with PANNIKIN averaging 7kts but this did not last and the wind slowly backed and abated allowing us to set the spinnaker for 24hrs. Unfortunately the wind continued to die and we had to motor the last 14 hours into Lenakel on the island of Tanna on Thursday evening. We dropped the anchor and were rewarded with a spectacular sunset with a relaxing beer.