French Poly to Fiji - 16 June 2022 - 2200 UTC/ 1200 local

Position: 16 degrees 26 minutes South, 169 degrees 02 minutes West
Wind: 20 East South East
Speed over the ground: 7.8 knots
Sea: 2 metres south eastery plus a southerly cross swell
Distance towards Fiji: 175.72 in 24 hours (that's more like it)

It continues to be lovely out here, even with a bigger sea and a bit more wind (this afternoon we are mostly seeing about 22 knots) but it's still sunny and just one squall so far today. We have reefed the main sail as we were surfing so fast that things were getting a bit crazy when this new cross swell would slew the stern, pushing us more into the wind and backing the poled out genoa that then returns with a crash and huge vibration. The wind is also a little more pulsing today as this high pressure system we have been riding moves off. So our overall speed has reduced a little but it's a far nicer ride. We still have a long way to go so don't want to go breaking anything.

We have not seen any wildlife in the ocean, but the last few days we have had beautiful chatty tropic birds around the boat, reminding us that we are not that far from land even if we have a long sail to our destination. As I write it's only 150 miles to American Samoa to the North and 158 miles to Niue to the South.

Last night was glorious at sunset and we had a ginger mocktail in beanbags on the aft deck to celebrate half way. We nearly missed our radio schedule we were so distracted. One issue we are having is keeping our radio tuned - it's been a constant battle so one of us needs to attend to that, fortunately Grace are still close enough that they can relay our position. Our two closest boats, Grace and Rhapsody are about 100 miles behind us now, Sugarshack arrived this morning; we are super excited for them.

It's lamb dinner today, we decided we should eat the leg we had in the freezer it in case bio security in Fiji do not approve and a good excuse to roast a leg of lamb for lots of yummy leftovers for a few days. Just a shame no delicious pinot noir to go with it - that will have to wait.

Distance to Savu Savu - approximately 672 miles.

Footnote:
Following a significant outbreak of tropical man flu on board which has infected 50% of the ships company (Andrew)a full enquiry is underway to investigate the source. At this stage 3 possibilities are being investigated:
1. A flying fish which was found dead on deck the other night in suspicious circumstances
2. A passing tropic seabird which arrived from Wuhan
3. A significant mutuation of the earlier light Cold brought on board by Carolyn.
It seems that option 3 is the most likely and until a vaccine has been developed tropical man flu has been declared a variant of concern.

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