Much to our dismay, the customs guy contacted us yesterday afternoon to let us know he would be out of the office until 10:00. We needed to check out right at 08:00 if we were going to make it to Port Vila before dark on Monday. This really messed up our plans. Should we leave late in the afternoon and come in on Tuesday morning instead? We have a friend who was already in Port Vila waiting on us, and we hated to make him wait yet another day.

On the dock in Denaru we met another cruiser who was also going to go to Lautoka to check out at the same time we were. He said he would give us a dinghy ride in and out of customs. Without having to deal with the dinghy, we could well be on our way by 10:30. We decided to go in the morning, as planned, and just increase RPM and do our best to make it to Vila before dark.

We were at Lautoka shortly before 10:00, with our new sailing friends that were giving us a ride to shore pulling in right at the same time we did. We were done with customs in a few minutes since we had already filled out all the forms the day before. The other boat took a little longer. We were on our way out of the harbor by 11:00.

Sea conditions have been our usual fare 20 knots of wind from the port aft (back left corner), which create uncomfortable beam seas (waves from the side). The weather forecast had said 5 to 6 foot seas, but they were more like 8 to 10 foot seas, so we are getting hit by those nasty big side waves that we hate on a fairly regular basis. The worst part, though, is we seem to have a current running against us, so we are making poor time. From Suva to Nadi we were doing 7 knots at 1500 RPM. Today we are doing 6.5 knots at 1825 RPM. If we can’t get our speed up to over 7 knots, there is no way to make it before dark on Monday. 

We have forgotten to mention the yogurt. The yogurt is a commitment. You use one tablespoon of yogurt as the base for the next batch. The culture that transforms milk to yogurt lives for three days, so you have to make yogurt at least every three days or the culture will die.

The first batch we made with low fat milk, and it was thin and runny, though it tasted good. The second batch we made the morning before leaving Waya for Nadi. The directions had said that the yogurt does not like the rocking and to put it on something gimbaled (on rollers so the surface stays flat as the rest of the boat rocks). We have nothing gimbaled on board, so we crossed our fingers that it would work. It didn’t work. The yogurt never set. We thought this was the end of our yogurt career, but we made one last ditch effort anyway. We used a tablespoon of the unset yogurt as the base and added whole milk powder and water, just as the directions had recommended. Much to our surprise, it worked! This batch had a better texture than the first batch, but still wasn’t thick and creamy. We didn’t bother attempting another batch this morning, knowing it wouldn’t set. When we get to Port Vila, the yogurt culture will be four days old, so the batch from yesterday probably will be our last.