Friday 21 June – Wind keeps blowing in the right direction

Another easy night of shifts and everything going according to plan, although the consensus is we will sadly skip Minerva Reef. It looks like a very bumpy time inside the atoll, and we could be stuck in there for a few days, waiting out the next front to pass. While we have the wind in the right direction we are going to head straight to SavuSavu in Fiji. There is a big new marina that we are booking into, hopefully we can pick up a new sim card there for our navigation system.

Our red dot showing where we are. The blue /green area is where we had little or no wind. We are cruising nicely in the yellow orange section.

The wind is right behind us and still hovering in the upper teens. Rowan got Baby Spice up around lunch time, our favourite spinnaker, so small and manageable, and we still average 7-8 knots boat speed. It is so comfortable, and quiet, no crashing into waves. The swell has got quite big and we are racing down the waves doing over 9 knots and about 6 knots up the other side.

Baby Spice up in glorious weather

We’ve seen no other boats today, and no squalls. Rowan says the clouds have changed to typical Trade Wind clouds. The sunset wasn’t as dramatic as last night but the moon was brighter than ever casting a huge silvery light over the water.

A more subdued sunset with Trade Wind clouds

Bright moon casting a huge silvery light on the sea