though I'd pick up from Vanuatu, then fill in the rest later with some good pics.We left New Caledonia about a week ago, Noumea was a bit of a let down and pretty shabby (not to mention expensive!) so we were all keen to move on to new places. Vanuatu was always supposed to be our first port of call after Opua (NZ) but we defected to New Cal en-route to dodge some dodgey weather. Anyway, the trip from Noumea was pretty quick thanks to a steady 25-30kt breeze. Pretty rolly weather though, I now swear by motion sickness pills!
Life onboard during passage has been pretty chilled out so far, thanks to the good weather we've generally picked before leaving. There are four of us on board, Terry (Skipper), Cassy (Terry's Daughter), Simon (another kiwi from Whangarei) and me. Most of us are generally up during the day (bar the odd cat-nap), reading books, laxing out, fishing, or otherwise just trying to stop ourselves from being rag-dolled around the cabin in rough seas. 'Sora', is a pretty easy boat to sail with all the mod cons and fancy gadgets (including auto-pilot, in-mast furling, chart-plotter, electric winches) so it's pretty easy to plug in your destination, raise the sails and let the gadgets take over until you reach port. All you really have to do once you're in open water is trim the sails now and then and keep watch for bad
weather and boats that might get in your way. During the Night we all take a 3hr watch to make sure there is always someone on deck in case anything goes wrong or it looks like we're about to get run down by a container ship! Watches are always a good time to get a bit of quiet time to your self, but I've also discoverd how to watch movies on my ipod which generally helps keep you awake!Pretty soon after leaving Noumea (capital of New Caledonia) I threw a line out as we threaded out through the complicated reef
system surounding New Cal. Fishing off 'Sora' is a little bit unconventional, and somewhat unsporting.... but then again I like to fish for the table, not for the sport of it. Anyway, to put it simply we just got one big eff-off game fishing reel with a bunch of million pound fishing line and bolted it straight onto one of the safety rails at the back of the boat. We do this so we don't have to dick around in the rolling swells for hours trying to play a fish on rod and reel, given the manourverability of a 55ft ketch under full sail this general wouldn't be practical! When a fish hooks up we generally just tow it for a bit (sometimes till they're just about dead and surfing on the surface behind the boat) and haul it up by hand/reel when its stopped fighting. With this setup we can catch just about anything from Tuna to Marlin, as Terry has done so in the past. On the way from Noumea we 
caught a small Tuna and two Mahi-Mahi (Dorado) of respectable size... the first of which somehow manged to win the manic wrestling match that ensued after we hauled it on deck, spitting the hook and jumping off the gaff back into the sea...woops! I must say I felt a bit guilty, Mahi-Mahi are such beautiful big creatures and aparently they mate for life. The second one was not not so lucky and was soon filleted for the freezer. Stink thing is when you catch one of these big Palegic (Ocean crossing) fish theres normally enough meat on them to feed the four of us for at least a week so once we catch one thats generally the end of our fishing for the rest of our passage. Catch and release is not exactly a humane or sustainable option!Our last leg between Noumea and Vila was relatively short at about 300 miles so it only took us 3days doing an average speed of 6-8kts. Given the rough seas we were experiencing it was just as well. Our first impressions of vila from the boat were already in stark contrast with Noumea, with loud music and colourful markets lining the water front. As you can imagine we were all super keen to stretch our legs and sample the local fare but unfortunately we had arived on Saturday. Customs wasn't open until Monday and until we cleared we wouldn't be aloud on shore......ahhhhhhhh!!!!! Oh well, the boat's usually an absolute mess after an ocean passage so I spose it made tidying up a slightly easiey task to get stuck into.
Well now it's Tuesday and we've had a bit of time to suss out Vila and I'm loving it. The people are soooo friendly, most things cost the same as NZ but piracy is also rife so Ilegal DVD's, Computer Software, and counterfit clothes are super cheap. Tomorrow we'll hire a car to drive around the island and hopefully visit some of the local tribes.....I'll keep you posted!
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