Fiji to Port Vila

When we arrived in Savusavu after our hellacious trip from the Marshall's I thoroughly washed our foul weather gear for long-term storage (cause of course we wouldn't be needing them again, right?). I couldn't believe that barely an hour out of the gate from Fiji (heading to Port Vila, Vanuatu) we were digging out the wet weather gear and settling in for a cold, wet ride. We started the trip extremely fast with 30-35 knots of wind just aft of the beam. Billabong was screaming along, averaging 7 - 7.5 knots (although we can't imagine it is correct, our GPS once reported a max speed of 17.4!). The seas were the biggest we've seen yet, around 12-15 feet, and they were bashing against Billabong hard, sending huge amounts of spray into the cockpit. It was unbelievably wet, rocky and really cold … but hey we were going fast. At our current rate we thought our four day passage would easily be shortened to three. The first 48 hours or so we flew along under Jib alone, covering 164 nm in our first 24 hour period (Billabong's usual average is around 135nm). Then we had an period of calmer winds and predictions of less to come; it didn't look like we'd make it in before nightfall on the third day, so we'd have to slow down and aim for a morning arrival. We reefed in the jib and waited for the lighter winds … and waited. It seemed they never truly lightened up (after our first day the winds stayed right around 25 kts), but by now we were too far behind, so we just had to continue to try to slow down. Eventually we had up so little sail that I joked to Chris the only way we could get up less was to switch out the sail for some of my granny-style undies! I don't mind going slow, but with so little sail up and the still large seas it was one hell of a rolly ride and very frustrating to be bounced side to side and dropped as though riding a roller-coaster. Even with the rolly conditions Chris managed to bring in a perfect sized Mahi-mahi, although cleaning and cooking it served to be more of a challenge with the boat rocking all over the place! On the morning of our arrival, with land in sight, Chris unleashed the full Jib and it was a terrific ride in.