Oh great, Rain!

There have been no further dramas and I thought I was going to be writing about how cleverly we have avoided getting caught in showers moving southeast from somewhere to the northwest of Fiji. This was because in the morning the horizon to the north was grey and black and it was impossible to see the island of Kadavu though it was mountainous enough to be seen from 12 miles away. In fact yesterday afternoon I had seen the island of Matuku, also to the north and even further off but the horizon then was mostly clear. The horizon to the south this morning had some blue sky and broken cloud and Sapphire seemed to be tracking westward along the seam where the grey and the blue skies met. Around noon I passed the westernmost part of Kadavu which momentarily was visible through the gray, but I continued west a couple of hours to ensure I had a good sailing angle to Navula Pass when I finally gybed to starboard and began heading north of north west - and within 30 minutes we were in the showers! So I am confined to barracks as light rain comes and goes, its all grey sea and grey sky out there and we make tracks for a passage through the reef about 80 miles away. I still havent unrolled the headsail, so I am continuing with a single reef in the main at sedate pace through still bumpy seas. If I had more sail out I could go faster but less comfortably, but more importantly would arrive at the Pass in the middle of the night. This way I am hoping to get there just after sunrise - in other words, knowing how good my timing of these things has been so far, sometime before lunch tomorrow! From there its about 20 miles to Lautoka where I will clear Customs and then I double back a few miles to Vuda Point Marina, which, by this time tomorrow I should be close to tying up at. If thats . A sentence.. I just hope they have showers right there because there were none in Vava'u, and its all a bit damp and grotty in here, what with a rubbish bag of empty cans of tuna and mackerel, my own damp clothes and bedding...

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