We made it! We arrived in Savusavu, Fiji, on the island of Vanua Levu (16 46.68S, 179 19.69E), at 11:30 am on Monday, June 10, 2013 - 11 days out of Marsden Cove, New Zealand. With a slight "detour" for weather, we covered about 1300 nautical miles - or nearly 1495 statute miles. We spent almost a day and a half "hove to" - so that averages out to about 125 nm per day - at a little over an average of 5.2 knots of speed; no speed records here!

To say this passage turned out to be "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" would be an understatement; it was every bit of that, and then some! The weather window that looked so good when we left New Zealand soon collapsed with the blossoming of a new, unpredicted low that formed in the Coral Sea (NE of Australia) and tracked SE to New Zealand. We had sailed west of the rhumb line (straight line from NZ to Fiji) to avoid a predicted 998 mb low that formed near Fiji and tracked SE, well out of our way, with the expectation that we would experience some peripheral effects in the way of enhanced trade winds in the "squash zone" between the Fiji low and the high that was then parked over New Zealand. The Coral Sea low quickly displaced the high, and instead of enhanced SE trade winds (in the 25 knot range) we ended up with N then NE winds in the 30-35 knot range (with gusts over 40), as we were far enough west to be on the fringe, but not far enough north to escape the new low. Within about three days the winds had veered to the SW then back to the SE, and decreased to a manageable 25-27 knots as the low moved over New Zealand, but the heavy seas (at times as much as 6 meters - near 20 feet) took some time to settle back down. During the worst of it, we hove-to (basically parked the boat) for 22 hours; the reduced motion was quite a relief, but still short of comfortable. We were able to get some much needed rest; things were getting pretty tired out before we hove-to, and Linda at one point had been thrown across the cockpit when we were hit by a big wave, so her ribs and rump (she landed on a cleat) were sore and she needed some R&R.

A little over a day later, when we were sailing north again in SE winds of about 27 knots, the bar that holds the rudder on our Monitor self-steering wind vane broke; we did not lose the rudder, as it is tied to the boat with a control line (used to raise it when stowing the wind vane), and the 2 foot long stainless steel bar that broke is called a "breakaway bar" (designed to give way if the rudder hits something, before damaging the rest of the wind vane) and, as such, is actually a spare part (that we had on board). We certainly could not effect repairs under the conditions, and we did not want to hand steer the boat (which is very difficult and tiring in heavy seas); and, because we did not want to run the risk of damaging our hydraulic auto pilot by motoring in those rough conditions, we hove-to again - this time for 12 hours, until the seas settled down enough to motor without concern for the auto pilot. About 14 hours of motoring later, the wind and sea conditions were calm enough to try fixing the wind vane. With Linda tethered to the cockpit, she wriggled under the stern pushpit and hung out over the back of the boat about 3 feet, while I dropped her some tools (with their own tethers!) so she could remove the nut and bolt holding the broken end of the breakaway bar, then she attached the new bar and bolted it on, then we slipped the rudder back on, and bolted it in place - about 45 minutes of work, with Linda hanging over the back of the boat the whole time. Even though it was relatively "calm" the boat was still bobbing up and down and rolling back and forth in the swell. Do I need to tell you that Linda is my Hero?!

Things got much better after that, and we had some really great sailing for several days - and the fleece came off, and the shorts, t-shirts and sun screen came out! Nevertheless, this was one of the most challenging (and tiring) passages we have made yet; several people we know who have made this trip (between NZ and Fiji) many times all have said this was the worst. All in all, we did quite well - just short of 11 days total, and other than the wind vane, nothing broke; we know several people whose sails ripped, one whose bow sprit broke, and one who took salt water into his fuel tank (through a vent line) and turned his diesel to "mayonnaise" - you can imagine what that did to his injectors and injector pump when he tried to start his engine! So we did okay; and, we continue to admire and have great confidence in Bright Angel. She is truly a great blue water boat, and she does so much better at this passage-making than we ever will!

When we arrived in Savusavu the sun was out, and it was hot! Soon thereafter, though, a front moved through and it rained for a couple of days - but we are certainly not complaining, as the rain washed all the salt off the boat! We spent several days catching up on our rest, and putting the boat back into "cruising order"- anxious to start exploring Fiji, which promises to be worth the tough passage from NZ