Vanuatu has been a delight. The weather has inmproved daily since we got here, the people are genuine and usually smiling, and the sailing/swimming/snorkeling has been dandy.

We stayed in Port Vila for about a week, met up with some old friends, and provisioned up for the island hop north to Espirito Santo where we'll make the 1k passage to Papua New Guinea.

The past couple days have been super smooth sailing and we've had a chance to check out some places that can only be accessed in calm conditions. Yesterday we anchored outside of Cook's reef-an underwater atoll with all kinds of live coral, reef fishies, black tip sharks, rays, and a grouper. Let me tell you about this grouper. I stalked him for about 20 minutes with a speargun in hand and he led me right to Sora. We were in about 30ft of water and every now and then he would look up at me, roll his eyes and show me his teeth-but not to intimidate, more to kinda say "ha ha yeah right, lady". I answered through my snorkel with a sneer, "yeh whatever, grouper...it's on."-(a snorkel sneer...is that phyically possible?) And sure enough, everytime I'd get close enough to fire a shot he'd dart off, let me reload, and then swim back to taunt me. Cheeky grouper- 1, Cassie - 0.

This is an eel that Thomas spotted under a coral head that we anchored next to a couple of nights ago. He and Simonella also spotted a scorpion fish. The phosphloresence(woah...that's a doozy to spell) here is outta this world and one these first evenings when we have enough energy we're gonna do us some night diving.

Cheers to the one that got away, Cassie