Rolly nights sleeping on the floor

From Gaua we went up to Vanua Lava, the main island of the Banks Group. Our first stop was Waterfall Bay. It's about on the middle of the west coast and has, as the name indicate, a twin waterfall that's visible from way out. Ashore it's only one (big) family living there, although there are more settlements further down the coast. We were welcomed by chief Kereli and taken to the small yacht club (a leaf building with lots of flags from other cruisers). Here we got the most thorough and formal welcome we have received anywhere, it included a welcome song and flowers put behind our ears.

The waterfalls were super cool and provided a lovely fresh swim. Apparently the snorkeling is also good there, but we didn't have time, as we had to keep on going over to the other side of the island to Paterson Bay to Sola to check out.

Here we are now and we're officially cleared out and we'll hopefully leave tomorrow morning, weather depending. It's not exactly a big passage to Solomon as the Santa Cruz islands are only two days away and there are actually a few islands on the way where we can possibly stop.

Every single anchorage since Port Peterson has been rolly, this now being the fourth anchorage in a row. That means I'm sleeping on the floor in the saloon as that's the least rolly place, although all is relative, rolly is still rolly and annoying. It's also getting still hotter and hotter and we have experienced our first squalls. Squalls are little rain and wind clouds that travel quickly through, varying in strength, some can bring lots of wind, rain and even thunder. The first one we saw happened to be when we were about to put up the main. I said it was going to blow, but Phil was sure it was only rain. I was right, although it was only a little one with winds up to 20 knots. I'm sure we'll get to experience many more to come.