Reporting in Pt II
Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Wed 16 Jun 2010 21:53
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Hi Folks,
The beam sea continued as we rolled our way north
to Fiji, taking the sat weather forcast on the second day showed the pacific
trades being squashed against the high southerly lows which we had avoided by
cracking on a pace , we were covering about 150 nm
per day, Trenelly sailed like a dream and whilst we had our sail trimming as the
winds increased and decreased over a 24 hr period she is an easy boat to handle
and a delight to sail.
With the winds due to increase on the fourth
day to 35 to 40 knts we rigged the storm sail Fwd,
A slight leak had developed in the engine cooling
system , as we were using the engine to charge the
batteries it was of concern, a slight crack in one
of the drain points was the problem, Jason stemed this
with a bit of the good old plastic steel, it at
least slowed the flow, whilst we had the spare onboard the
conditions were not conducive to carring out a
repair like this.
The food however wasgreat, the three of us were
right little Master chefs, bet they couldnt cookup some of our classics, the
gally was on the windward side, so it was a bit like cooking on a roller coaster
at Alton towers, the galley sink was quite shallow, and if you had to much dish
water in you ended up wearing it when the bigger swells crossed us !
On the four day as the good lord said we washed,
some what of a novelty, jammed athwart ships on the
floor of the aft shower, with the flexi shower hose
doing its thing, we didnt realy care as it was better
than minging like a cow pat on a hot summers day
!
Fith night out when we were supposed to get the
increased wind speeds we were plesently suprised by just the 35 knts, Trenelly
ploughed on and on the morning of the sixth day Fiji hoved into view, it took
the rest of the day to get to Latoka, the sugar capital of Fiji, situated on the
West side , about half way up the
island , as the rolling subsided and we got within
the reef system Trenelly leveled off, it was great, the first
time we had stood upright in six and a half
days,.
It took three hrs once inside the reef system to
get to the clearance port, 16:00 on a Friday is not a good
time to arrive and we were told to wait till
morning, we didnt care realy, the hook went down and we cracked open the beer
afer a shower, the warm tropical night was wondeful, the three of us were like
stunned mullets after the first beer, praised ourselves for such a cracking trip
north , 6 days and 23 hr
port entrance to port entrance,and that was about
it as were were all a bit battered and tired, light out by 20;00, slept
like a log in the cockpit under the stars .......
A happy sailor
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