It’s a tricky decision: to go back to Brisbane either direct from Fiji, via New Caledonia or via Vanuatu. We chose to break the journey in Vanuatu and then position ourselves for the most comfortable passage home, departing from Luganville. The passage to Vila was about three days. We’d had a lovely exit, doing more than 100 nm in 12 hours. The weather models did align but, a day into our passage, it was obvious something had changed. We just thought ‘no problem, we’ll change course away from the windy weather and run a more comfortable angle — if we end up at Luganville, we can check in there instead of Vila …’ We decided to gybe back and continue to Vila and arrived there at around 2pm on a Friday. The tricky bit was getting cleared through Customs and Immigration before 4pm when it all closed for the weekend! The official buildings are in the commercial dock 1.5 nm on the opposite side of the bay and we powered up our 2.5hp dinghy to do its best, then successfully completed what we called ‘the amazing race’ from building to building to be cleared in. Vila harbour is a lot like Neiafu in Tonga — deep crystal clear water, too deep to anchor — so we took an anchor ball for two nights before heading off on passage to Luganville. This was relatively simple to weave between the islands of Vanuatu as we had left Fiji’s complex reefs behind. We arrived in Luganville early in the morning and anchored easily in mud near the town. We had intended to visit some of the famous blue holes on the island of Santo but an opportunity came up to leave in a couple of days and get a great ride home on the tradewinds on our final 1100 nm passage. This was our best passage of the season. Our plan was to head out the Bougainville Strait, cross Grand Passage at the top of New Caledonia and continue on to the south of Banc De Landsdowne and south of Bellona Reefs; once through there, we would have an uninterrupted 450 nm final leg home to Brisbane. This is a route for the navigationally confident sailor as there are seamounts to avoid, as well as taking into consideration the sea state passing through Grand Passage and south of the reef systems. The weather could not have been more ideal. We had our first 220 nm day in the first half of the passage, reaching with one reef and a J1 at consistent speeds of 9–11kn with a 1-2m settled sea state. The boat just went like a train! Then the wind died off to almost nothing, so motoring for 36 hours on a flat sea south of Bellona Reefs, after which our wonderful trade winds came back and we continued to knock out 180-200 nm days with fabulous sea state. This wonderful run lasted all the way to the Fairway Beacon at Caloundra! Home. Home in the Bay! We had an easy run into the Port of Brisbane and were secure at Rivergate by 4pm. Border Force and Biosecurity were wonderful and cleared us in as much as possible at that time, to allow us to step off the vessel. The final biosecurity check was done the following morning. We left Rivergate soon after and headed home to RQYS. It was Wednesday. WAGS! We happened to come through the fleet just as they were starting and were so grateful for the amazing welcome we received as our fellow Members realised it was us — Paul and the start boat Volunteers even made a special approach to welcome us home! We followed our arrival with a bottle of champagne at the newly-minted RQYS bar and were then joined by the WAGS fleet after they had finished racing. What a great end to an amazing adventure! n PICS: Supplied: Crowleys & rally group members; Minerva aerial Google Earth 71 Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron Yearbook Mainsheet 2024 South Pacific cruising
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