Rain, rain go away come again another day!

Dear all,

Following our last blog update the weather has been pretty windy and
overcast. Often a wave ends up in the cockpit. Stu had the pleasure of
cooking lunch then two saltwater showers whilst eating it – not a good day.
Today is the first day of champagne sailing with sunshine and clear skies.
It's been nice to stretch out in the sun rather than wearing waterproofs and
hinding from the waves.

We are making good progress our noon position was 15 47S, 157 31E with just
over 700 miles completed.

Hope everyone is well at home,
Love Ocean Lady

Day two!

Day two and all is well!
We are making good progress to Australia, our noon position was 17 43S, 163
21E
A good SE breeze pushing us along with clear skies. It gets a bit chilly at
night but we'd prefer that to rain!!!
Lots of love,
Ocean Lady

Day two!

Day two and all is well!

We are making good progress to Australia, our noon position was 17 43S, 163 21E

A good SE breeze pushing us along with clear skies. It gets a bit chilly at night but we'd prefer that to rain!!!

Lots of love,

Ocean Lady

Australia here we come!!

Dear all,

 

Ocean Lady left Vanuatu yesterday morning with a dull, drizzly and overcast sky. Shortly after leaving the drizzle stopped and we were experiencing good sailing with the yankee and two reefs in the mainsail. Beam reaching with a rolly sea. We had the odd bit of green water over the deck and Stu had an impromptu shower whilst cooking supper from the hatch above the galley!!

As the night drew in the seas got smaller and we had a great night making good speed and almost on course.

Our noon position was: 17 48S, 165 43E

 

Lots of love,

Ocean Lady

 

More Rain!

Dear all,

 

Just like the UK has been suffering with lots of rain so have we! We have left the main port Port Vila after clearing customs and having a nice outing to the Cascades waterfalls. We are now tucked up in Port Havannah. We had a good snorkel and dive on the boat yesterday making sure the bottom is as clean as possible before entering Australian waters. Today we woke to overcast weather and frequent rain showers. We were meant to be heading back to Port Vila but behind the protection of the headland we still had 30 knots of breeze on the nose and were soaked to the skin!

 

We are hoping to check out tomorrow or Saturday and head for Cairns. It is quite a weird feeling thinking that our next country will be Australia and we have all sailed here!! The journey should take 12 days and once the current conditions have moved on we should have fine weather and good breezes – if you can trust a GRIB weather file. We have worked out that since Niue, every leg has had in excess of 35 knots of wind. So much for trade wind sailing conditions.

 

We hope the Olympics are going well and everybody is well at home,

 

Love, Ocean Lady

 

 

 

We've arrived!!!

Dear all,

 

After my rant about arriving on a bank holiday in Fiji, you’d never guess what we’d done again in Vanuatu!! Yip, Monday 30th July is Independence day, and a public holiday in Vanuatu!!!

We are all very glad to get here and relax. The island looks and feels very Caribbean, the anchorage is good and we all slept very well last night is despite the late night / early morning partying from the adjacent shore!!

 

Hope everybody is well at home and enjoying the Olympics,

 

Lots of love,

 

Ocean Lady

Bye bye Fiji, Vanuatu here we come!!

Hello Everyone

 

After leaving Musket Cove we went to a little village that we had previously

visited, Margaret had bought a few gifts for them, some old school books,

and had printed off some photos of them that we had taken on our last visit

which they were delighted to receive, and was really lovely to see. They saw

our boat moor up alongside their beach and actually remembered us from over

a month ago. The ladies made us some bracelets out of pandana leaves as a

souvenir.

 

Tuesday we set off for our first offshore passage to Vanuatu.  It took us

around 6 hours to get to the reef pass and this was a delightful sail, wind

at 18 knots force 4 on the beam, we could all handle this we thought!! We

had a tricky exit through the reef pass with another yacht entering on the

transit line, showing wrong running lights and then shinning a bright torch

in our eyes!! Great!On exiting the pass night descended upon us and bought

with it hurricane force winds (note it wasn't a hurricane, just winds

reached up to force 11) lightening and torrential rain!!! Day 2 continued

much them same, slightly lighter winds the storm sail remained up, and still

torrential rain, weather that wasn't at all predicted. We were delighted to

wake this morning to the sun shining, and finally we were all able to have a

shower! the good news is Ocean Lady keeps us nice and safe in such strong

weather! well done her!!!

 

Tonight Stu is cooking lamb chops and roast potatoes, moral is all good on

board!

 

Hope all is well at home

 

Ocean Lady