We have made it safely into Fiji. It was a crazy trip up, with a lot of best evers and worst evers. David kept the blog updated as we sailed but I will give you a little recap. We left New Zealand on a beautiful, albeit cold day, with the promise of a 10 day weather window. Hooray! We are on our way! It started as the coldest trip ever, for at least the first 3 days. But it was pleasant with nice winds and calm seas. We had our best day ever when we were becalmed for 36 or so hours. We generally motor through light winds but decided to stay put in order to avoid a storm further north. We caught our biggest Mahi-Mahi ever, 52 inches. Zack reeled it in, he is getting so big and is now able to get fish in by himself. In the process of cleaning the fish we attracted a huge striped marlin, the biggest fish we have ever seen, only to be surpassed by a black marlin, the biggest fish we have ever seen at around 10 feet long. Lots of fun watching this beast swim around for over and hour. It was sort of spooky being becalmed at night and sitting in the cockpit in perfect calm with a misty fog all around. I felt like I was in a horror movie and any minute a sea monster would come out of the depths and attack. So creepiest sail ever. The wind came up so we headed off for North Minerva Reef. The wind became strong and we would be there in the middle of the night so we hove to in an attempt to slow down sufficiently. The storm we were trying to avoid came over us and the winds and seas got crazy. Hours of 40+ knots of wind. (worst ever) and 4 meter seas, (worst ever). About 2 hours after dark our mainsail halyard gave out and broke. The main sail was slapping around on deck, most damage and most dangerous situation ever. The weather was so bad we could not deal with it until the next afternoon when the weather abated a little. Just too dangerous and not worth the risk to go out on deck. Fortunately only a small rip in the sail. Just measured it, 18 inch rip. (45 cm) Before we left I purchased some sea sickness medicine called the Pahia Bomb, Available only at the Pahia pharmacy in NZ. Hands down the best sea sickness medicine ever. Totally saved my butt in the bad weather. The storm finally ended and the winds died leaving us with light winds and huge, confused seas. We were bobbing around like a cork, worst sea motion ever. It was so bad we couldn't even fish, although with the fish we had already caught it was the best fishing sail ever. The rest of the sail was fairly uneventful. We made it to Fiji and had the best reception ever. As we were coming into the pass we were greeted by a pod of dolphins playing in our bow wake. We were late to get in so the sun went down before we got to anchor. As we were sailing along we were treated to a spectacular display of fireworks. Surely to celebrate our arrival! We anchored out for the night and came into the marina to check in the next morning. Best surprise ever when our friend Maina from Voyager was on the dock to help with the lines. We knew they were in Fiji, but thought they had left the marina already. We are now tied up next to them in the marina and chilling out for a few days while we wait for more of our friends to arrive. Saddest moment in our trip, realizing that Sueno is not with us. They are still in New Zealand and have an offer on the boat so they may be one step closer to selling the boat and heading back to Canada.

Check out the video of the Black Marlin over to the right entitled "A Black Marlin nicknamed "Death"