Thursday 17 June, 8.22pm (anchored at Luganville)
It is bucketing rain outside. Crew members are taking it in turns to pop out and have a shower on deck to take advantage of that volume of water coming down.
Things have been on serious go slow today. The sky has been grey with high humidity periodically breaking into torrential rain. Jen and I spent an hour at the internet cafe sending photos to add to the website, while Tony, Jim and Bob went off looking for a hydrometer. We seem to have developed the knack of buzzing off on our separate errands and finding some place to hang out somewhere afterwards in true island style until the others happen by and we can return to the boat together. That can easily take a whole day around here.
Of the five boats in this bay, three are Australian (one a family with four young children) and the other two are sailed by French speakers. Yannick from New Caledonia (my canyoning companion of yesterday) dropped by to give me his marvellous photos and stayed for dinner – piccadillo and pamplemousse in caramel toffee. When he left to return to his boat, his dinghy was half-full of water from the rain that fell during dinner.
I found out how many pigs for a wife, at least here on Santo. It’s a minimum of four and a maximum of ten. So cheer up girls, each of us is worth at least four pigs!
Everything is ready to roll, except for last-minute cleaning and a visit to the market in the morning. The medical team and our final crew member arrive tomorrow and we take off for Ambae north-east of here in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Ann
i tried to enlarge the google satellite map, but no sign of chimere and its dauntless crew. trying to access the photos you mention here.
h
could you send the rain our way? Maby if you all face towards Australia and blow really hard…. you might just make enough of a draft to send a that rain over the Atlantic or whatever ocean your in, over Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, and down to us. How does that sound? We went skiing at st Guinear (or however you spell it) and past the Thompsan. Not very full. Or maby Very empty. Must depend on whether you are a glass half full or empty person…. hmmmmm. any way, hope your all having a great time.
Hi Hilary,
It doesn’t feel nearly as remote as north of the Arctic Circle did. In fact, the striking thing is that this is not at all remote in terms of distance, but in terms of accessibility to services.
I’m told by my learned colleagues that there are different data systems that work out coordinates, and Mike Clarke, the bloke that does the website, has told me that Google Maps have been out all the way. The fact is that the GPS is correct. Even the nautical charts that supply the visual maps for the auto pilot sometimes place us on land when we’re at anchorage and we KNOW we’re on water.
The photos should be on the website by now – sending them through is difficult because there is such limited bandwidth here. I hope you enjoy them.
xo Ann
Hi Ann and Crew,
I couldn’t resist making a ‘front of house’ response to the google maps comment. When you arrived at Luganville, you sent me the co-ordinates as 15.31S and 167.10E. Including these co-ordinates into google maps would see you well and truely in ‘dry dock’ 20km inland and about 50km North of Luganville. I think I’d stick to navigating using GPS!!
Luganville according to Google Maps was 15.51S and 167.15E – Hmmmmm!
Enjoy the next couple of weeks
Mike (the bloke that does the website)
Hi Luke,
It’s stopped raining for the time being, so hopefully it’s gone your way and dumped itself into the Thompson. Unlikely though, as we’re east of North Queensland, and weather travels from east to west.
You know that ocean just to the right of Australia? The one you swim in at Cape Conran, and Thurra River? It’s the Pacific Ocean, which could be why we’re in the Pacific Islands, and the musical written around the island we’re anchored at this very minute is called “South Pacific.” Look it up on a map!! But don’t expect the latitude and longitude coordinates to make sense on “Google Maps” – the GPS is accurate, but the maps keep saying we’re on dry land when we know jolly well there’s 10 m of sea underneath the keel.
Was there plenty of snow on Gwinear, and have you had your snowboarding trip yet?
We are having a truly wonderful trip, which you would know all about if you could bring yourself to read the ship’s log. The cooking has gone well so far – as I write I have two loaves of bread rising to feed the hungry hoardes today before we leave to work in the village.
No dugongs yet, and only Tony has seen a turtle. There are many more interesting things to come in the 2.5 weeks we have left.
Love, Mum.