French Poly to Fiji - 11 June 2022

Position: 16 degrees 44 minutes South, 154 degrees 49 minutes West
Wind: anywhere from 11 to 28 knots SE to ENE
Speed over the ground: anywhere from5 to 9 knots
Sea: 2 metres
Distance towards Fiji: 163.24 in 24 hours

We left the pass at Bora Bora at 10am, after a leisurely start as the wind was still light; around 10 knots. Initially we were only making about 4.5 knots but as we approached the beautiful island of Maupiti the wind filled in at about 19 knots and we started pushing along nicely sailing at over 6.5 knots. We had rigged our spinnaker pole inside the lagoon on the Port side but the wind was initially mostly south easterly, so it was not required.

Things got a bit lively later in the evening (after the first day lasagne of course) and it ended up being a bit of a bouncy night, with squalls coming and going with lots of wind and rain and leaving us in wind holes and yucky seas afterwards. At 0800 this morning we saw 34 knots sustained - that really not what I wanted for the first 24 hours. Andrew noted Askari rushing down waves at over 11 knots.

We are sailig with Rhapsody and Grace close by, Sugarshack are ahead by a week and we expect Pico to be following on today. We have our usual SSB radio net and another little chat with the boats bound for Fiji - we named it the Jubilee net as it was agreed onboard Grace during Jubilee celebrations.

This morning after breakfast, we were trying to adjust the main sail when I spotted the line that tensions our vang (the gadget that holds the boom and mainsail downwards) had jumped off it's wheel and nearly chafed through inside the block. We quickly set about the repairs. We slowed down for about an hour while Andrew cut the old set up off and rigged the new block and rope that I dug out from our stores. It does give me the wobbles when things like that happen, we have to be super cautious as we are a long way from land already; as there is no turning back in this sea and wind. Any how job done and we are flying along again in between squalls.

----------
Sent via SailMail, http://www.sailmail.com