We are on Plan #39Z, having changed our plans a bazillion times over the last 2 weeks, as events have unfolded in Fulaga.
Our current, as of 7am this morning, plan, is to try to make it in to Fawn Harbor, on the south coast of Vanau Levu (near Savusavu) before dark tonight. Unfortunately, the high winds we left Fulanga in yesterday morning have petered out. We were screaming along at 7 knots with double-reefed main and hardly any genoa, yesterday. Now we are motorsailing to make it before dark. But the ride is a lot calmer than it was yesterday!!
We turned NW at Lakemba about 7pm last night, and have been threading our way through the scattered islands in the Koro Sea in the dark. It's a little scary doing this at night, because Fiji is notorious for bad charting. But we are using a 2010 version of the C-Map charts, a 2008 Garmin chart set, and Google Earth, to compare locations of the islands. And being very conservative. When everything agrees on the location, we feel reasonably confident we know its location. The largest deviation we have seen in our wanderings this year, has been 1/2 mile, so as long as we give a 1 1/2 mile margin (and confirm with the radar as we approach), we feel OK. Most of the chart deviations from our 2010 C-Map charts are only about 200 feet.
It's daylight now, so maybe we can pass a little closer to the islands and sight-see a little.
We haven't been fishing--we've still got quite a bit of fish in the freezer, and we're headed for the "Promised Land"... Savusavu, with lots of restaurants and good cheap food (and friends to share it with). And we are going to have to empty our freezer soon too. Fiji is the first place we feel we could have lived off the fish we caught, if we needed to. Big Mahi and Wahoo and Great Trevally's are plentiful and easy to catch.
We should have internet this afternoon as we approach Fawn Harbor. YEAH!!! (It's a good thing, too. Because Shadowmail has stopped passing my svsoggypaws email due to too many messages on the server).
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At 09/11/2012 7:32 PM (utc) our position was 17°20.43'S 179°27.75'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm
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