We enjoyed ourselves at Revolieu Bay in Epi yesterday. We had a nice dive on three bommies and got close up to 2 turtles, a whole family of lionfish, a mantis shrimp, a school of trevalley and a load of other marine life. Ahsore, we delivered more seeds and were able to stock up on watermelon, bok choy and spring onions from Pierre. We shared some Bok Choy with Brian and Sue on Darramy and enjoyed catching up with them for sundowners. We had finally run out of meat however, so Heather had selected a vegetable curry from the cookbook to try. The next thing we knew, Sea Whiskers arrived into the bay, called us up on VHF and offered us some tuna! They (Chris and Sally) had caught a Yellowfin Tuna on the way in and happily shared some with us. Wonderful! After shushimi tuna entree and seared tuna steaks for dinner we were replete, rather glad to be saved from cooking a vegetable curry! This morning we set off from Epi at 6.30am, prepared for the long slog south with head winds towards Efate. Within 15 minutes of leaving the bay we had a large fish on the line. Karl tried valiantly to stop the reel from spooling out while Heather turned the boat around to follow the fish. A few days prior, a large fish had spooled the line and we lost it, so we were determined to land this one! After a 20 minute battle, we landed a very nice 80cm Yellowfin Tuna. The largest fish we have caught this year and our first Yellowfin. Such a thrill! But so much meat on it, it is more than we need in the next few days before we fly out...
Our 43 mile passage was just sailable, but pretty much on the nose, so we sailed as much as we could, but motored the last 12 miles when strong headwinds and a large wind chop slowed us down to 2.5 knots under sail. We were very glad to drop anchor in Nguna, in 15m depth we can clearly see the anchor dug in to white sand. Good snorkeling here too. About half an hour after we arrived, another yacht pulled in to the bay. Illusion V anchored nearby, so we called them up and asked if they would like some tuna for dinner. Bob and Cath (who are Kiwis but sailing a boat from Hobart where they now live), along with their visitors Jenny and Mike, jumped for joy! They were about to prepare a vegetarian risotto!! They just arrived in Vanuatu 10 days ago and had not caught any fish so far, so were delighted with our tub of fish. They invited us for drinks on board Illusion V and we enjoyed a great evening together. Nice people. They are heading up to the Banks and Torres Islands, so we gave them the last of our watermelon seeds (we still had 1/2 box of the original 15 boxes of seeds) to take up to the northern groups of islands.
After another fresh tuna meal tonight and more in the freezer, we will have plenty of omega 3 for the last few days of our Vanuatu visit.