The yacht hasn't actually left the area around Sansha. It's about ten hours' journey to the rendezvous point where Xiaohe's contacts are, and since the meeting time hasn't arrived, everyone decided to spend the day here and wait until evening to set sail again.
There's no point in arriving too early at the meeting point. Besides the supply difficulties, another issue is that going further might lead to conflict zones.
The news only shows a fraction of the reality. Most people merely catch one or two news items occasionally. The yacht's captain was a fisherman before, seemingly silent, but in truth, he's quite knowledgeable.
Fishing boats have no firepower, so they're at a huge disadvantage in conflicts. The few people on this yacht have it even cleaner, so they definitely can't cruise around carelessly.
