So near and yet so far

We are now level with the north end of New Caledonia, Jim could even see land this morning. Unfortunately, Noumea is in the south and upwind of us so we will be at sea for a few more days yet. Port Vila in Vanuatu is about as close and would be easier to get to! So, we have about 25 knots of wind and are currently heading east waiting for the wind to shift more to the east, what fun. Lately, we have seen a lot of sea and not much else. A few days ago we had a lot of bird activity around us and one night a gannet tried to perch on our solar panels. Since it was making a mess, Jim tried to scare it off, every time I was just drifting off to sleep, I would hear Jim's scarecrow impression. Eventually, he resorted to poking it with a boat-hook. Around the Solomons we saw a few fishing boats and even a helicopter, which would have been a spotter for one of the tuna boats. We have had some lovely moonlit nights with the moon being at perigee (closest point to earth) but we are both really looking forward to landfall.