Last night the sky briefly cleared, teasing us with a beautiful, clear sunset. But by 9pm it was overcast again. The wind built through the night till by 3am it was blowing 25-30k. Since I didn't want to wake Kate to help reef I just turned the boat downwind and reefed part of the jib. At 7am Kate woke and we put a double reef in the mainsail and lowered the mizzen.

We also changed our destination from Sola on Vanua Lava to Luganville (Santo) on the island of Espirito Santo, but we plan to stop first - unauthorized - at Maewo about 50 miles before Santo. The reason for the change is just expediency. Its just plain easier to reach Luganville today than it is Sola, which would take a full day longer as we would have to heave to in the night to avoid a nighttime arrival. Instead, we will arrive at Maewo at 7 or 8am. Technically no stops are allowed before reaching an official Port of Entry, however, exceptions are always made for health reasons or mechanical trouble, so we intend to have some (one of them). At worst they will ask us to leave the next morning but perhaps they will allow us to stay several days.

At 8:15am we have 151 nautical miles to go to Maewo, and, at our current speed of app. 6k expect to arrive tomorrow morning at 9am. Meanwhile, the sky remains completely overcast which some of the crew (ahem) are finding depressing.

It is now 5:30pm (GMT -12 hours) and we are 96 miles from first landfall in Vanuatu. The wind has remained steady today between 15-20k and with our reefed main and genoa we have been able to sustain an easy 5.5 - 6.5k all day. Our Nav-O-Computer now predicts landfall at Maewo at 8:45am tomorrow morning.

Mahi Mahi again for dinner tonight. Ahhhhh.