Gunu

The weather forecasts were telling us that a front and a low pressure system were going to turn the winds round to the west followed by rain then who knew what. As the morning progressed the winds were already coming from the north. Although we were positioned well where we were we also needed to make our way south and these northerlies may have been our last chance to sail for as while. So after a short debate and another look at the weather we decided to pull the anchor and sail south to the village of Gunu where we had would have good all round protection but particularly from the west and south.

The winds stayed around 8-9 knots all the way down so it was quite slow going. We could not have sailed in these conditions with our old sails but the new ones kept us going at 3.5 to 4 knots. We could have gone faster by raising the code zero but we weren’t in a rush. By the time we arrived the wind was more westerly and our last run to the anchorage was close to the wind. One other boat, Safari, was in the anchorage. We don’t know them but have seen it around. It’s a family boat with a few kids aboard. We picked a spot with plenty of room to swing not knowing what the winds would really do. Our experience with these fronts has been that the winds get quite light as they pass but one should never generalize and make assumptions.

With dark clouds off to the west we quickly dinghied ashore to do our sevusevu. The village chief had a child with him who burst into tears during the ceremony causing them the speed it up and at the end the chief left with the child, presumably to calm him down. We were left with another man from the village who we chatted with for a while before returning to the boat.

Not long after the rains came. We stayed inside for the rest of the afternoon. It was quite hot and muggy. By the time the rains had passed the wind was now coming from the SSW and was now a shade cooler than before giving us a pleasant evening.

Overnight the wind has dropped to zero. What we do over the next few days is now entirely down to the weather and our need to generally keep moving. The water is dead calm at the moment so it could be pretty good for snorkeling here today. We’ll see. We have no internet at this location so I’ll have to wait until we get good propagation to download the weather forecasts via the sideband radio.