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Well, we made it! After a 24 hour sail, we have arrived in the Lau Island Group. If you follow our tracking, you see us anchored at Vanua Balavu. Twenty-four hours, in the grand scheme of passages, is nothing. But considering it was supposed to take 18 hours, it felt loooooonnnnnnggggg. And why you ask? Because weather models are…. models. And the models were wrong. We waited and waited for a weather window that would let us make our way east from Vanua Levu to the Lau Group. Because the tradewinds are easterly, those windows don’t happen very often. But the major weather models all agreed that last Monday was THE DAY. The wind would be south-southeast, allowing us to sail on a beam reach across the Koro Sea. They were in perfect agreement and had been for a week. And they were wrong. The winds were east-southeast. So instead of reaching across at 7.5-8 knots, we found ourselves motorsailing into the wind at 5.6-6 knots. I was displeased. But we made it. And in retrospect, it was WORTH IT. We have been anchored in a beautiful spot for 4 days now and don’t want to leave. The water is crystal clear and an incredible blue color. We are surrounded by cliffs and lush tropical forest. And it’s not crowded! Because few people venture to the Lau Group! Vanua Balavu has a fantastic area called the Bay of Islands, which is where we are. It is filled with lots of tiny islands and tiny bays where one can tuck in and anchor. When I say “tiny”, I mean so small a boat can’t turn around. In order to anchor, one backs in, sets the anchor, and ties a line from the stern of the boat to the shore to keep from swinging. Like, that tiny. We haven’t ventured into one of those yet, but it’s on the list. Right now, we are in the open but have a cliff 75 feet behind us, which is awesome!

We have inflated the kayak and gone for a couple of paddles for the first time since last year. And we’ve been in the water, which hasn’t been a common thing this year for us because the temperatures have been cooler and El Niño is keeping the water a little cooler as well. Unfortunately, El Niño hasn’t kept the marine growth from attacking our hull, so most of my time in the water has involved a scraper and a scrubby. Not my favorite task, but I’m only complaining a little. There have been a few other boats around and we managed a dinghy float one evening for socializing and then checked out the large bat colony. They all take to the skies at dusk. It’s pretty cool if you like that sort of thing, which Kim does. Me? If you’ve seen one flying rodent, you’ve seen them all. The islands here are all limestone, so the seawater erodes the bases, leaving some fantastic shapes and even small caves, which we haved loved exploring. Kim and I agree. This is the BEST anchorage we’ve been in yet. We are in no hurry to leave. Which is good, because the weather models say it’s going to get seriously windy over this coming week. Of course, who knows? They’ve been wrong before!