Day 6 - Opua to Vanuatu
28 June 2018 | 22 13.7'S:170 17.6'E, New Hebrides Trench and Hunters Ridge
People often look at us with a puzzling look when we say we are going to Vanuatu. Never heard of it they say (we have found Americans to be sorely lacking in world geography skills). How about New Hebrides? Vanuatu is now the name of those islands we learned as New Hebrides. Last night we knew that at some point in time the winds (blowing about 18-20kts) would continue shifting from the SSE to the SE and finally to the ESE. Somewhere between SE and ESE was the pefect time, based on our distance from Vanuau to quit going DDW, put up our main, and head directly towards our landfall at Aneityum Island. The weather models indicated this would happen around 1AM, and around midnight it actually did! However, Cindy and I voted and she decided we weren't going to put the main up in the middle of the night even if the full moon was peaking out around the clouds. We did however get the main up at first light, and we have been sailing along at 7-9kts since, broad-reaching and bo uncing along over, around, and sometimes through (Cindy screams when that happens) the old Southerly swell and new SE swell. Our current boatspeed has us arriving tomorrow morning in the dark, so that means at some point I will have to do a math problem and estimate when and how much I should try and slow us down so we get there in daylight. Our next update should (with any luck) be coming to you from our anchorage at Anelghowhat.