Chesterfield Reefs – 19°44.80'S, 158°34.50'E [Approximate]


Information from Jim Thomsen s/y Tenaya

Visit to Chesterfield Reefs in November 2012

Chesterfield is a major reef system, much of it uncharted, half way between Vanuatu and Australia. It has a few very small sandy islands that are the home to millions of birds.

CHARTS:

Paper: French #5978 Mer Du Corail – Iles et Récifs Epars This is probably the most accurate chart of the Chesterfield Reefs, but it is in WGS 72

Navionics Electronic. This is what our Raymarine chartplotter uses and the approach was fine but the detail inside the reef was not good. It had us anchored on the reef and our exit point hitting the reef.

C-Map. I have C-Map on our iPad, with GPS and this was spot on.

Once inside the reef there are shallow areas that are not charted but very easy to see in reasonable conditions, especially as you approach the anchorage areas. The ones close to the anchorage offer excellent snorkeling and diving.

We approached the reefs from the East, after leaving Santo, Vanuatu. We used the following waypoints:

Outside approach: 19° 40’ S 159° 09’ E to 19° 44’ .8 S 158° 34’ .5 E

Waypoint #1 - Entry into Reef: 19° 47’ .33S 158° 25’ .7 E

After entering the reef we made a wide turn to avoid it before turning south:

Waypoint #2 - 19° 47’ .9 S 158° 24’ .7E

Waypoint #3 - 19° 49’ .6 S 158° 25’ E

Waypoint #4 - 19° 52’ .9 S 158° 26’ .8 E

Waypoint #5 – Tenaya’s anchorage: 19° 53’ .4 S 158° 27’ . 95 E

Waypoint #6 – s/y Nine of Cups, in 2011, anchored at: 19° 53’ .05 S 158° 27’ .76 E

To leave we retraced our route to about waypoint #3, then to:

Waypoint #7 19° 48’ . 1 S 158° 23’ .65 E to exit at Passe de I’lle Longue (north of Long Island.) We probably could have had a more direct course to the exit pass, but it was very late in the day and visibility was poor so we took the safest route.

Waypoint #8 - Exit Chesterfield Reefs. 19° 50’ .7 S 158° 17’ E the depth got down to 15 meters. Using the paper chart and C-Map it looks like we could have exited a little south and had water over 20 meters.

We heard of another boat that exited closer to the anchorage, through the Ilot du Passage in more than 5 meters, but they had dived the pass and were comfortable using it. It appears to have breaking waves across the entire width, but they said it opened up once they were in it. If I get their waypoints I’ll send them to you.

The islands are incredible, mostly sand but with a strip of scrub trees used by millions of nesting birds.