Giselle is not the first sailing ship to arrive here, there are reports of a certain Captain Cook sailing in in 1774 and named the bay after his ship, Resolution.  Still today Port Resolution offers good anchorage for yachts.  Tanna is Vanuatu’s second most popular island to visit, main reason, it has an active volcano

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Just fantastic to have Andrew with us, he gives us the jolt we need to get out of THE SHED, out of the yard and off to Fiji. Life in the yard is not much fun and getting out is great. Andrew helps with all the last minute bits and pieces and of course the [...]

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The Apia marina dinghy meets you in the bay and escorts the yachts into their marina berth, they have been known to direct sailors to share a berth with a bommie , yes a bommie one of the large coral heads that can put holes in a glassfibre hull. The game starts when the dinghy [...]

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Tonga is the oldest and last remaining Polynesian monarchy. It is divided into four parts, volcanic Niuas in the north, Vava’u group, Ha’api group low coral and high volcanoes, and Tongatapu in the south with the capital Nuku’alofa. We start with the Niuas, arriving at Niuatoputapu just after the tsunami, there are three villages on [...]

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Next morning, sun up and so to the ninety metres of chain yes ninety metres, its deep here. We have stronger winds on our trip towards Bora Bora, 25 to 30 knots but its not far as long as you go straight there. We had to divert as our fishing line was out and yes [...]

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Huahine ticked, next two islands Raiatea and Tahaa are both behind the same reef. We start at the south east end and work our way north and around Tahaa. Our first trip ashore was to visit the most important Polynesian traditional temple area Marea Taputapuatea, this is where all their long sea voyage started. Voyages [...]

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From Moorea it was an overnight passage to Huahine, we anchor on the east side inside the reef. Huahine is a lovely place people are very friendly, giving us lots of bananas, coconuts, papaya and even lending us their dogs for our walks.

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A quick hop and we were at Moorea, as the guide book says, with mountains leaping almost vertically out of the clear lagoon, lush vegetation, restaurants dripping with fresh fish etc etc this is the island paradise. It certainly is very beautiful, and a wonderful place to have Kirsty’s birthday BBQ in the company of [...]

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Tahiti iti, the small south east part of Tahiti, has quiet deserted anchorages. The passes through the reef into the lagoons are straight forward as the French authorities have spent a lot of money putting lit buoys to mark the channels. Our first anchorage was in Cooks Bay which we had to ourselves. The little [...]

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The Tuamotus are the largest group of coral atolls in the world. (Atoll – a low-lying ring –shaped coral reef enclosing a lagoon). There are seventy eight in the group, thirty one have passes. We arrive at one Fakarava, love it so much we spend all our time there! Entering one pass and leaving by [...]

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