The miles are ticking by, and so are the hours. We've now got just 360 nautical miles to go, which puts us a little over two days out. That means we'll be arriving in Port Vila on Thursday afternoon, which is perfect. The conditions are as settled as can be – just a gentle swell rolling beneath us and a few knots of wind. Smooth sailing, as they say.
Yesterday, we transferred 240 liters of fuel from a big blue drum into one of the the main tanks. We'll likely top them off completely tonight, just to be on the safe side. Our 24-hour run was a solid 148 nautical miles, our best yet since leaving Raiatea. Not too shabby at all!
Right now, I've got a rather large bird napping on the boom. He's about to get a rude awakening courtesy of the deck brush. It's a constant battle out here, keeping the boat clean and bird-free.
Since we're so close to Port Vila and it's been pretty warm, I'm thinking I might just splash out and have the air conditioning on for a couple of hours this afternoon. Just to take the edge off. We have a routine out here. In the early morning, we sit in the aft cockpit, enjoying the cool air. Then, as the sun comes up, we gradually migrate forward to stay in the shade. In the late afternoon, we're back in the aft cockpit, as it's the only shaded spot. So, a bit of air conditioning would be a nice treat, a little luxury to celebrate our progress.
We are looking forward to getting to Port Vila and having a bit of a break for a few hrs and then getting ready to leave, but we are also enjoying the passage and the feeling of accomplishment that comes with each mile we cover.
However, the weather models are once again not in agreement. The ECMWF is showing a low developing just to the west of Port Vila at the beginning of next week, and then a rather alarming red splodge shooting down the Queensland coast a week later. I'm crossing my fingers that the GFS model is the more accurate one, as it's predicting smooth sailing all the way through. It's always a bit nerve-wracking when the models disagree, but we'll keep a close eye on things and adjust our plans as needed - 1 step at a time! And I thought I would share this 'sea story' with you. It starts off a bit slow but there is a very surprising twist in the middle of the article that everyone involved including the journalist who wrote it only seems to casually mention. I would have probably had a headline like this "skipper stabbed in head says crew is crazy" rather than the very tame one they came up with - here it is its definitly better than any nonsense I can come up with.