From Zero to Fifty to Fiji

We have started Day Nine of the passage to Fiji. We have NO wind. Yup, the wind meter actually said "0." In the storm we saw "46," but the last several days have yielded light zephyrs in the 1-10 knot range. The last few days, at least the wind was in an okay direction. We have sailed slowly, hard on the wind, in breezes of 5-8 knots and making about 3 to 4 knots of headway. But late last night/early this morning, the wind started to come more and more from the north – the direction we are headed. So we had to keep veering off to be able to stay sailing. Around 1230 today, we actually had no wind so we gave in and started the engine. We call it "Fishing." The two poles are out and we hope if we burn diesel, at least we'll snag dinner! The only fish we've had so far is one the bimini – scaring Barbara in the middle of the night flopping above her head on the canvas. How it got up there is still a mystery! At first we thought it was a bird that hit the rigging and fell to the bimini. But the next day, we saw fish scales everywhere on the solar panels and bimini!

The seas have been beautifully calm and the sun is shining. We have done a good check of the boat since the storm and everything looks good. As we've gotten closer to the equator, it has gotten progressively warmer. In fact, the other day we shed all the sweaters, caps, gloves and long underwear. They were all washed, sun dried and ready to store as we don't see needing them in the near future. That is good – but it is now quite warm.

The southern Pacific Ocean has not been very scenic with regards to sea life. We've seen a few flying fish but no dolphins, whales or other critters of the deep. There have been some sea birds and a hunk of pumice or two with a crab on it! We are about to resort to pulling in a bunch of seaweed just to see if we can find any interesting creatures of the deep.

Things are good aboard and we continue to post positions on the "where are we" page so you can follow our SLOW progress. We may be in on Tuesday. Our plan is to clear in to Savusavu, Fiji. We need to clear with customs, immigration, biosecurity and probably some other official types. We understand it is quite a lengthy progress. With the flatter seas it is quite a comfortable trip now and our bodies are getting used to the sleep patterns with the three hour watch system we do aboard. We broke into some tasty curry that Angelina on "La Fiesta" made for us before we departed. It was very tasty! Now perhaps fresh fish on tonight's menu???

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