May 15

 Ok, I'm a long day from Savusavu.  Calm waters, cell coverage, restaurants and bars.  I'm gonna do this, come hell or high water.

Got up and made pancakes.  Was down to a quarter tank of diesel so I took the time to add my 40 liters of reserve to the tank.

Up anchor at eight, motored (surprise!) straight into big swells at the head of Nadi Bay.  Tough it out, gotta make happy hour.

Three hours later I'm across Wainunu Bay and entering Nasonisoni Passage.  This is a well-known passage - I've been through it several times now.  But not in this wind.  Nasonisoni generally runs on an angle of 116 degrees.  The wind was howling out of the east (90 deg).  Ok, I can do this.  Happy hour awaits.

Coming out of the east end of Nasonisoni the swells were some of the biggest I've ever seen.  They rivaled the ones Nick and I saw coming out of Fawn Harbor two trips back.  The boat was twisting and corkscrewing on top of the swells, all within easy sight of the reef on both sides.  I gunned the engine and made it out of the washing machine.  I had about four or five hours of this to look forward to going across the Koro Sea to Savusavu.

Unless...

I looked at the chart and saw a way to get behind a string of reefs.  Reefs that would block the gigantic swells that were getting downright dangerous.  I'd never gone that way, never talked with anyone who had, but it looked a lot more palatable than the direct crossing that I had intended.  So I turned hard over and rolled with the swells for a half hour or so until I got behind the first reef.  

And...calm.  Good call, Dave.  The wind was still there, but now the reefs broke up the swells that had been building across hundreds of miles of Koro Sea to crash into Vanua Levu and Savusavu Bay - right where I was.

Right where it says 'Kubulau Passage' I had to go outside the reef system for a few miles.  Again the swells were nuts.  I rode with them back behind the next reef to calmer water again.

The swells were much more moderate in Savusavu Bay.  I set the autopilot on a rhumb line for Savusavu and went below to read.

And then the engine quit.  Well, it didn't quite quit.  The revs went down noticeably.  You get used to hearing a certain pitch and boy, when that changes you pay attention real quick.  I flew out to the cockpit and checked all the gauges - all fine.  The engine was back to running normally.  Go back down in the cabin.  Engine revs go way down.  Incipient panic - as well as recognition that I may have to sail the boat back to Savusavu.  At least I had the angle on the wind now, making that possible.

Peregrine has twin Racors - fuel filters commonly used on boats - with a switching valve to select one or the other.  I figured the Racor had plugged and that was causing the engine to starve.  I turned the valve and once again was treated to the dulcet tones of a smoothly running engine.  I suspect all the jouncing around with the swells stirred up sediment or something in the fuel tank which was collected properly by the Racor which eventually got blocked up.  Could also have been the sediment in the Racor bowl underneath the filter itself.  Whatever it was, I'm so glad it didn't happen when I was fighting the swells or worse, in Nasonisoni Passage.

Made it across Savusavu Bay without further incident, motored (surprise!) up the creek and moored the boat.  Then I cracked a cold one.  Or two - can't remember.

Oh, and that fuel I added this morning?  I used the bulk of it fighting those winds and swells.  If I hadn't put the reserve in...