We motored out of Suva Harbour just before midday yesterday (Saturday). Nigel and Kitty spent a couple of hours in the morning chasing officials for the check out process while Sue I had breakfast at the Yacht Club restaurant, did some final checks on the weather forecast for the crossing to Noumea (perfect) and made some Skype calls to parents and daughters. We had a good night on Mawali the previous evening but didn't make it a late one as we wanted to be in good shape for the start of our crossing to New Caledonia. The conditions were good with a 15 knot SE breeze and about 1 metre swells. We started with the genoa only but soon raised the new mainsail with 2 reefs and we averaged 6 knots throughout the afternoon and night. As at 3 pm Sunday we are about 160 nm from Suva and 540 nm from Noumea. We would like to arrive at the entrance to the pass through the reef at first light on Thursday morning if possible and we will need to average 5.7 knots to do this. It is 40nm from the entrance of the pass to Noumea Harbour and we would like to do it in daylight as some of the passage through the reef is a bit narrow and it has a reputation for strong currents.
We have had the fishing lines out since first light today but no luck so far. The flying fish which have been with us for most of the trip seemed to have disappeared, and as these are the bait for mahi mahi it is not a good sign. We had mahi mahi coconut curry for dinner again last night (one of our favourite mahi mahi meals) and we still have a few more feeds left in the freezer but one or two more wouldn't go astray.
