Tuesday 17 May NZ tp Fiji day 5

Our 5th day of passage and we welcome new crew member, Prudence, aboard. Prudence is fitting in well and entertains us with words of wisdom. Her first task was to look at the grib (weather forecast) files and read the Fiji weather reports and warnings. Her recommendation was to slow down and let an unpleasant trough pass us to the north. If we'd continued at the same speed we might find ourselves in a wide band of 30 knot winds, gusty squalls and steep seas tomorrow morning and through into the night. She also pointed out that a bonus to slowing down now would be to aid our projected plan to arrive during regular office hours. If Prudence's plan works this time we might welcome here aboard again. I'll report in a day or two if we did avoid the bad weather.
Despite reducing sail, at midday we were still making too much speed so we opted to heave to for lunch and an afternoon break. David took his afternoon nap and I wrote our blog, did some reading and enjoyed the luxury of preparing and eating our evening meal while not being tossed like a lottery ball in a basket. Overnight we both had 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
On the evening net which was hosted by Dignity tonight the main topic after position reports was the weather and who's doing what. Interestingly it's the three Brit boats, Dignity, Troutbridge and us, who have slowed down to avoid a close encounter with the front. A case of 'Please, after you sir.'
As we're going closer to the tropics the temperatures are steadily rising. It was so warm this morning I took off my fleece and put on a t shirt. However, at 26°50S we're still 3° below the Tropic of Capricorn and one must remain cautious – my fleece is back on this afternoon.

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