We left Fiji with some sadness. The weather had been good to us and the combination of the beautiful islands and bays with the vibrancy of the people had made our stay particularly exhilarating. Last year we headed ESE to Tanna one of the most Southerly of the Vanuatu islands, this year we headed North East towards Espiritu Santo, the second largest island in the archipelago.

Our forecast was for light winds and a fair amount of rain and so it was. while last year we had struggled in mountainous seas to stop the boat doing more than 10 knots this year we struggled without an engine on. We had a couple of periods of decent wind and were able to make a good speed with our new spinnaker, but for most of the time we had to motor sail. Fortunately knowing that this was likely we had stocked up with plenty of diesel.

At least it meant we could do some fishing and we caught a large wahoo, about 20lb and a 12lb mahi-mahi. We also had a lot of near misses, strikes and the odd huge fish breaking our lures. We had a few mishaps such as catching the fishing lines around the propellers while reefing the sails but all in all it was a pretty uneventful trip.

It was magical coming through the pass between two outer islands at midnight with an almost full moon. We were then into more sheltered waters, passing other islands, slowing our speed down to get to the shallow, difficult passes through to the inner lagoon when there was enough light to see the coral outcrops. We arrived at Oyster Island about 9.30am in sunshine (the last we would see for a few days) exhausted and happy to have arrived. We still managed to summon enough energy to go ashore for happy hour and follow this with a meal on Storyteller who had arrived the day before. Boy did we sleep well that night though.