July 5

At 8am we hauled up the anchor and steamed away from Mele Island towards Port Vila which is about 5 miles to the East. The weather this morning is overcast with about 80% cloud cover. Some light drizzle fell a few hours ago and the wind is less then 5kt.

It is now 8:10am and we are motoring at 6k on a course of 119M and have only 2.5nm to go before the Vila Bay entrance. We have about 5k from the East and the bay is calm.

By the way, Mele Bay is about 5 miles wide at the mouth which is formed between Pango Pt. And Matao Tiupeniu Pt. The bay faces South and inside the bay, just a tad to the West of the head of the bay, sits Mele Island (a.k.a. Hideaway Island) and that is where we have been for the last week. Port Vila Bay is a bay within a bay being enclosed by Malapoa Pt. And Ifira Island which sits at the Eastern End of Mele Bay. Of course, this makes Port Vila Bay an excellent anchorage, especially if you can get room to tuck up between Iririki Island (another island within Vila Bay) and the mainland.

By 9am we were anchored just off Iririki Island. The bay is very crowded and we are sandwiched in between two boats. We are in about 19ft of water with about 90ft of chain out (about 4.5:1 ratio). We seem to have decent swinging room, unless the other 2 boats near us are using very short rhodes. We shall see what develops. There are many mooring balls for rent on very strong tackle but the cost is about $10/day and we can't really afford it right now (cash poor).