Our sail from Fiji to Vanuatu was 3 days. We left around 8am on Wednesday morning and arrived at the island of Tanna on Saturday morning. Once we sailed outside the reefs of Fiji the weather, wind and seas were decent. About 10pm the first night the winds picked up to 20+kts out of the NE when they were calling for SE and the seas became rough with 3 meter swells turning to full blown waves right at us. We were pounding into it for a good 24 hours or so. Finally wind and seas slowly calmed down and we had a nice remainder of the trip.

As we got closer to Vanuatu we could see the Volcano “Yasur” from 93 miles away at night, through our night vision goggles. What a site! As the sun came up there was a spectacular rainbow surrounding the volcano, just priceless! Here are a few facts about Vanuatu….
• Vanuatu,formerly called the New Hebrides, is an archipelago of 83 islands in the Western Pacific around 1,750 km east of Australia, lying at the end of a chain of volcanic peaks stretching southeast from Papua New Guinea. Espiritu Santo, Malekula, Efate, Erromango, Ambrym and Tanna are the main islands. With a unique blend of Melanesian (Ni-Vanuatu) tribal communities, pristine beaches, stunning active volcanoes and truly memorable diving, Vanuatu has much to entice visitors. There are over 100 different language dialects spoken here but mainly Bislamic. One the main island you can get along with English quite well…thank goodness!
• Left alone by the Europeans for longer than other parts of the Pacific, Vanuatu leapt into the modern age quickly, while remaining a place where the rich Melanesian culture is kept very much alive. It is the chance to experience a little of this fascinating culture that brings most sailors to this country which has been endowed with less cruising attractions than its neighbours.
• One of the greatest attractions of the islands is a visit to the live volcano on Tanna or Ambrym, where one can ascend into the crater, the closest one can get to an active volcano safely anywhere in the world. Even sailing by these islands one can be treated to a spectacular firework display, especially at night.
• Many villages receive little or no contact with the outside world other than through yachts. Trading goods for local carvings and fresh produce is a major source of clothing, school supplies, and currency for these villagers. Carry second-hand clothing, notebooks, pencils and pens, fishing line and hooks, reading glasses, old magazines, etc. for bartering with locals.
When we arrived in Tanna, we entered the Port Resolution Harbor….a large protected anchorage surrounded by mountainous rain forest and a volcano. The anchor did not even hit the bottom before we the locals were approaching our boat in their beautiful wooden dug out canoes. They spoke English which was a relief and were just very interested in the boat and where we had come from. I broke out my supply of lollipops and you can’t imagine how happy they were. From then on we had a train of dug out canoes come to visit looking for lollies during the course of our 3 days in Tanna.
After we anchored we went to shore to speak to the village chief and ask permission to be there, as is custom just like Fiji. Stanley, the chief was very friendly and accommodating. His family offered us fresh eggs and some vegetables, which we thought quite nice. We reciprocated the next day with a Colorado Rockies T-shirt, cigar, some rope, fish hooks etc…. Stanley arranged for us to get a ride to the Volcano the next morning and told us to return in the morning at 7am. Unfortunately for this village, we sailors forgot about the time line we crossed and ended up waking the village at 6am instead of 7am. They were lovely about it.
Off we went on a 50minute 4 wheel drive road to the volcano. From there we hiked a short ways to the rim. OH BOY! They actually let you stand at the rim of this very active volcano as it spews rocks and lave high into the air. You have to be careful and watch where the rocks land as people have been killed here. It was intense, scary, exciting and just unbelievably magnificent to be there! This may be THE most amazing thing we’ve done yet! There truly are no words to describe it. In America, they would have this area and miles around it evacuated. We have many pictures and videos to share but are in the midst of getting our library working proper….stay tuned for the pictures…you’ll not want to miss them.
On our last day in Tanna one boy approached us in his canoe and asked if we had any Bisquick…after several attempts at trying to understand what he was asking for…I just had to laugh at his request. Apparently they had received some Bisquick mix from another American boat along the way and they liked it. Unfortunately, we did not have any but I told him I knew what is was. Stay tuned….Life is Good..

Hi All….We arrived in Vanuatau safe and sound. We have a rough sail half the time and beautiful the second half. We checked into the island of Tanna which is the south end of Vanuatu and also home of the world’s most active volcano. They actuall let you walk up to the rim and look down. It is quite amazing. We’ve also survived a few quakes since we’ve arrived but all is well. We have lot’s to say and lot’s of pics to share but internet is very limited here (the most limited area to date). It is Sunday here and the internet cafe is closed but they let us come in for a few minutes to get this email off to you all. We are now in Port Villa and heading to the norther islands. We keep you up to date and write a nice blog about our last week here. It has been absolutely amazing!!!! Love to you all. Stay tuned…Life is good!!!

We are checking out of Fiji today and heading for Vanuatu.
We spent our last night in Fiji with several new friends. Lots of guitar playing and sing along. What a fun night. We have only a 3 day sail in front of us. We have two friends from New Zealand and a friend from Denver joining us for the journey to Vanuatu. We will miss Fiji as we have made many friends here. After Vanuatu we will go to New Caledonia. We don’t know what we will do after that but one option is to return to Fiji…stay tuned….Life is Good….

So we have been quite busy entertaining many visitors this year in Fiji. Dan, Mollie, Maddie, Gavin and Haylie arrived in June and stayed for two weeks. We made it all the way up to Blue Lagoon, yes, where the Movie “Blue Lagoon” was made with Brooke Shields 30 years ago. The water in Blue Lagoon is crystal clear and makes for very good diving and snorkeling. The kids were brilliant swimmers, snorkelers and divers. We visited the famous caves where the movie was made and you could swim under water to another cave….very cool. Maddie and Gavin even went parasailing for the first time. They loved it. We managed a village visit where we visited the new school, bought some handicrafts from the locals and were entertained by the local dancers. We all participated in the Kava cermoney too. We all swam with the Manta Rays too. Don’t let me forget that we caught lots of fish while they were here too.
We also joined in the Bonfire party at the sandbar one night too. We are always sorry to see our guests go but as it turned out the weather turned to rain and clouds for nearly a week, just in time for them to get out of Fiji.

For the Fourth of July, Mike and I headed to Musket Cove where the locals made Hamburgers and Hot Dogs for the Americans. Some yachties brought their exprired boat flares for entertainment since we couldn’t find any fireworks. I was worried the Navy would show up, but they didn’t…..not sure if that is good or bad?!

Onto our next guests arriving July 8th….Jenn, Megan and Sindia. We headed back up to Blue Lagoon and they just loved it. This was a first for Megan and Sindia to ever snorkel and they were pleasantly surprised. We even saw a “white tip” shark the first time out. Not to worry, he wasn’t hungry! We sent the girls off with a guide to see the caves and they really enjoyed that, except as Megan said “I thought I was going to have a massive coronary”. She was a little uneasy in the second cave (me too). They also got to see and swim with the Manta Rays. Unfortunately, this was Jenn’s second time to Fiji without catching a fish…..it’s not the boat or the crew….just sayin’.
I’m waiting for our guests to write some blogs and will pass them on as they come in…..hint, hint….

Mike and I are now putting the boat back together and will head North to make sure all is well with the boat. We will return to Port in a few weeks to gear up for our sail out of Fiji
We have really enjoyed it here and would consider coming back. We will be heading for Vanuatu and then New Caledonia. We may or may not continue on to Australia…not sure yet as the AUS dollar is quite strong and making it very expensive especially for yachites. They have also been changing many of the marine regulations so were are still checking that out….otherwise we may return to Fiji for another season here but checking out the eastern islands…..a much more remote area but very beautiful. That is it for now. Pics to follow….Stay tuned…..Life is Good….

Well let me tell you how much fun we have been having.  Jane and Sue arrived in Fiji very excited about their journey.  We were prepared to pull them aboard the boat when Jane nearly leaped over the rail like the bionic woman.  

We set sail for the Yasawa Islands and landed our first night at Waya Island.  This is where a friend of our said he thought Jane, Sue and I looked like Triplets….hence we became Mike’s Triplets. This is where Jane and Sue were greeted by a yachtie friend of ours Lewis.  Lewis is from Texas, has been living on a boat for 11 years, and wears a purple thong.  Got the picture now?!  Lewis swam over to our boat as we jumped in the water and all I can say is, if I only had a camera! We hiked over the mountain to the Nalauwaki Village to go to Church.  The service is in Fijian but the choir is outstanding!  Jane and Sue later received their very first Lomi Lomi massages and thoroughly enjoyed that. We learned that our friend Joe, from the village passed away suddenly only 2 months ago.  We very sad to hear this as we spent lots of time getting to know Joe last year.  He even made us our carved wood drum that we will now treasure more than ever.

We headed to Naviti Island and Sue and I snorkeled with the giant Manta Ray.  It really is a very cool experience. Certain times of the year these giant Manta Rays swim through this channel and you can actually jump in and snorkel with them. 

Jane and Sue are great sailors and enjoyed all the adventures.  We laid on deck at night and star gazed….it is awesome. We did catch one fish but it wasn’t a keeper.  I really enjoyed family time as well as female time.  Thank you Jane and Sue for coming to visit.  You can return anytime.

After Jane and Sue left we spent a day with our adopted Fijian Family.  We met Evelyn last year when she was pregnant with her 5^th child.  He was born with a heart defect and had to go to India to have surgery.  Mike donated some money to them last year to help make this happen.  We hosted the family on our boat for the day.  They had never been off the mainland before.  We took them to Malolo Lai Lai where the kids swam, played in the sand and drove the dinghy! We all really had a great day.  They were amazed at how beautiful their own country was!  

We are now awaiting the arrival of Dan, Mollie, Maddie, Gavin and Haylie from Florida……Stay tuned….Life is Good!

Happy Mother’s Day to all our friends and family out there!

We spent Mother’s Day with a bunch of fellow yachties.  Musket Cove held a big Mother’s Day BBQ and we spent time catching up with lots of friends from last year.  

When we left Fiji last October we left behind about 60 yachties.  Since our arrival in Fiji in February we have been one of only a handful of boats here due to it being the rainy season. Now it is the time of year when all the yachties make their way from Tonga, New Zealand, Marshall Islands etc…They have just started to arrive over the last few days and we have been having fun catching up with the old and making friends with the new!  The weather has been windy and rainy for the last 4-5 days but now has finally broke.  The locals tell us the rainy season is now over!!!!  The rain is much needed here so you can’t complain but boy oh boy can it bring the mosquitos.  Mike says he would like to know how the mosquitos can bite the bottoms of your feet while you are standing. 

While we have been quite busy getting the boat back in shape after being left in the hurricane  hole for several months, we’ve had plenty of time for fun too! There were a few of us that had to put our sails back up and we all helped each other with that one day and later celebrated with a Raising the Sails Party and Mexican Fiesta on Shellette, complete with Margaritas, Tacos and a proper Champagne Toast!  We’ve spent a few rainy days playing cards and dice games with friends.  The newer yachties have recently asked how they can get invited to the never ending party that seems to be taking place on Shellette all the time!!!!   

We will be heading back to the mainland this week to pick up Sue and Jane that will be arriving from New Jersey! Then we will set sail for some island fun!  We are very excited and eager to share our slice of paradise!  Stay tuned….Life is Good……………..

We’ve returned to Fiji and the very HOT climate. It is still the rainy season so the humidity is very high. BOY can it rain here. Shellette is happy we are back and we are beginning work to get her put back together.

That is it for the moment….more to come later….Life is Good.

We hope you enjoy viewing them as much as we enjoyed taking them!

Still in New Zealand. We have travelled over 3,500 kilometers so far! We have also been driving on the left side of the road as they do here and our rental car is manual transmission….needless to say it takes brain power to drive here. 98% of the roads here are small, two lane, winding country roads…not mention the many mountain passes with no guardrails or shoulders and the hundreds of one lane bridges…..It’s an adventure!

Much of New Zealand is National Forests so there is just so much open land and space. Only 4.5 million people live here and 1million of them are in Auckland. All of New Zealand sits on many earthquake faults….naturally you’ve heard about the big one in February in ChristChurch but they actually have many smalls all the time. They used to call NZ the “shaky islands”…but they stopped because it was bad for tourism. NZ economy depends on tourism as well as sheep, cattle and hops. I’ll bet you did not know that NZ actually grows the largests perecentage of the world’s Hops…to make beer! (Fun Fact). Since the Christ Church earthquake and the recent Japan earthquake the airlines here have already taken a hit with tourism. NZ is a huge destination for Asian visitors. They will unfortunately be feeling the loss of tourism economy from Japan.

We were in Wellington, the capital of NZ a few weeks ago and experienced a fair earthquake at 10pm one night. We were in our hotel and the wind was gusting 120kts….I was brushing my teeth and Mike was looking out the window at the crazy wind when the whole building shook and you hear the loud rumble that goes with it. I came out of the loo and said….”what was that?” We found out later it was a 4.5 quake but deep in the ground at 40km. They are quite used to quakes in Windy Wellington so it was no big deal to them. I’m glad to be out of there for now. There were actually 40 earthquakes reported in one day in NZ on March 20th…a bit more than usual so it’s weird. I personally think that once one fault moves it only makes sense that others have to move to compensate…we’ll shall see.

It was summer when we arrived in NZ in Feb. but now is Autumn. The weather has been a bit colder than last year for sure. The west coast of the south island is known for being colder and rainy and it has not disappointed….still beautiful though. We’ve been camping but have graduated to a cabin with heat the last few days due to the cold!!

We’ve been having fun and I will write more about our adventures today…..Life is Good!

So much to say…..most importantly we are safe in New Zealand and are not near the recent earthquake.

We arrived in Fiji and to our surprise were remembered and welcomed with open arms, hugs and kisses by many of the locals. We travelled with 14 checked pieces of luggage, some just bins and boxes filled with boat parts and simple items we can’t get in the South Pacific. We spent 5 days in Fiji at the island where we left Shellette tucked away in a hurricane hole. She is doing fine and was happy to see us (You grow to have a personal relationship with your sailing vessel). While working on Shellette Mike managed to lose our international mobile phone overboard….it happens. Then when we took the ferry back to the mainland Mike’s US mobile phone was stolen from the luggage as it sat unattended on the dock.

We flew to New Zealand and have been travelling around the North Island for the last week. It is so great to be back here. We are enjoying seeing all the friends that we made here last year and all the places we missed getting to. We bought our tent and sleeping bags with us from the boat and rented a car. We are camping along the way and staying in some hotels. Boy the ground sure seemed softer last year  . You know you are a true camper when it is no big deal to spray your bed with Raid or you think nothing of using a Chip Clip to hold your hair off your face!
We just spent a few days at the very tip of New Zealand at Ninety Mile Beach (which is actually only 64 miles long…but long story). This is where the Tazman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. It is gorgeous. We planted a small tree there as a donation to the conservation efforts. Our campsite was just a very short walk to the beach where we dug up our own clams one night and cooked them up for dinner…yummy! Mike was like a little kid after I showed him how to dig for them…he had never done this before…you may have thought we struck Gold!! Some of the highlights of these few days were driving all the way down Ninety Mile Beach in a passenger bus at 100km/hr. ..just crazy! We stopped along the way to climb up the steep sand dunes and toboggan our way down. We also stopped at a beautiful beach to dip our toes in the ocean. Leave it to Mike to spot the 30+ Nudist swimmers on the next beach….after which Mike tried to get put on their bus. Later that night we met some of our fellow campers, three young girls from Germany and a woman travelling alone from Holland….So we had a party!

The next morning as I attempted to sleep in I felt the ground rumble. When I mentioned it to Mike he thought I was crazy and simply hung-over. Later that day we found out that there was a devastating earthquake on the South Island. All of NZ sits on some very large Faults. The city is Christ Church and is very historic. Unfortunately, they have many old buildings and those buildings fell and killed 75 thus far and counting. 300 Remain missing. We will be down that way next week but of course will avoid Christ Church unless we find out we can help.

We are headed back to the Auckland area Thursday where some friends, Trish and Michael are having a party for us…very sweet. Then off to see Roger and Rose in Tauranga then Ian in Wellington before we take the ferry over to the South Island.

We’ve been in touch with friends who sailed on to Australia last August and they have experienced very bad weather with the December flooding and recent cyclone there. They are safe but know of many boats that sustained damage or sank! We are very glad we decided to stay put in Fiji one more season. We will be heading back to Fiji early April so long as the Cyclones stay away….one is passing by today but should not be a direct hit to Fiji.

On a much more somber note…we have learned that a woman we met last year on a sailboat was taken hostage along with her partner by Somali pirates 4 months ago off the coast of South Africa. She is from NZ and they are trying to raise the 10 million dollar ransom that is being demanded. Also, the US sailboat that was recently captured near the Red Sea and the four crew were killed, was a boat we also met last year. They were sailing with a large group and thought to be safe going in that area with that many boats. Very troubling. Needless to say, these are areas we will be avoiding. We do keep track of what is going on and where it is safe and not safe to go.

As they say “Don’t Count the Days…Make the Days Count”!!!!! Life is Good……..

Well everyone…we have definately overstayed our welcome in the USA.  Mother Nature herself has been pushing us out with 30 degree below zero temps!  We CAN take a hint!  We are off to Fiji early next week where we will check on the boat and drop off the many boat parts we have picked up.  We will then fly to New Zealand where we will hide out the rest of Cyclone Season.  It is summer in NZ so we are eager to return to our friends there and visit some more of the places we didn’t have time to see last time around.  We return to Fiji for more island hopping in April.

We already have family and friends booked to join us in Fiji again before we head off towards Australia…..the adventure continues…..Life is Good….