2007-07-01

The forecast looked OK, so we left SavuSavu at dawn. As we were passing the lighthouse, just getting into the rather big swell from the SE, I checked in on the Rag of the Air radio net. The standard call for emergency traffic got a return, so I spent the next 30 minutes doing relays on the radio while Karen steered, and tended the autopilot. Seems that Louis, on S/V Elysium had called in with trouble 2 days ago, but seemed to have it under control. Then he didn't check in yesterday. This morning Russ told us the Pacific Seafarers had a call that the EPIRB beacon from Elysium had been activated and a search was under way. We all did a lot of information sharing, contingency plans were under way for a number of possibilities, and Steve on Red Sky stayed on frequency monitoring for 2 hours after the net, when it was determined that the crew of Elysium had been rescued, and the boat abandoned by Vanuatu Search and Rescue. They'd already had problems when they were hit by a powerful front with 50 to 60 knot squalls, and apparently the boat opened up. Elysium was an old trimaran, so though she was pretty rotten and broke, she wouldn't sink. Once the epirb location was established, a rescue vessel was dispatched and soon had them safe. Great relief among the cruisers.

Meanwhile, we had an extremely rough trip down the east side of Vanua Levu, an area notorious for big steep swell and overfalls. Boat got pretty wet with a lot of spray, and though we started out with all plain sail up, we were soon down to half the jib, and that's all we ran with until about 11:00, when we were through the pass into the reef lagoon. From there it was much more comfortable sailing, though the whole day required considerable vigilance to stay off the reefs. Covered over 40 miles, and by 4:30 were anchored in the shelter of a small patch of reef along the coast. It was hard to find a suitable bottom for the anchor in less than 100 feet of water. Finally set it in about 50 feet, too deep for this old guy to dive and check it any more. Maybe after I get to practice freediving again.... Anyway, had a good NE breeze all day, but would now like E or SE for the rest of the run to Labasa. Looks like we'll break it up into 3 days of 25 miles run each, in order to only move with the sun high for good visibility, and be able to reach decent harbors. It's pretty coastline, but the stress level is going to be a bit high for the next couple days. Wish us luck. Ted