Our fourth day at sea and we've had a wonderful night sail. The last effects of the frontal system cleared by dusk leaving good winds and calming seas. We creamed along at 8 to 8.5 knots for most of the night. David took first watch from 8pm to 2am and I pulled myself out of the pilot berth to complete the night through to 8am.
By morning winds had turned from a beam from the west to a behind the beam SW and after we'd checked in with the morning net it shifted again to south and we set the sails for a dead run. With the wind up ones chuff one adopts a goose wing scenario – think of a goose running away with wings akimbo. That's us. Head sail held out on a whisker pole to port, mainsail out as far to starboard as possible with a preventer on the boom to stop any accidental gybes, and the mizzen sail held out to port like the head sail and we're catching all the possible gusts and being propelled by a following sea. It's a very pleasant action and deceptively fast. At one point I saw 9.5 knots on the speedo and it didn't feel like we were moving.
We don't do much on these days. I sleep in the morning while David is on watch reading, we have lunch together and than David sleeps while I sit watch and read or write. David did go out of the cockpit (wearing life jacket and safety harness attached jack line for inspection of lines and to belatedly take down the NZ courtesy flag). Once we reach Fijian international water we should be flying our national ensign and a Fijian courtesy flag. On entering port we add a yellow Q, or quarantine flag, which requests inspection from immigration to allow we are clear of plague.
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