8am 27th Oct 2014

We had a rough night with 30 knot Northerlies and a very large sea. A decent size sea has remained and the wind has dropped to a more respectable 20 to 25 knots this morning. Lizzie has succumbed to sea sickness and Dad and I are keeping up the watches. The forcast says that there is a southerly front coming our way tonight as a final slap from Huey. We are still on schedule for an early morning arrival into Newcastle on the 29th.

7pm 26th Oct 2014

It was nice to turn off the motor and go back to sailing this monrning. The wind has now filled in to 22 kts and we are moving along at a respectable 8+ knots. The nights have been getting colder as we head south and we have progressively been adding layers to keep warm. Even the sea boots have been dug out of the locker. We have 380 Nm (that's 684 km) till we reach Newcastle Harbour having already travelled 640 Nm from Noumea

9am 26th Oct 2014

Position: 28deg 01.275 S
158deg 19.941 E

SOG 7 knots COG 222deg T

We have been motor sailing for the past 30 hours with winds from behind and in the 4 to 10 knot range. We dropped the sails last night at 1am to stop them slating away in the swell and rehoisted them at 6am. All going well and looking forward to some more breeze.

6 pm 25th Oct 2014

We are motor sailing in 7 knots of breeze and maintaining approx 7.3 knots of boatspeed. Today has been one of those picture perfect days with very little swell and the sun shining all day. I managed to clear the backlog of dishwashing. As the weather was so good it felt like a good opportunity to make the most of the shopping we had done in Noumea. Lunch was a Mezze platter of octopus, sardines, olives and french cheese and meats. Dinner was a Rocquefort cheese dressed salad with beef kebabs. The fishing lines are out but there has been no bites. We are expecting the breeze to go east then around into the north for a quick passage towards the coast of Australia.

5.30pm 24th Oct 2014

Wind 20 kt @ 80 deg app
SOG 7.38 kt
COG 240 deg T
Distance sailed 260 NM, That's another 200 Nm day!

5pm 23rd Oct 2014

Making good progress with 8 Kt SOG in 15 - 18 knots SE breeze. Distance travelled 55 Nm.

We have departed Noumea bound for Newcastle

Thursday, 23rd October 2014

We departed Noumea at 10am after a relatively simple clearance process and headed west through the Passe De Dumbea. The boat stocked with fresh patries, pate, cheeses and cured meats, all of which must be consumed before we make port in Aus. The weather routing has us skirting the north west edge of 2 high systems with a trough of light weather between them. It should be mostly reaching with a small possibility of some southerly breeze as we get closer to our destination. 1040 Nm to go.

Noumea

We had a great time in Noumea and will update the blog on our return to Aus

Making good ground

It's 5.30pm fiji time and we have been making good progress towards Noumea. The sun has been out all day and we have both been working on our tans. The Vanuatu island of Anatom is 40 miles to the North West of us and we have 205 nm to the reef entry at New Caledonia. In the past 48 hours we have covered 420 Nm. Thats two days in a row of greater than 200 nm runs. The best part is that is has been a comfortable trip so far with the wind no further forward than on the beam. At this stage we are looking at arriving inside the barrier reef on New cals south east cost at approximately 5pm local time tomorrow.

James and Liz
SV Willo 1

We have left Fiji

We cleared out of Fiji Yesterday at the Lautoka port office and are currently on passage to Noumea. Progress has been good with a steady 15 to 20 knots on the port beam, with the exception of this morning. This morning we had to motor sail through a light patch for 6 hours with our speed dropping to 6.5 knots. Boat speed for the rest of the time has been between 8 and 9 knots. Liz is an absolute star.

Distance travelled since departure is 252 miles