Tauranga-based mercy ship Pacific Hope is back in port after her first voyage to Fiji and Vanuatu.

The Marine Reach vessel left port in June this year after a two-year refit, and returned this week after delivering medical supplies and treatment to the people of the island nations.

Marine Reach's Pacific Hope on her berth. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

However, Marine Reach's Barry Turner says Pacific Hope's stay in port is brief, with the ship departing for Lyttelton on Tuesday, where she is to go into Stark Brothers' drydock.

The 54m LOA former Japanese fishery training ship will have the hull beneath the waterline sand blasted and repainted, and the through-hull fittings checked and repaired or replaced.

The work forms part of the ship's ‘warrant of fitness', but Pacific Hope is expected to return to her home port of Tauranga before Christmas.

The next voyage takes place in Autumn 2016, at the close of the tropical cyclone season.

'We have a window of approximately six months a year, and then it comes back and we carry on upgrading,' says Barry.

When the ship returns from Lyttelton, the top half of the ship will be painted as well as further internal upgrades and refurbishments.

'It is always a work in progress,” says Barry.

When Pacific Hope sailed north from Tauranga on June 29, most of the 51 medical staff, crew and volunteers on board were knocked down by sea sickness for the first week.

But the voyage ended on a high note, with ten-day clinics held on the islands of Malekula, Lawen and Epi, where 1696 patients were seen by doctors, the optometry and dental clinics.