The Rally departed Port Vila on Thursday as scheduled. Our time in Port Vila was short but action-packed! The first day was spent on an around-the-island bus tour which lasted all day, quite a lot to see and a very large island! The second day was spent abseiling which, if you don't know, involves climbing and coasting through waterfalls. The location was a national park with an elaborate series of cascading natural waterfalls which were in themselves quite interesting to see, even more so up close as we entered the cold water.
The weather forecast was for very light winds the first couple of days underway and then moderate southeasterlies. The winds were certainly very light at the start (the first time ever that we motored over the start line for a race!) but filled in sooner than predicted although from the SW instead of SE. We have been close-hauled for the last day, the first time on this point of sail in quite some time, and our performance could certainly be enhanced by a new set of sails. The forecast is for the wind to shift to the SE eventually so we have cracked-off a bit to improve our speed now with the expectation that we will be able to come back down to course over the next day-or-so.
This leg takes us over the Great Barrier Reef which is quite wide where we pass through to Mackay. The girls are excited about seeing the Reef, we hope to see an increase in marine life as we approach but not see the reef too close while underway. We briefly ran aground in Port Vila because of being careless in a very tricky harbour and do not wish to repeat that experience while at speed transiting the GBR.