Good Times -

Things have slowed down nicely, and we are enjoying some beautiful weather.

We finally found a tree full of fruit bats aka flying foxes. The whole trick is to learn the sounds that they make. Then just listen and follow your ears! They are pretty big, and I hear decent eating.

It looks like we are going to get a whopping 20 knots out of hurricane Pam, so hopefully we will be heading out to the islands Monday for some bonfires and exploring!

Courage

Cyclone Pam -

Ouch, a Category 5 hitting Vanuatu! Wishing them well. Considering trying to get to Vanuatu in the near future to do disaster relief if it's possible . . . Obviously not until the weather dies down a little bit.

http://www.wmur.com/…/tropical-cyclone-pam-menaces…/31772708

Vacuum Fun -

The rain has come -

Enjoying some rain time -

We are topping off our water tanks with sweet rainwater. The children are running around in the rain getting a great shower in the warm rain.

Our wind speed indicator showed a high of 54.9 knots yesterday. Which is not really possible, because the most we have had so far is maybe 20 knots. So I quickly deleted it so that I would not lose the bet. ( I bet we would not see more than 45 knots.)

The new solar is now connected so we have an extra kilowatt of power pumping into our system. I think we are going to be ok!

Courage

Heading to Town -

Valiant has a check list, pants - check, fishing rod - check.

Now Valiant is home and highly involved in installing the new charge controller. Getting one step closer to more than doubling our power!!

Crew Member Kim Arrives

Crew member Kim made it!!

Excited for our new power!! Our cousin Kim came last night with our new charge controller, so we can finish the installation and be collecting all that power, not sure well know what to do with it all, I'm thinking a big fan. ;-)

The weather is beautiful right now. Still planning to take in the tent on the front trampoline and our front tarp, probably today, but winds may be 20-30, not 117.

Shannon

Cyclone Pam -

Well, she's big and the locals have been watching her, now she has a name! She was originally 2000 miles wide I think they said. She's north of Fiji right now I think and anticipated to go further west of us than initially projected. The wind prediction Courage pulled up this morning was for a whopping 117 miles per hour four days from now, that coincides with reports of it moving west, so we'll have to keep watching to know for sure. The further west he goes, the less wind we get. Today we've been watching the charter companies take the sails off of all of their boats in preparation. We have been cleaning up our construction, removing any "loose" items, and now they are installing the solar panels, then will get those screwed into place. We will have to take down the front tarp and the tent on the front trampoline has to come in. The back tarps will come down if projections are over about 50 knots. If those come down, we do have a couple of open holes in our construction that will need to be boarded up or something, nothing too big and they would be facing backward to the wind flow, so it wouldn't be terrible. Anyway, interesting weather for now, getting lots of great stuff done that we needed to get done anyway. Should be an interesting weekend, then we're off to the islands!!

Shannon

Installing Solar Panels

Soldering our solar

Installing the Solar Panels before the big blow!

Rough Weather Ahead -

So rumor has it we are supposed to get a good blow coming through here this weekend. This will be our first real wind down here, but I am not totally buying all the hype. My bet is that even the strongest gust will be under 45 knots. Cassidy is betting over 45 knots. People around here seem to be taking it quite seriously, especially the surfers, who keep asking from which direction the 15 foot waves will be coming from!

The cockpit has been roughed in, and glassed over. The new windshields have been installed, and we are feeling good!
We will probably remain in port until the wind subsides, then head out for some serious island exploring!

The current plan is to head over to American Samoa in about 2 weeks depending on the weather.

Courage

Forecast - Wind -
If you look at the below forecast, you can see that we are scheduled for some serious wind. They are claiming 117 mph.
The forecast is still too far out to be accurate, but we are thinking there may be a little more than a breeze!

Views from Hunga Bay

Entrance to Hunga.  We heard it was 150 feet wide, it was closer to 60.  We are 30 feet wide, so sized it up before taking the big boat.

Shannon