Passage from Lautoka to Port Vila, Vanuatu

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  Continue reading

From Waya Back to Denaru

Our walk with Tooey was on Tuesday. On Tuesday night, heavy rain began that continued through the next day. Local custom requires that you tell the chief in person when you are leaving the anchorage. It was raining really hard and we figured the chief would understand if we didn’t trek out in the rain to say goodbye.

We wanted to check out on Thursday morning, so the plan was Continue reading

Hiking Waya Island with Tooey

We had a hard time sleeping last night. It was windy, rolly and uncomfortable. We were pleasantly surprised when we awoke to clear skies and bright sunshine. We couldn’t have ordered up a better day for a hike.

We met Tooey on the shore in front of the school at 10:00. We brought two of the crew from Flashgirl with us. We hadn’t explored the school yesterday, afraid to trespass. There is a large field in the center, lined with buildings on all sides. Some of the buildings are classrooms, some housing for the teachers, and some dorms for the kids.

dsc00600-large.JPG

According to Tooey,  Continue reading

Diving in Navadra Bay and Fleeing to Yalobi Bay, Waya Island

Shortly after waking up, we looked out and saw a big cruise ship had pulled in. They were shuttling people to the two islands in their tenders. Then we realized that there were more than a dozen people snorkeling behind Kosmos. Boy, we picked an interesting place to anchor!

We decided to go diving first, then to the island. We loaded into our gear and  Continue reading