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Malekula Madness

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It has been so fun staying at the beautiful Maskelyne Islands.  They are just on the southern tip of Malekula which is a short 18nm away.

Malekula is Vanuatu’s second largest island and is one of the most culturally diverse islands in Vanuatu.  It is riddled with secret cannibal sites, surrounded by glassy reefs, and home to the gentle giant of the sea: the dugong.

There are over 30 languages spoken on the small island of Malekula. With a population of only 25,000 and different cultural practices affiliated with each language and village, Malekula is sure to delight at every turn.

Banam Bay

Banam Bay is a large bay with many outreaching reefs.  We had the entire bay to ourselves and it was delightful.    We snorkeled the varied reefs inside the bay which are home to dozens of large and small fish.  While we snorkeled, we encountered a surprising number of soft coral patches with nemos which was a pleasant surprise.  Usually we see hard or branching coral.

We headed into shore to do some exploring and walking around.  It was Sunday so many villagers were at church (they attend outdoors under banyan trees). A cackle of children followed us down the road. There were many villages along the road that ran parallel to the beach. All villages were super clean and had well groomed yards with colorful flowers.Lots of the kids (big and small) had these great hand made cars.  Made with a stick and nuts.  So fun.  We also found an oven (left top) for bread and a chocolate oven (right top) where they make chocolate.

We were so lucky to find not one, but two large nautilus shells.  Matt found one floating in the sea on his paddle board trip and I found one on the beach.  These are only the 3rd such finds in 8 years (and 2 of them were found withing 2 days)!

Crab Bay

Our next stop is Crab bay which is on the east side of Malekula.  It is a terribly small bay full of reefs.  It is very daunting entering the bay, but we were determined to find a spot.

We went ashore (to the right of the boat) to walk the beach.  One of the guides stated that there is an educational center here that used to give tours of this beautiful marine sanctuary.  However, it was long defunct when we visited.

We also came across a ship wreck that has been here for a very long time.  This 18-20 meter, metal boat named “Tantrum” from Australia was complete torn apart.  Amazing to see the 3-4mm steel ripped at the seams.

Malekula Madness?

Why did I title this blog “Malekula Madness”?  Well, on the way to the Crab Bay anchorage we tried to fly our small parasail spinnaker.  Something got caught and Matt had me come to the foredeck to help.  He gave me one of the two sock lifting lines and said “hold on tight.”  Not sure what happened next as it was so fast, but the wind came up, caught the sail and ripped the 2nd lifting line out of Matt’s hands. He jumped backward and landed on his back on the trampoline.  I kept holding on until my hands caught fire. – literally burned every finger.

This will keep me out of the water for at least 3 weeks and prevents me from doing pretty much everything for at least a few days.  Serious bummer.

Sarmette Bay

We walked around the bay each day we were anchored in Crab Bay.  On our last day we took a long walk to a neighboring bay to visit the Sarmette village. 

The walk was mostly on the beach and a road that ran parallel to the beach.   Sarmette Bay is 9.8km (18,000 steps) walk round trip.   We saw a rather large herd of cows and 6 horses!  I had not seen horses here in Vanuatu yet so it was a special treat.  You can tell from the bottom left photo that we were walking near low tide.

We met some super nice people who showed us their coconut and chocolate harvesting farms and baking.  They showed us how they baked the coconut and cocoa bean (top right is the cocoa tree, middle are the beans and left bottom is the cocoa nut).

Norsup Island

We need to start making our way toward Santo (the next big island up the chain).  So we make a few short stops along the way.  The first being Norsup Island which is in the middle of Norsup Bay.  We enjoy a nice walk around the island with a few villagers and donate some reading glasses.  

The winds were blowing pretty strong from the southeasterly direction and bringing a big swell. Both made the anchorage uncomfortable so we left the next morning.  We anchored at the white spot toward the end of the island.

Atchin Island

Our next stop was Atchin Island which is at the North end of Malekula.  This island  is known for its master canoe carvers.  But, the funny thing was there were a ton of “tough boats” on moorings and very few canoes.  

We went ashore and found a beautiful trail that takes you through all of the villages and around the entire island.  Once onshore we found a few “racing” canoes that showed the craftmanship of the Atchin carvers. 

We were super surprised by the shear number of nasaras (sacred places where community events are held).  I think we came across 6 on this very small island. It took us a little over an hour to walk around the island and that is with many stops.  At each nasara has a banyan tree near by and there is a kava bar (which is where Matt is servin).

Most kava bars have a grinder that they use to grind the kava root. Matt is standing amongst the roots of the female banyan tree at one of the nasaras.

We could not believe we came across two tam tams that have two faces on each of them.  It is extremely rare to find multiple faced tam tams and we found two in an old nasara.

This beautiful nasara was so well kept and had a beautiful garden!

We found this lovely swing overlooking the bay that was so picturesque. 

My hands are still raw and blistered….5 days later.  So, not much we can do other than walk.  And even that is tricky as I can’t use my hands to get in and out of the dinghy.  I am a mess.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  We were in Malekula around 18-26 July 2024.  We visit Sughulamp Reef in our last blog post.

I must apologize…

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As expected we motored through the night and into the morning, some morning showers washed the boat off nicely but didn’t bring any extra wind along for the ride.

Comfortable cruising along and by now the batteries are fully charged and have been, sheesh!

Had switched which engine was running and now it was the starboard’s turn to push us along. Along with the gentle glide over the slow rolling sea, the engine vibration makes for some sound sleeping, after you get to sleep. Christine took full advantage and slept right through her morning watch. Must have really needed the sleep…. Or she forgot to take her alarm clock (phone) with her on purpose. All good, I got a good nap too before finishing up our last bagels that we brought along.

Mostly a lazy day, chatting up all the issues boats have seen so far this season. Mostly on this weather window. A lost life raft, washed off during passage. A boat lost on a reef in FiJi. Earthquakes in Vanuatu causing tsunami warnings all 5e way to Tonga. Near miss when dinghy driver falls out of dinghy. Lots going on in our chosen sailing cult.

After lunch the skies started clearing and the threat of squalls gone and the winds had stabilized at a blistering 8-10 knots. Suns out, let’s play. Not sure there is enough wind but let’s give the spinnaker another run.

Spinnaker sailing

Let it ride! Till dark that is.

I must apologize to those who are following along via the satellite tracker, I know how good those satellite images can be. We use them for navigation to see into the water before anchoring. I may have showered off the back of the boat under way today without thinking. Yes it’s finally warm enough for outdoor showers.

Also we have slowed down on purpose. We are trying to time our arrival for daylight, it’s always best to enter new anchorages in day light, and if best if the sun is high over head to spot reefs and shallow parts. However the real driver is there is a cruise ship scheduled to arrive the furthest South Island, affectionately known as mystery island. Normally you must travel further north to the next island to clear in, but occasionally when a cruise ship is in you can get special permission to piggyback on their custom process. They fly the agents out to clear in the cruise ship, we are hoping we can manage to clear in with the cruise ship but need approval first and our emails have not been answered yet. Hopefully tomorrow before we pass on by. Either way, we will have one more night at sea before anchor done.

140 miles to Point Resolution, 90 miles to mystery island if we get approval to anchor the day before the cruise ship arrival.

One way or another some beer goes in the fridge tomorrow so that there is a cold anchor beer.

Passage: French Polynesia to Fiji

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It feels like we have been preparing for this long passage for months.  Way longer than the actual passage.  But it’s all in the preparations to make for a smooth and easy sail.

Matt posted “live blogs” during the passage (which took place in June 2022) so I will try not to duplicate him, but if you are interested in reading them (he is super funny).  Click here to read the first of his 12 posts during our passage.

We left from Bora Bora and our friends from Askari managed to get a departing photo with the Bora Bora caldera in the background.

Departing Bora Bora

Departing Bora Bora

Trip Details

  • Departure Date and Time: Saturday, 4 June 2022 at 12:30pm
  • Miles to Destination (as the crow flies): 50
  • Engine Hours: Port: 4213 and Starboard: 4374
  • Estimated Arrival Time: 19 June 2022 (Fiji is 22 hours ahead of Tahiti so we lost a day)

Shifts:

Matt and I do 3 hours on and 3 hours off for passages.  Basically, Matt works the 8p-11p shift, I work the 11p-2a, Matt is back up 2a-5a and I am up from 5a-8a.  During the day we rotate however we want (sort of light schedule).   Averaging 5 hours of broken sleep a night is challenging at best.

Day 1

We purposely picked this weather window because it had light winds for the first few days.  This is crucial for me because I am prone to sea sickness.  Having light winds allows me to slowly get my “sea legs.”   Weather predictions are really guessing as they are often wrong.  But usually the first 3 days are somewhat accurate.  Four different forecasts had us going way North increasing our cross track to over 100 miles (meaning we went over 100 miles out of our way to ensure we stayed in the wind zone).

Forecasts Routing

Forecasts Routing

We flew wing on wing (main sail on port and jib on starboard) and then tried to fly the parasail.  We lost sight of land at dark, just a mere 6 hours after we started our passage.

Day 2 & 3

Lovely days with light winds.  We flew the parasail for most of the day and managed to maintain a 6.5 boat speed.  Another boat showed up on AIS (radar) called Moondance.  They were mirroring us which was odd.  We headed to port, then they did, we headed to starboard, then they did.  We eventually lost them and left them in the dust.

Parasail

Parasail

We leave French waters and enter Cook Islands territory.  The closest island is Suwarrow which is south and still over 300nm away (2-2.5 days).

Crossing into Cook Islands

Crossing into Cook Islands

Day 4:

A rather large squall came through in the wee hours of the morning bringing over 35kts of wind and super strong, large rain drops.  Just as we finished dropping all the sails, the winds picked up to 35kts and the rain pelted us.  It was a downpour and both Matt and I were soaked to the bone.  We motored during the worse part of the storm and then it left us with no wind when it passed.   Drat, we ended up using the motors for close to 20 hours.  Since it was a motor day, I made chocolate chip mint cookies.  We need all the sugar and caffeine we can get to keep us awake during the night shifts.

Day 5

We finally broke the 1000nm mark.  Yeah what a relief.  In addition, we reduced our cross track bringing us closer to our destination.

Medium Spinnaker 150m

Medium Spinnaker 150m

At night we rely a lot on our instruments.  We are running weather forecasts on Matt’s computer, we have radar on (bottom circular diagram), Vesper Marine, and B&G instruments all running at the same time.  In addition, we have 2 iPads that are running different charts.

Day 6

Two things to celebrate: (1) We reached the half way mark of 832 nm to go.  Of course, that is as the crow flies and does not take into account that we have to sail around islands (vs through them).  The second thing we celebrated was a beautiful pod of whales.  I saw a spout and thought was that a spout or just the wind kicking up sea spray?  It turned out to be a spout.  At least 4 whales played around Sugar Shack for about 20 minutes.  One came alongside our boat and then went under the boat.  Super cool, but holy h3ll that could have been disastrous if he breached the surface while under Sugar Shack.

The photos are not very good as I was frozen in place when they breached.  But they were there, I promise.

Day 7-8

We alternate between our medium spinnaker, the parasail, and the working sails.  Depends on the winds and gusts.  We had particularly calm weather and decided to swap out our sails.  As we hoisted the medium spinnaker a gust came up and made a slight tear at the top.  We had to bring her down to avoid total destruction.  Matt was able to repair the sail and get it back in the rotation a few days later.

On a good note, we caught (2) male mahi mahi in the afternoon.  The first line went “zing” and as we went to pull in the other lines a 2nd line went zing!

These are the winning lures that caught our tasty fish.

Day 9:

We enter the waters of Tonga.  I sure wish Tonga was open but alas she is shut down due to Covid still.  So, we sail on through longingly looking at the beautiful islands from a far.  Kidding we can’t see anything as it is way too far away.  But the longing is still there.

Day 10:

Another beautiful day on passage.  We were changing sails from the jib to the parasail when we had another little mishap.  Matt was raising the sock (with the sail inside) as per usual.  However, I noticed that the sock looked empty so I shouted at Matt to stop, but he couldn’t hear me over the roar of the wind.  I stepped up my vocal cords and got his attention just as the entire parasail came out of the sock and into the sea.  Holy cow!

It is 3am and raining.  We are both at the bow trying to pull in the sail.  Just as we got the sail onboard, the sock goes under the boat.  You’ve got to be kidding!  We manage to salvage both the sail and the sock and bring them back to the cockpit. What happened?  Well, there is a shackle at the top of the sock that holds the sail inside.  That shackle opened up and we nearly lost the sail.  Lucky for us, an easy fix.

Day 11

We make our first land sighting at 122nm to go.  Super cool to see land after being at sea for 11 days.  The islands are far off in the distance, but you can certainly make out the beautiful mountains.  We had a very squally and rainy day today which makes it hard to fly the lighter sails (spinnaker and parasail) which make us go faster.  But we continued on averaging 5-6kts for the day.  Today was my last day as net controller on the Poly Mag Net an SSB radio net that I’ve been volunteering for over the last 2 years.  It was hard to let go.

Day 12

We arrive into the island of Vanua Levu and go to Savusavu bay to clear into customs.  We arrived around 10:30am which was 11 days and 23 hours after we picked up the hook in Bora Bora!  Not bad, not bad at all!  We had anticipated it taking 2 full weeks and we made it in 12 days.

Trip Details:

  • Miles to Destination: 1,664
  • Actual Miles Sailed: 1,777
  • Average Speed over 12 days: 2
  • Max Speed: 9
  • Engine Hours: Port: 4233 and starboard 4384

We motored about 20 hours with the majority of that time being right after the large squall on day 4.  The rest of the time we were able to sail.

Here is our track from French Polynesia to Fiji.

French Poly to Fiji Track

How did I entertained myself?

I read 3 books, I watched Season 2 of Bridgerton and S1 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and watched 2 movies.  Of course, there were lots of games of solitaire and word puzzles too.

Some beautiful moon pictures.  The moon came out during the second half of our passage and lit our way through the darkness.

And a collection of sunset photos during our passage.

Sunsets during passage

Sunsets during passage

We prepare to vamoose from French Polynesia in our blast blog.  Events from this blog occurred in early June.  Please note that our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual events.