Day 137, Year 2: Overnight Passage Back to Efate Island
Date: Saturday, September 8, 2007
Weather: Sunny Morning; Overcast, Rainy Afternoon; Sunny Evening with South-South-West Winds 5 Knots
Latitude: 16 degrees 33.626 minutes
Longitude: 167 degrees 53.269 minutes
Location: Enroute from Malekula to Port Havannah, Efate

A couple of days ago I wrote a log describing the struggle we are having between continuing our circumnavigation and the lack of funds to do so. We received a number of encouraging emails and gracious offers of places to stay when we come home this winter. I guess those offers reminded me just how wonderful and gracious friends and family can be, and led me to the realization that I don’t know how we will do it, but I do know that we will continue. I think just writing about the struggle helped
me to clarify the situation. As I live each day out here, I know I could not NOT continue. That’s a double negative, which must make the statement very postive. Voyaging around the world is almost like living in a dream world, and even if I return to the US deeply in debt, it will just have to be. I must continue the dream. We’ve been in debt before, and we’ll figure it out this time. Albeit, we were a bit younger when we climbed our way out before, but I know we will figure some way to do
it, even with gray hair!

We are headed back to the island of Efate. We will travel overnight tonight and arrive in the bay on the northwest corner of the island early in the morning. Havannah Bay is our destination. Unfortunately, we will be motoring all night. There is virtually no wind out here, but at least the seas are fairly flat and we have a bit of a favorable current going our way. Havannah Harbor has a lot of World War II history, none of which I know. But tonight while on watch, I will read about the area
and report on that in tomorrow’s log.

We spent the day at anchor in Gaspard Bay today, and I had so hoped to be able to travel by dinghy to the reef near Sakao to snorkel there one more time. It is a very shallow reef, so we knew we needed to wait until at least half-tide. The morning was beautiful, but low-tide was mid-morning. So we thought we would wait until about 1:30 PM and go then. At 1:00 PM it was still beautiful, but as we prepared to go, dark gray clouds loomed over us. I couldn’t believe it. I had washed sheets and
other clothes in the morning and had hoped to leave them out to dry until we left for our overnight passage. If we left to go snorkeling with the gray clouds overhead, I knew I would have to take the clothes in and that would mean leaving on an passage with lots of damp clothes hanging aorund the boat. So we opted to skip the snorkeling and stay to watch the clothes dry. At least this way, we could pull them off the lines at the first sign of rain. It was not long before the sprinkles started,
so I had to take the clothes in anyway. All I could say is that the weather was spoiling my party. Mark’s only remark to that was that I have way too many parties and that I shouldn’t be upset. I guess I’ll just have to live with that.

We left Gaspard Bay at 4 PM, just after a downpour. We waited for the rain to stop before pulling up anchor and as we motored out of the bay, there was a beautiful rainbow guiding us out. As I looked back to the bay, there were low-lying clouds between the hills in the bay and on the reef beyond. There was bright sunshine glistening off the green trees with frothy white surf rolling over the reef. It was beautiful. It was then that I realized that I didn’t know what day it is. Days of the week
have little meaning out here and if I didn’t write this log everyday, I would have no idea of date and time. But I do write this log, so now I know this is Saturday. But Saturdays out here are just like any other day. Before we retired, Saturdays had a whole different feel. We will arrive in Havanna Harbor on Sunday morning, and if we are very, very lucky, our friends on White Swan and Maggie Drum will still be there. We have been trying to catch up with them since we arrived in Vanuatu at Tanna Island. They are heading north while we are heading south, so we might not rendezvous until Australia. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

070908 Day 137 Efate, Vanuatu–Gaspard Bay to Havannah Harbor