Mischief - Up to Mischief again: Log 61 Further adventures of S/Y Mischief through the eyes and ears of Chas Baynes

Tuesday, 17th July 2018 - Port Vila

We have had a boat preparation day to day, or at least a morning of it. So, I was up quite early to wash down the decks and scrub with boat shampoo then turned the dinghy over on the foredeck to wash that out inside as it was filthy and needed to be dried and rolled away in the sail locker. I then turned to my proper job on the boat - cleaning the heads. Whilst at Grammar school I had a weekly evening job in an office block cleaning the loos so I have formal training in the subject, I was even responsible for cleaning the Executive toilets so you can't get posher than that!

Jobs done, we went into town as Sandra from Emily Morgan had stated a wish to buy a Ukulele - so Wendy decided that was a very fine idea and wanted one too. Dave protested that she had already bought her a steel drum to learn an instrument and never has had it out of the packet so why would this be any different, but I suspect the prospect of becoming the next George Formby was too much to ignore. I suppose it could have been a lot, lot worse - imagine should she have wanted to teach herself the violin on board on passage! What a brilliant music shop - all manner of instruments for sale including saxophones/trumpets to guitars and electronic drums; they even had a proper drum kit all set out so Bones decided to show us yet another one of his skills and banged out a set on the drums like Phil Collins - I'm beginning to really dislike this man!

So to make up for my feelings of inadequacy, I stopped off for a haircut on the way back to the boat. Unfortunately, the hairdresser girl managed to snick my ear with the clippers and drew blood. As I am presently on blood thinners the amount of blood made it look a lot worse than it was so she was panicking a bit when she couldn't get it to stop. Even though I told her the reason she was still mortified but didn't reduce the price of my haircut though. Why it should cost £20 here yet £2 for exactly the same in Tonga without losing half an ear is beyond me. So before I limped out of the shop I told her that Dave, who was due in straight after me, would want a full on crew cut but she bottled out.

We had the leg 6 prize giving and welcome drinks this evening - a bit bizarre having welcome drinks the day before you are due to leave but there you are, welcome all the same. The Waterfront bar had sponsored the rum punch (I'm not surprised the amount of money we have spent in that place), but there really wasn't much rum in it so it seemed which is always dangerous when drinking punch as they taste fairly innocuous until they come up and kick you from behind, but this one tasted innocuous because it really didn't have much rum in it!

We had the prize giving and Dave presented the crew of Pinta an award for saving Mischief when she drifted near to a reef outside Denarau. We won the second-place prize in our class for Fiji to Tanna island, Vanuatu which was a bar of chocolate and a bag of Tanna coffee beans. Third place was Kava powder so really pleased we flew our spinnaker all night to avoid that.

For whatever reason I went for a run before the drinks party which wasn't a great idea as I was sweating like a sweaty thing when I got back some ten minutes before it started, had a quick shower but was still as wet five minutes after as I was before showering. Anyway, it was worth it I think, albeit I stuck to my shirt and trousers for a while.

Wednesday, 18th July 2018 - Port Vila

Went off with Trevor this morning to do some re-provisioning for the forthcoming trip to Mackay, whilst Dave and Wendy went off to the bottle store having completed the check-out paperwork. So, armed with the clearing certificate they were able to buy alcohol duty free and came back with 24 bottles of Heineken (local beer is not sold duty free), a bottle each of vodka, rum and gin and a decent bottle of red and white wine all for £68! Dave has been feeling very conscious of the fact that his booze cupboard was bare and had been since the Galapagos as it has been extortionately expensive to buy alcohol, particularly spirits across the Pacific until we reached here, but even here it is not cheap if you count in the duty. Mind you, Trevor and I made up for it as a bottle of Gold Blend coffee unknowingly cost us £30!

Not too much to do today as the boat is otherwise prepared for the trip to Mackay. We had an informal briefing meeting on cruising Australian waters from Galen of World Arc, assisted by the Aussies in the fleet with local knowledge. It seems we have some 'real' sailing to do with tides and currents, upwind and downwind, busy shipping lanes, reefs (we cross over the Great Barrier Reef of 100 miles or so), so we have been warned to stay alert at all times. Some large ships may well not have AIS turned on which is bizarre as I thought it mandatory, but apparently they will speak to you on channel 16 and tell you which way to go to get out of their way which is helpful, as it's very constrained in there.

We then had the more formal Skippers briefing so are now ready for the off - you start getting itchy feet when you have spent some time in a place and it feels like it's time to move on. Certainly the weather forecast looks to be okay and promises a fast passage. A couple of small beers and a final meal ashore and that will be it for Vanuatu.

Thursday, 19th July 2018 - Start of leg 7 to Mackay, Australia

The last breakfast! We had a Full Monty ashore before we set off, not that I really needed a cooked breakfast, it was just that I still had some VT money to dispose of so that seemed like a decent enough way to spend it. The café didn't have any sausages though and as you know, whether you wanted a sausage or not, you just have to have a sausage, so that was disappointing!

1100 start. We measured the time and distance between the start line and a row of washing blowing in the wind on shore at 5 knots - two minutes. And so two minutes before the start gun we began what became known as 'Dave's Dobey Dash' and hit the line at speed with the Code 0 set and pulling hard, and soon we were second boat behind the race boat, Lunatix. We soon had to change down from the Code 0 as it was gusting hard and didn't wish to blow out the sail at quite so early a stage in the leg. Actually, conditions suited the new A5 asymmetric spinnaker but as we have not had it out of the bag yet we decided against on the grounds that we would look like idiots if we cocked it up. Besides there was a reef down to leeward so didn't want to end up on that through lack of attention to where we were going.

But a great, fast sailing day followed although the wind strength and direction suited the larger boats as it is all about waterline length - the longer you are the faster you go. When the Code 0 came down we were slightly underpowered and slowed accordingly. One of the leading boats noticed a large crate of some description floating just under the surface and put a warning call out to the fleet so various boats had to take avoiding action as it was directly on our path. At least you could see it, in daylight anyway, as there were a few ducks sitting on it having a rest.

Come tea time, we set the genoa out on the end of the spinnaker pole and this boat really likes this mode. We started catching boats again and picking them off one by one. Happy Days! It might be that having poled out the genoa we can't reef the mainsail without rolling it away first, so we have kept full rig up whereas others have reefed already for the night.

2400 Position: 17 degs 43.1' S 166 degs 35' E SOG: 8.5 knts W: 20 ESE C: 270

We had moon light until around midnight then it went below the horizon and it became very dark with semi-cloudy skies blocking the stars. We had an issue with Madrigal and Christine who were directly in front of us as we were closing in without being able to bear away any lower being already deep downwind so Dave was trying to thread a way between the two when I came on watch. They both got involved in a luffing match and went way up to windward which served our purpose rather nicely as it opened up a safe passage to leeward. It's good fun at close quarters at night! The next boat in front of us is Amara - we're coming to get you!