The last two days on Silver Fern have been increasingly exciting, anticipation of a new land is rising and temperatures continue to rise. We’ve had some fantastic sailing, often seeing speeds of 10kts as we cruise on a broad reach with full main and jib. Between 9am Tuesday and 9am Friday, we travelled 193NM! That’s the record for this trip.

First sight of land came on Wednesday morning when we saw Kadavu Island. Massive smiles from the team on watch were rewarding to see as we had almost finally made it

We slowed down the boat at lunchtime by ‘hoving to’ when we had an issue with the generator. It was great to demonstrate this manoeuvre with the crew who hadn’t seen it done before. Tummies all fed, we sheeted on and carried on our merry journey towards Viti Levu. Before dinner, the team put in two reefs and swapped the jib for the stay sail. This was a tactical move to slow us down so we would arrive into Vuda in daylight. Too fast for our own good, we hove to again outside the entrance of the reef around 1am. With the engine on to charge batteries, we sat there quite happily for two hours until it was time to engage the gearbox and motor through the gap in the reef.

It’s always spooky going into a new port in the dark for the first time, but luckily it’s not John nor I’s first rodeo. Through the gap and up the channel passing Denerau, Momi Bay and Nadi. It’s time to wake everyone up for the sunrise now! Bula Fiji!

Hannah - Chief Mate - Silver Fern