October 6

Today we left Petersen Bay at about 1pm having first surveyed the extremely narrow and shallow entrance again in the dinghy. The wind was from the SE at about 15k and there was some standing waves at the narrowest part which was about 20ft (the Queen Jane is 15' 6" at her widest). It was mostly cloudy in the morning and there was some question about weather it would clear or rain again as it did yesterday when a cold front passed.

Our destination is the town of Sola on Vanua Lava, one of the islands in the Banks Group to the North. Sola is also the Northernmost Port of Entry for Vanuatu and it is there that we plan to clear out with Customs and Immigration. The distance to Sola is about 100 miles.

The sky was about 90% clear at noon so we made the decision to go (a no-brainer). Both "Wind Runner" and "Green Nomad" also planned to leave today and we went out of the pass in line with "Wind Runner" in the pole position and Queen Jane second. It turned out to be no problem at all and by 1:30 we were safely at sea and had the sails raised. At first the wind was brisk at 15-18k and we had to roll up some of the genoa to keep from going too fast, we want to arrive off Vanua Lava at dawn, not before.

Within the hour we had hooked a nice MahiMahi and after a bit of a struggle we had it on board. It proved to be in the neighborhood of 30lbs and the captain filleted it on deck and tossed over the carcass as is our habit. After cleaning the copious amounts of blood from the deck he collapsed in a heap, quite exhausted from the effort. It was just about then that the wind died and we found ourselves wallowing in a confused sea making between 3.5 - 4.5k over ground even after letting out all of the genoa again.

It was just after sunset when the wind returned, this time a bit more from the East or even ENE and at between 15-19k. Again we rolled up most of the jib and the ride became much more comfortable even though the swell did not diminish.