We left the attention of the Ureparapara people in their kayaks and returned to Vanua Lava. It was very rough as we left but we did manage to catch a small tuna near the island. We continued on to Vanua Lava and as we came close to the island we spotted the first waterfall and caught a much larger fish. As we reeled it in, it became very heavy, then a bit easier. Once aboard we found the reason, the tuna had first of all bitten off a good piece of our lure, and then as we were reeling it in a larger fish had obviously spotted it and bit off the tail end of the fish. We only had the front half. Luckily there was still a good amount of meat on our part of the fish, and we were able to swap the fish for some more lobster from Chief Nixon in Waterfall Bay on Vanua Lava. Our next hop was back to Vaua (Santa Maria) again pretty rough and no fish. We were greeted by one of the chiefs who recognised us from our earlier visit and we explained we were not coming ashore since we planned to head for Espiritu Santo early the following morning. Two young boys paddled past and were intrigued to hear us doing our Chinese lessons. I don't think mandarin is spoken much on Vanua.

As we left a lone canoeist, the chief's son, Bruce came out to wave us goodbye. It was a sad moment to be leaving such a welcoming community.

We are now romping along towards Espiritu Santo heading for Port Orly, making excellent speed, averaging 7.5 knots with reefed sails, and just caught a massive tuna, 27lbs. We earlier caught a 12lb one. Sadly this means that the fisherman has been ordered to stop fishing until further notice. Hopefully we have enough fish for Kerry who is a vegetarian, and may not appreciate Vanauatu beef as much as the Japanese do.