Bula Fiji- Day 7

Thursday April 22, Distance to Fiji 1046 nautical miles

Crazy wind day! The sky is gray with tiny patches of blue. Winds are light,shifty with quick rain squalls. We’ve jibbed at least 5 times, had an over 100 degree wind shift. We are sitting above a high pressure system that’s moving away.

Good news! Our FedEx package arrived in Tahiti! We arranged with a few other cruisers to accept our package and bring it to Fiji with them. There are 3 boat’s we’ve friended, the boat leaving Tahiti first may bring the package. We’ve been waiting for it since February, so what’s another month.

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*Iridium Go Notes*

(Only one post today)

Over the Top of Palmerston

Fri 23/Apr 00:09 GMT-10

17º 54.042 S  163º 00.382 W

Course: 283° true, 2.9 kts

We’re passing Palmerston Atoll now. In another time, we may have stoped for a few days. Yet in these COVID times, Palmerston islands are “closed”. Also, the Fiji Navy is watching us via this GPS tracking, to see if we stop anywhere, which will nullify our pre-passage COVID testing.

Late afternoon yesterday, the wind was very light and squirrelly due to various rain showers in the area. A few times, with the autopilot system following wind direction, the boat meandered around and pointed back toward Tahiti!

Now we are gliding along slowly at 3-4 knots with wind speed around 8 knots on a completely overcast night. A bright moon is above the clouds, which provides light for good visibility, but when the moon sets at 0341, complete darkness.

We drifted away from our buddy boat, s/v Ocean Sapphire, and lost their AIS (Automatic Identification System) signal at 8 miles apart. We jibed and expect to Come Together… like the Beatles do.