035:18.964S 174:07.297E

 

After our long winter in the Northern hemisphere we are excited to be back on Bamboozle and preparing to head back towards the tropics.  We had a very busy first week getting everything back up and running and putting six months worth of provisions on board.  Every locker is stuffed and every tank is full to the brim, hopefully we have remembered all the boat spares we may need for the rest of the year and I even managed to persuade the purser to squeeze a couple of black puddings into the freezer.  We managed to be ready to leave the dock in just under 8 days which is a record for us and we reckon about a month quicker than most of our cruising mates!  We then spent three days day sailing up the coast in fresh but beautiful conditions (wooly hat weather!) to check that everything really is working.  I even dug my wetsuit out to make a quick check of the hull and to give the prop a clean and can confirm I have absolutely no plans to get back in the water until we get back to the warm blue waters a great deal closer to the equator. Things seem to be in pretty good order with the only real issue so far being a problem with the genoa furler which we finally traced to a loose connection/broken wire deep in the bowels of the boat.  I am very glad we found and fixed this now rather than discovering the problem half way to Fiji. 
 
We arrived in Opua in the Bay of Islands on Friday and are now sitting in the marina next to the customs office ready for the off.  Sadly the weather forecast doesn't look very helpful and right now we have 30 to 40 knots blowing from the north and lashing rain, so after 10 days of busy-busy we now have to be patient and wait for a better forecast!  Fortunately our "weather guru" from last year is also here in Opua waiting to leave for New Caledonia.  He is a retired professional forecaster who has spent the last 10 years cruising so we are unlikely to move until he gives us the thumbs up.

The good news is our new cockpit covers seem to be doing a great job of keeping the rain out and we are certainly making the most of our last chance to be plugged in to shore power with all the lights blazing and the heating on.  This isn't a bad spot to be stuck and we have certainly learnt over the years that patience is a valuable virtue in the approach to an ocean passage.