After our close encounter with the ship early this morning we motor-sailed past the smaller North Astrolabe Reef and entered the Great Astrolabe Reef at Herald Pass. It's about 7am with overcast conditions and now that we need to go due south, that old south wind starts to pick up, first at 15 knots and later gusting up from there. Right on the nose of course! Getting in the pass was easy. Of course now I use every piece of reference material all at once and all the time. First line of attack is the very detailed paper chart, this one of the entire Kadavu area we acquired from Cheryl and Peter on Stolen Kiss when we saw them in Australia last year. I think they 'got it' from the Fremantle Yacht Club :) Secondly, we use the Garmin GPS Chartplotter, and have since we left the US. It only has a 4-1/2" screen, not as detailed in these outer areas but super easy to use and has been very accurate. Thirdly, and maybe most important here in Fiji, we use the Apple IPad that we purchased in Australia. It is the model that has the GPS chip in it so it always knows where we are. You use it with an app called Sea IQ, which is loaded with all the Fiji Google Earth images. I had alot of help getting it all to work properly...thanks so much to Sandy on 'Gypsy Heart'. So now, when you're going through that reefy pass, as a final confirmation that you are where you think you are, you glance down at the IPad and see a red dot which represents the boat and a red arrow in front of it that is pointing in the direction the boat is moving, right through the middle of the actual picture of the pass. Brilliant! And 'Easy Peasy' as Cheryl would say. But even with all of that it is sometimes a bit nerve-wracking. Several of our friends have hit reefs and bommies. And they are all excellent sailors. Luckily we haven't yet, although we have come pretty close. Coming through a reefy pass at low tide really helps as well, usually you can clearly see the reef as you pass through. That's why Don and I have done many overnight passages. You can leave in the afternoon (getting through that reef on the way out) when visibility is still good and arrive at the new place in the morning after the sun comes up. That way, if you have any problems, you have all day to sort them out. It's scary to us to leave in the morning and have to push all day to get through the next reef and anchored well before the sun gets too low in the sky to see. When you look at the Astrolabe Reef/Kadavu chart the islands inside the reef look so small but in fact many are quite large...it's just that the reef itself is quite large. I think I read it's the fourth largest reef in the world. Pretty impressive. It's name comes from the ship 'Astrolabe' captained by Dumont d'Urville. He ran aground here in 1827 and nearly lost the ship. We've heard that this area is littered with skeletons of wrecked ships so we are trying to be super careful. Now, Fiji custom being what it is, every square inch of the place is owned by someone. So, if you wanted to anchor at Namara Island, you have to know that you must first go to Dravuni Island and present your sevu sevu to the chief there. You have to request permission to anchor (or swim or take pictures or catch fish) at Namara Island. It all seems very complicated but so far we haven't made any major faux pas! We knew that our mates on 'Lisa Kay' were here somewhere, so when we got close we called them on the VHF radio. They said they were in Nagara Bay, so that's where we went. It's on the north side of Ono Island, a large deep bay that looked to have good protection from the coming strong southeast winds.