Good Morning, Fiji..
Its 11 p.m. and we are 120 miles out from Suva, Fiji. I’m on watch and will wake Darren up for his watch at midnight. The night is really beautiful. The moon and stars are out, the swell is small and we have a nice 17 knots of breeze out of the NE pushing us along at 7.5 knots..
The sailing so far has been amazing. We have seen every possible sailing condition during the passage. It started out very light then turned north which forced us to tack Delos back and forth for a few days only gaining about 60 miles each day. We tried to make as much easting as possible when the breeze switched SW and were able to put the poles out, sailing dead down wind for a day, We did this to get to Minerva Reef, a small submerged coral atoll hundreds of miles from any land barely seen by people with untouched diving, but the wind switched and after 3 days of beating into 25-30 knots and 10 ft seas we realized Minerva was going to be out of reach and we bared off setting course for Fiji. It turned out our easting had paid off anyway. The past 3 days have been a constant 15-20 knots out of the NE which has made for beautiful sailing. It has been a constant NE breeze for the past 5 days and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. We keep joking about the trade winds turning from SE to NE and looking ahead to those conversations that turn to “Where were you when the trade winds changed?”. Right in the middle of them is a pretty cool answer. Our fishing has been surprisingly successful as well. Four Mahi-Mahi, two of which we threw back but the third has fed us for two days. Today we pulled in a good size Wahoo on the hand line and about an hour later caught a big Tuna on one of the rods. We have never had such a fresh selection of fish on Delos! Tonight Brian made up some Mahi and Wahoo tacos complete with corn tortillas and re fried beans from MexiCali.
Its hard to believe that we lived in New Zealand for six months, it went by way too fast. Thanks to everyone we met along the way and showed us a great time all over the country especially the family at MexiCalli Fresh who really brought me in as part of the family and gave me one of the most fun jobs I have had, I just wish I would have saved more of that “hard earned” money. Two Pack Shaker and greenman will be back in the burrito industry someday..
After 1042 miles, 9 days of sailing, 1 shower, 4 fish, 2 books read half way through (because I can never finish a full book) and hours upon hours of starring into the ocean, tomorrow morning when I wake up the mountains of Fiji will be within site and the adventure will start all over again, with weeks going by not wearing shoes or a shirt. Good Morning Fiji….