October 23, 2017
We’ve been without internet for a while now. We’re able to claw out a few bits and bytes this morning here at Craig Bay on Ambrym so here’s a brief update. Our lives have included volcanos (see the post below), waterfalls, villagers, some sailing, some motoring and in general, really good times.
We left Santo a while ago – maybe two weeks or so (we’ve completely lost track of days, dates and time) and headed to Maewo via a brief stop at Ambae. We worked our way south along Maewo’s 30 mile long west coast, with little difficulty. It can be hard getting south in the strong southeast trade winds here, but with the shelter of Maewo, it wasn’t too hard.
Next up was Pentecost and Ambrym (where we are as I write this). It was a surprise, or rather the wind was a surprise. It turned northeast. That’s great for getting south but bad for virtually all of the anchorages on the northwest coast of the island with an uncomfortable swell rolling into the bays. After briefly anchoring, we traveled the length of Ambrym to anchor in Craig Bay on the southwest corner of the island. It’s nice here but so smokey!
This morning, we’ll sail for Malakula Island, or Epi Island, or maybe even Efate. We’ll see where the boat wants to go when we get out there. In general, it’ll be somewhere south as we’re trying to get to Port Vila on Efate where we can provision and check out of this amazing, wonderful, beautiful, lovely, peaceful country and get south for cyclone season. -Rich
