It's been a great stay here in Roderick. We are still here with s/v Rehua and s/v Perry. We had a great Christmas with our new friends onshore, and have found the location to be excellent. We have 3G internet, which makes it all good for staying in touch with family and friends. Yesterday we dove two moorings that the local chief has put in to retrieve the mooring lines. One mooring was in 38M of water, so it was a deep, short dive. Needless to say the chief was very happy to have help from us in getting their moorings inspected and fixed. Today will be an easy restful day, as we don't plan any major boat or shore projects. The village wants to put on a New Year's celebration with food, dance and lights. It is a very small village, but they are very warm and friendly. It's great.

We just arrived to Roderick Bay on the Florida Islands yesterday afternoon from Honiara. It was an easy motor, dead calm, and unfortunately no fish. We were very happy to be leaving Honiara. It was very poor for comfort. In fact, it was the most uncomfortable anchorage we have ever been in fives years of cruising. It's great for convenience as it is easy to provision....but painful for comfort. This time of year it's calm, but the squalls really kick up the sea and blow 25kts. It makes the sea very uncomfortable when they are coming from the E, NE. From a security perspective it was fine. We've heard mixed reviews from others over the years about potential issues. The problems seem to be people leaving stuff on deck, and making it too easy for someone in a canoe to grab and go. Clear the decks, lock up at night, and know you are in a city. Simple stuff.

We arrived to Honiara this morning at 6.30am. It was an overnight motor, but dead calm seas, almost lake conditions and favorable current the entire way. We are getting our visas sorted and provisioning done. We don't expect to be here long as we are not keen on Honiara as a place to hang out more than we have to. We have some items to pick up. It was sad to leave the last village as we made some great friends and the anchorage was beautiful. The other side note is we have been experiencing a number of earthquakes out here. Surprising to actually feel some of the on the boat. Tsunamis are our concern...and thanks for the updates Mike on YIT.

We are still anchored here by the village. It's been very nice, and the weather overall good. We get afternoon squalls, that cool off the boat. Our plans are to head to Honiara Monday night, and do an overnight motor since there is no favorable wind at this time, and we need to get there prior to Christmas for some last minute shopping. Francis the village chief asked us if we can stay longer, and we can't. He even offered to build us a small hut so we can sleep in the village with their family. Very nice offer, but we just need to get up a little farther north for Christmas. All well onboard. The other two boats - Rehua and Perry - are also planning on leaving soon. Probably today and tomorrow.

We are still at the same anchorage. We have become fast friends with the small village (only three families) ashore. They are very kind, curious and helpful. We told them we needed fresh veggies and they put the word out to other villagers, and we had an abundance of fresh produce for trade. After further discussions, we found out we have been the only yacht ever to anchor here. This is probably due to the fact that it is exposed to the SE in trade winds, but December, the winds are very light and variable. In the NW winds this is also a great spot. Sandy beach, kind people and six kids ashore. Every day we go ashore after school and play football or volleyball with the kids. They LOVE to play with other kids and it is an afternoon of coaching kids sports. :) The other two boats, s/v Perry and s/v Rehua are anchored on the other side of the island, about 2NM from here. We will head north to Honiara sometime next week. Plan is to be there for 2-5 days and then off to NW Florida Islands for Christmas!

We had a great sail last night. One of our best in a long time. We had following seas, and wind 8-14kts fromt the SE, almost a dead run up here to Guadalcanal. We were wing on wing the entire night. Comfortable and easy. No squalls and the stars were out in abundance. We are anchored on this great little spot that apparently other yachts don't anchor...which is great. We are in 10m of water and near a small village with only three families. The 'chief' was very welcoming and happy to have us here. He is apparently the older brother of the other two brothers who live in this area of the island. Again, we are happy to find a place less frequented by yachts. It's great.

We are heading out this afternoon for the southern tip of Guadalcanal. It is only a 70NM trip, but with light following wind, we expect a slow sail. Plan on arriving early AM tomorrow. We are sad to leave this anchorage. The people here are great. We had visitors last night around 7pm in their long boat. They just got back from Karikari and saw our lights on. It was the son of the Chief and his cousin. They talked for about an hour about the history of this island, the people and the current disputes with the government. They don't get a lot of boats here, and very few catamarans (we are the first this year). They work hard to make the boats feel welcome, and are very generous with their time and fresh coconuts. There is not any pressure to trade, there have been no 'ask ums' about free stuff, and in short just a great place. William asked to borrow 1 gallon of petrol two days ago. I said sure, as he wanted some extra just in case he ran out while fishing. I am always suspect about 'borrowing' fuel. Well, the good news, is William came back with the fuel he purchased in Karikari, and was very apologetic it took him 24hrs to get me the fuel 'back'. He was very nice, and told me he didn't want me to think he was dishonest...that is why he worried about it taking 24hrs for him to return. These are the kind of people we have met in the Solomons, and so far the experience has been excellent over the past 6 weeks.

We just experienced an earthquake with a magnitude of 8 located about 60NM from our anchorage. Let's just say we woke up around 4.30am with a startle as the boat shook violently. I first thought we somehow lost our anchor and slammed into a reef. Finally, we realized it was an earthquake, and a big one. We were worried about a Tsunami, but did not have a good way here to know if there was a warning much less get out of the way quickly. Next time we have a shake like that, we will let our anchors go, and leave immediately for deep water as a safety precaution. We have two anchors out here to keep us from swinging into the reef in a squall. We are secure, but it would be a time consuming effort to pull up two anchors. We will simply tie a float to both and go. The last time we had a serious Tsunami warning we were in the Galapagos, and they had a mandatory evacuation in the late evening after the Chile earthquake. It was a scary thing. Anyway, all is well here, and THANK YOU Patricia from Gulf Harbor Radio and our Friends on s/v Lumbaz in Malaysia for emailing us the details of the earthquake.

We arrived here to the Three Sisters island chain yesterday on our slow sail north to get out of the cyclone areas. We've been waiting for weather to sail, which at this time of year has been sparse. Mainly we have been seeing light and variable winds <7kts with scattered showers. Overall nice weather but not great for sailing. We are here with the other two boats - Rehua and Perry. This is a great spot, with few people. The entire southern island is owned by one man and his family. Everyone here is family and they are very friendly. We plan on doing some diving and exploring as we wait for more wind. All is well.

We arrived safely to Santa Ana yesterday and recevied a very warm welcome from about 30 kids swimming in the water to greet our boats. We sailed with s/v Rehua and s/v Perry. All arrived within the hour after leaving the Reef Islands. The trip took about 48 hours due to light winds most of the time. We did bump into the squash zone after six hours of sailing on the first day. We got slammed with 30kts and Rehua got smashed with 40kts. It was a big wall of clouds zapped the big winds. Rehua and Perry had ripped Genoas - one due to the wind and the other due to chaffe on the halyard. Both are going to be sewn today at the Field Trip sweat shop with our Sailrite sewing machine. We will be posting a blog update later today. Still no internet so we are working off satellite communications.

We moved to this spot several days ago and are glad we did. It is beautiful and we are anchored in 3m of crystal clear water with sandy bottom. Today is the day we depart for Santa Ana. We plan on leaving around noon today, and will arrive Friday morning. The weather is looking like NNW winds with will be reaching and overall fairly good. We decided to take this window vs. wait until next week for possible SE winds. We need to get rolling as it is late in the season and we need to get up to the Western province of the Solomons. All well onboard and we will update with progress daily. We are sailing wtih s/v Perry and s/v Rehua.

This is our last stop in the reef islands. Beautiful here and the people are great. We r waiting for more wind before leaving for Santa Ana island a two day sail. We need to get rolling north. We r very sad to be leaving this area. It has been one of our favorite areas so far. The kids and people are just great and it is fun having a couple of friends sailing with us with kids.

still in Reef Islands. Looking to go north

still in Reef Islands and looking to go north.

Very good day yesterday at reef island football match. It only rained once in a squall. We r going to be moving north soon. Waiting for more wind. It will be hard to leave this area as the people are very appreciative of out help with fixing outboard engines. The paramount chief asked us to stay longer if we possibly can. They want to have a big village party for the three boats here before we leave.

It's about time we jumped back on YIT. :) We have had an amazing time in the Banks and Torres islands. We have been in the Solomons now for two weeks. We decided to go off the beaten path (even though there is not much for beaten path up here other then the Western Solomons). The reef islands are beautiful. There have only been 4 yachts here all year. Three of them are here now (s/v Perry, s/v Rehua and us). The people have been so excited to see us. They have not had a supply ship since August, and are running low on basics...so we have been busy. There are lots and lots of kids here. Every day after school no less than 10 canoes come out with little kids laughing singing and just looking. The other two yachts here are also kid boats, so we have a total of 6 yacht kids in this village. More updates later, and we will be doing detail updates on our blog svfieldtrip.blogspot.com by tomorrow. We only have Iridium connection here so no pics as of yet. The bottom line, I hesitated to even give this area a mention because it is truly unspoiled, and has been one of our highlights this season. We don't want it to become spoiled by too many yachts....so, in hindsight this areas is not very good, the people are mean and unfriendly, and the water is murky and yes, they still eat white men here....... :)

Reef Islands in the Solomons. heading north to Guadelcanal

 Llongtong Pentecost but I cannot find the coords

on their way from Port Vila to Ambrym for the festival

Rodds anchorage, Ambrym and a good place to celebrate Sarahs birthday

Havannah Hbr Efate Vanuatu

very pleasant on the mooring ball

port Vila on a mooring

on passage to P Vila, Efate, Vanuatu

17 ARC boats due in P Resolution today. The trip up to the volcano last night was awesome

still in Aneityum!

They have settled into Aneityum. Children at schol. Yesterday they took a group out fishing and landed 4 yellow fin tuna

6 boats in Aneityum

All well. Sounds like they are enjoying Aneityum

7 boats in Aneityum at the moment. Probably waiting for not NE winds to get further north.

7 boats in Aneityum at the moment. Probably waiting for not NE winds to get further north.

6 boats there and one more coming today

We arrived yesterday around lunchtime to Aneityum. We had a good last two days sailing. We were able to do a complete checkin since both immigration and customs were here with unfortunately a large cruise ship. This ship has left so we are now happy. :)

all well

great radio signal - their KISS and dynaplate doing a good job.

Winds settling along with seas. We still have slop and roll with the sea state, but things are calming down. We have a number of squalls last night, hit 33kts in one, but settled quickly. All well onboard, no issues and well rested.

Seas are still a little confused, making for a rolly passage. All well onboard and should make landfall Thur PM or FrI AM. We shook out a reef to pick up some speed. We've been sailing very conservatively given the conditions. As winds ease later today/tomorrow we will pick up some speed.

Winds picked up nicely yesterday afternoon. Seas were confused last night and early AM today. Settled now, and a good comfortable sail. All good onboard. We currently hear NZ Orion doing a search and rescue on the radio. Very sad as there is a MOB in our area and one reported death onboard a vessel called Platino. Not sure on spelling, but very tragic. Our thoughts and prayers for the crew and family as they continue their search.

We are motor sailing. Winds are still very light and variable. We expect the winds to pick up considerably tonight around midnight and will sail the rest of the way. We are expecting 25kts+ out of the SSE by AM. Should be a fast and relatively comfortable ride with following seas and wind.

A smooth start as expected. Motor sailing and keeping to the east. Preparing for the larger winds and plan on keeping the TWA at 150. Will make for a fast but confortable sail when the winds pick up.

A smooth start as expected. Motor sailing and keeping to the east. Preparing for the larger winds and plan on keeping the TWA at 150. Will make for a fast but confortable sail when the winds pick up.

We'll be sailing around the Bay of Islands for at least a week or maybe two waiting for a decent window. No rush yet, visas are good until the end of June.

At anchor. Waiting for a Furuno part to arrive this week. We would have left yesterday if we had the part. BUMMER.