Loyalty Islands - Lifou and Ouvea

Wednesday, 14 September to Saturday, 24 September, 2016

On Wednesday, we started the day with a walk around the village of Drueulu. It is modern by Vanuatu standards but most people still had a traditional hut as well as a western style house. There was a small store that sold lovely fresh baguettes.

Chiefs (Skippers) in front of the Chief's compound

In the afternoon, the rally had organised a bus to take us to We, the main town on Lifou to restock our eggs, fruit and vegies etc. Warren and I also walked to the small marina to check it out.

In the evening, we had a feast organised by the locals who showed us how to weave palm leaves while the kids sang along to our talented guitar players. It was a great night.

On Thursday, most of the fleet headed west 40nm to Atoll D’Ouvea.

Lots of ways to get to the same place!

This is one of the highlights of the Loyalty Islands with crystal clear water and white sandy beaches. We anchored off the resort at Lekiny for 5 nights.

The resort is very yacht friendly – we swam in the pool, had lunch and hired bikes for a ride to nearby villages.

We rode south to the end of Mouli Island and then north to Fayaoue where we were surprised to see a new yacht club. After 40 km I was wishing we had packed our bikes.

Warren also had some success fishing at last - 2 Blue Maori Rockcod that were very tasty. We have had no luck trolling unfortunately.

Some boats had headed up to Ile Beautemps Beaupre but were told that yachts are now banned from visiting here after they found rats on the island. The locals thought the yachts had brought them though that seems highly unlikely. We headed further north in the lagoon to Passe Faasi for 2 nights.

A great spot to kayak but we decided not to swim after seeing lots of large sharks in the area. We stopped at St Joseph on the way back to Lekiny to try to buy some pawpaw or other fruit. None of the shops seem to sell pawpaw, probably because it is grown so readily and the locals would never spend money to buy some. The lady in the shop spoke no English but took me out the back of the shop and showed me some pawpaw trees. We knocked a couple of ripe ones off with a broom but she wouldn’t let me pay for them.

Lekiny Lagoon

By Friday, we were the last rally yacht to leave Ouvea in a light northerly for the trip south east to Ile des Pins. We carried the spinnaker all day and the wind hung in until 2230 when we had to start an engine. By 0600 we were sailing again and enjoying the perfect conditions. We passed through the reef protecting Ile des Pins at 0830 and dropped anchor in the outer anchorage at Gadji at 0930. 139nm in 25 hours – not our fastest trip by any means but we had enjoyed the flat seas and gentle breezes that were a change from our last couple of overnight passages.

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