The sun finally came out and the squally weather went away, as the tropical trough moved off to the west. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay and play at the Ninigos forever--we needed to be moving on, as we have many miles to go before we reach Vanuatu in mid-May.
We discussed among our buddy boats, whether to move down to the SE pass (we were 9 miles away in the NW part of the atoll), for an early morning start. The distance, anchor to anchor, from Longan, was nearly 60 miles. Figuring 5 knots sailing speed for light wind down wind sailing conditions, and with our 12 hour tropical daylight, that we'd be cutting it close for sunset on the other end. However, there were no good anchorages protected from NW down near the SE pass. And, the Longaners were putting on a last dinner for us. So we stayed put and planned a "sparrow fart" departure from Longan. We did have tracks for the first couple of miles, and good Google Earth to take us all the way out the SE Pass.
Berzerker, our token monohull, knowing that their boat speed is slower than the cataramans, had left at 3am. The rest of us pulled anchor in unison at 0615 am, at the crack of daylight (sunrise is around 0630).
We all made it out of the atoll and the pass without any problems. As we went out the pass, the wind was SW, not the NW we expected. Well, "sail what ya got." And we did. But it died and we had to turn the engine back on. Eventually, however, the wind filled in from the NW as forecast and we ended up with a rousing beam reach, in fairly flat seas. For awhile we were making 7 knots, but the wind died and went more behind us, and we ended up turning on one engine to keep our speed up. Fortunately, the wind came back enough to turn off the engine again, and we were able to sail all the way into the West pass at the Hermits atoll.
Though I had plotted a route around the south side of the first island, the lead boat had gone north. Apparently they had discussed the chart with Stanley at Longan and he assured them that "Manta Pass" was deep enough to go through. So we followed them north of the westernmost interior island, and down through Manta Pass, to anchor on the west side of Manta Pass.
Berzerker and Indigo settled for anchorages in 45-50 feet of water, but Dave wanted something shallower. So we nosed up into the shockingly shallow sand area, and found it was 6 feet deep. There were some scattered coral heads ("bommies" as they are known out here), but we were able to work our way into a clear sand area with plenty of depth for our 3' catamaran. We anchored at 01-32.51 S / 145-01.996 E. Eventually Ocelot came in and anchored in the shallow sand area just west of us.
This turned out to be a great spot, fully protected from the wind and seas, no matter how far west the wind went. With minutes of dropping anchor, "Bob", the guy we'd heard about who knew where the Mantas were, came out to say hello.
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At 2/4/2019 12:57 AM (utc) our position was 01°32.51'S 145°02.00'E
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