Espiritu Santo

After several days moored to the private buoy owned by Aore Adventure on the little island of Aore, opposite the city of Luganville on Espiritu Santo, we prepared to leave Vanuatu by visiting Customs and Immigration. Early on Tuesday morning, we crossed the channel and docked our dinghy at the large cruising ferry terminal. It was very hot, and we were greeted by warm and friendly Ni-Vanuatu people at customs, who explained that we had to walk ten minutes to the immigration building. When we arrived, there was a long queue, but no authorities to ask. We walked around the building and found an open door on the backside, noticing a lot of activity with people opening boxes and cleaning. We learned that the immigration office had just returned from a conference and was setting everything up again. Luckily, they were able to assist us quite quickly.

We enjoyed four days of delicious food at the Aore Resort, beautiful clear water for snorkeling around the boat, and we had the chance to listen to water music for the first time. Women from the little island of Gaua in the north of Vanuatu performed a dance in the water while singing, creating sounds by moving their hands in the water, like using the ocean as a large drum. It was a sound we had never heard before.

Leaving Luganville

We were ready to leave, letting the mooring go, and we started to roll out our mainsail with a favorable wind of 10 knots. However, we suddenly noticed that the mainsail had jammed badly halfway, just below the second spreader. For three hours, we maneuvered back and forth in the narrow passage, trying to get it in and out, but the furling mechanism overheated. When we finally got the mainsail in, we didn’t dare to try anymore for fear of making it worse. Since we had cleared out, we had to leave the country and continue sailing to Cairns in Australia, but we had to undertake the 1,275 NM crossing using only our headsails.

Main problems

We were able to maintain a speed of 7.5 to 9.5 knots most of the time. Some days were a bit wavy, and on the 26th of May, we took down the spinnaker pole in the rain in quite a bumpy sea. Fortunately, we had good and stable easterly winds for the entire crossing and completed it at 4 PM on the 27th of May 2025, arriving at Marlin Marina in Cairns, 7 days and 8 hours after we started. Australia has many biosecurity regulations which we had read properly and acted accordingly so this time we har an easy control.

Arriving to Australia

Along the way, we tried to find a rigger in Cairns, but they were scarce in Australia, and the ones we contacted were traveling. Luckily, our rigger Rob from New Zealand had time to fly in and help us with our main problem. He quickly went up the mast and directed Anders on when to push, pull, or roll in, and after an hour, our mainsail was flat and free again. We were very thankful for the help and relieved that the mainsail wasn’t destroyed. With a lighter heart, we could meet the other boats of the Wonderful Sail to Indonesia rally fleet. We joined the rally to receive assistance with authorities in Indonesia and to enjoy good company along the way.