End of Day 2
Western Samoa to Fiji, 50o miles, 3-4 days?
Midnight, 06:00 UTC
pos 15deg16.5S, 175deg01.8w
288 miles to Laucala Island, our Fiji landfall.
We had a great day and a half on the spinnaker. For most of the night and early morning we were averaging almost 9 knots, sometimes surfing from wave to wave to wave at 10 -12 knots for long periods of time. But as the sun went down this beast of an Easterly wind, which has been raging since Tuesday last week, came to an end. These enhanced trade winds were the result of a dreaded "squash zone", and we were in the worst part of it at the end of last week. Anyway, now its time to start moaning again about the lack of wind, right! Hahaha. We don't really mind, we filled up with diesel in Apia, so we are motoring now, making about 6 knots over ground.
Sometime early in the morning we will pass Niua Fo 'Ou Island, its in the middle of nowhere at 15deg36.3, 175deg38.6. Please google earth this island, it is a small but perfectly round volcanic crater island, with an isolated lake in the center.
Whilst I was off watch and sleeping, three 20 kg blue fin tuna were swimming next to shimmi like dolphins. Kahlil trolled a rapala right in front of their noses but they declined. Then he got his speargun and took no less than 3 shots (from shimmi's deck), but he missed each time. Are the Kiwi's known for being bad shots? Just wondering. If it was me I would have simply jumped onto the fish's back and stabbed it in the head. Then again those fish must have known I was sleeping otherwise they would never have come so close to the boat.
The kids are well, the sea is almost flat now so they are able to play and walk around.
Cheers
G
