Lately, I have been getting enquiries about our passage to Davao. In hindsight, when we decided to sail over, it was difficult for us to get information. In fact, when we asked around, we got a lot of "not a smart move" replies.

Following the Coconut Milk Run across the Pacific, we sailed in company of several sailboats. We made several friends, had lots of potlucks together and the information shared amongst us is priceless. By the time we reached New Zealand, our "group" had already dispersed - some stayed in the islands, some went to Australia and some to different parts of New Zealand. We stayed in Whangarei for almost 4 years, and most of the time, in the boatyard. We made more friends there, but none who were going our way - off the beaten path towards the Philippines. We delayed our departure from New Zealand, although I would say it was somewhat unintentional. In July/August, which is South Pacific winter, the weather window was terrible. We were actually the second last boat to leave Opua that season, and we were able to stay in contact with the German net all the way.

Our passage started from Opua, the last departure port in North Island. In August, the winter storms came in succession and it took us 3 weeks of waiting for the right weather window. We finally took the tail end of a low pressure system that crossed North Island and followed the southwesterly wind out of Opua. The first two days were rough with gale force winds. The seas looked like it was one big washing machine cycle. With only our jib flying, we finally got further away and into a high pressure system. From then on, it was nice sailing to Vanuatu, through 2 back to back high pressure systems. This passage took us 10 days, approximately 1160 nautical miles.

We arrived in Port Vila, the capital city of Vanuatu and anchored at the quarantine site for checking in procedure. Yachting World marina assists in contacting and transporting port authorities to incoming vessels, so checking in was a breeze. Port Vila has become a favorite alternate cruising destination for boats from New Zealand who have to sail out to avoid the import entry taxes. That year, there were several boats and the marina at one point was full. But we got a spot and we stayed there for 2 weeks.

We provisioned a bit here because we knew from then on, it will be more difficult. Also, we got our visas for PNG from the PNG consulate in Port Vila. Looking for the consulate was an experience by itself - it is really not an office, but a residence, and to get there, you have to describe the house and give the name of the owner of the house. There were no address numbers and street names. Once we got our visas, we headed onwards further north to Luganville, about 170 miles.

Luganville is a smaller city than Port Vila - much smaller. We anchored outside of a resort owned by an expat, and there were not too many cruisers when we were there. I remembered meeting at least 3 that were stuck in Luganville because of skin infections. For those who are unaware, Vanuatu lies in the South Pacific Convergence zone area. It has very high humidity, rains a lot and is in the tropics. Any open wounds or small cuts must be protected and covered immediately to prevent the flies from zooming in. This is no laughing matter - and those infections are nasty. Since Luganville is a port of entry, we checked out of Vanuatu here. We were pressed for time, so we decided to bypass most of Solomon islands and headed straight to Gizo, on the northwest side, approximately 780 miles.

By this time, weather forecasts from the GRIB files were wrong 99% of the time and we were alone. We constantly got westerly winds even though the forecasts said easterly. Thunderstorms at nights were a common sight. We went through a terrible one, and lightning struck the water right behind us. The clapping sound of the lightning and the following rumbles were deafening. The rain - downpours - was very heavy. Welcome to the tropics!! We arrived outside of Gizo thankfully at daylight and all the navigation charts are wrong. Visually navigating through the reefs and following the buoys, we got into the town of Gizo and anchored right in front of the Gizo yacht club. This is a very poor town, and we had to row to shore and walk across the main road looking for the port and immigration offices to check in.  There were only 2 boats there at that time, and thankfully, there is wireless internet, with the tower set up on the roof of the yacht club. Again, the club is owned by a Canadian expat. He was very helpful and a good source of information. We left Gizo on September 26th bound for Papua New Guinea (PNG).

We intended to check into PNG from Kokopo in Rabaul. We arrived around midnight, underneath clear skies and calm waters. We have heard that the volcano is actively spitting out ashes and smoke, so we decided to round the area to check it out. Sure enough, it was spitting smoke out. We didn't really look forward to cleaning ashes on deck, so we decided to head on straight to Kavieng, on the northern tip of New Ireland. This is the final port entry facility for PNG before heading north. Again, the charts are wrong, so navigating through the reefs was done visually. We anchored in front of Mallagan resort on the mainland side, and rowed to shore to check in. That was a long walk, hot and sticky, to the Port authorities. It took several tries on the radio before we were answered by the security personel of the port. There were no sailboats around in the anchorage to help us either with checking in information.

 Kavieng is the last port before we started our journey north across the equator to the north pacific. It was important that we fill up our water and diesel tanks here. I was not too worried with provisioning, as we took care of this in New Zealand. Thankfully we did too, as there is really nothing much in this little town. Internet is a joke - it is very slow and very expensive, if you are even lucky to get your turn. We still corresponded with the German net, although we now started depending on others to do relays. On our second day, we were advised to move out of our anchorage across to Nusa island on the other side of the channel. It was safer for us we were told. Apparently, there is a village close to the resort who eyes every incoming boats before breaking in to rob you. Right across, is Nusa island and there is a resort owned by an expat. The villagers there knows him well, and welcome all yachties. There was one Australian catamaran already out there, and that was it. Our Canadian friends arrived on our last day there and we were able to help them go straight to the port authorities by dinghy.

We were really anxious to go and get this crossing out of the way fast. By this time, it was October, and a transition period between seasons. Being close to the equator, the winds were light and we get the usual convergence zone type of weather - squalls, rain and thunderstorms. We were still getting westerlies which was so strange for this time of the season. On this route, we were not only concerned with the light winds, but we were also wary of the equatorial currents and countercurrents. Our rhumbline to Palau is on a northwesterly course, but we wanted to do a lot of westing in the early part of the passage, if possible, towards the Hermit Island. This would break our long passage into two. No matter how hard we tried, the light westerly winds and currents prevented us from doing this strategy. We ended up bypassing the Hermit and went straight to Palau. We encountered the equatorial countercurrent at 1 deg 30 north, all the way to about 6 deg 30 North. Very strange current patterns here. As a note, we had the engine running at very low RPM all the way, otherwise we could not move in light wind conditions. We can power sail about 10 hours a day nicely, but winds usually die down late afternoons and evenings. We also sailed very close to the wind - to do more westing. It was challenging and we even at one point started reading up on Yap island in micronesia - as we were pointing towards it most of the time. I was worried about this though because we did not get the required cruising permits prior to arriving in Micronesia. Luckily, by the time we got out of the equatorial countercurrent, we started to move faster. We were hit by a nasty gale and had to heave to for about 3 hours (remnant of a typhoon further north). Other than this, we finally reached Palau waters and what a relief. Running 24/7 at low RPM, I vowed to first kiss the engine and then Kjartan for my safe arrival into Palau. In total, we used just over 500 liters of diesel running 12 days, 1260 miles. We still had over 600 liters diesel left. We checked in at Malakal Port in Koror, Palau. 4 people came on board and checking in was fast. We then moved over to Sam's tours/Royal Belau Yacht Club and stayed in Palau from October 22 to December 18. We were the second boat to arrive for the season. The few American boats already there were residents, and they all welcomed us warmly.

I did not include any waypoints in this article. Anybody interested can email me specific areas and I would gladly give them out. There are cruising guides for Vanuatu and Solomons and they are good. From PNG to Palau, the information available is less, but you can get some through the SSCA articles and from noonsite.com.