Fiji to Vanuatu
30 September 2013 | Pacific!
Heather Manfredi
Time to move on.......its not an easy process to clear out of Fiji where we were on the west coast. Port Denerau, despite its size, did not have all the necessary officials. We had to move just an hour up the coast to a small marina in Vuda point and sort it there. Sounds easy enough eh? Unfortunately the marina in question was built on toy town proportions and with only a fuel berth and one small visitors berth available to effect the necessary check out process. We were in fact lucky. We docked on the fuel berth and they allowed us to take the documents to the office, they only came on board to check that our kids matched the passports (who else could they belong to...?) and off we went. The forecast was 15 to 20 knots, light to moderate seas. The reality was.........yes you guessed it, something quite different. 30 knots was on the instuments nd if that was a moderate sea then why was my stomach (and the kids, and even the captains) protesting! Not a pleasant crossing but after the first 18 hours it did ease little by little. It was just shy of 3 days all up. We had to slow down at the end so we entered Vanuatu in daylight. I actually really enjoyed my 4am to 8 am watch because I had a ringside seat to Mt Yasur, the volcano! Every 2.5 minutes I was treated to a massive eruption that I first spotted 20 miles from shore! Fabulous. At 7.30 I made sure everyone was up as we were close and cooked up bacon and eggs and we dropped anchor in Port Resolution just after 8am.