A great start to this year’s cruising season

It’s always nice to leave in good enough weather so you have at least the first night at sea to get used to what will become your “new normal” for the next week or so.  Strangely – this is the first time ever that we have left NZ – on an offshore passage in bare feet and shorts.  We understand the weather in NZ has finally decided that its winter, but up until we left you wouldn’t have known it in the “winterless north”.  We had a very leisurely first few days as it turned out sailing in light westerlies and despite a long ocean swell – calm seas.  Our first night out rewarded us with a beautiful sunset.

 

 

Because things were pretty calm – we haven’t got too many interesting photo’s, but here’s how you collect any rubbish from the passage – no smell on board – all sealed and ready to hand over to the bio-security guys on the other end.  You just cut up everything real small and shove it down a 2L milk bottle  We still have 2 of these on board as the “officials” in Aneityum were very “relaxed” about these mattersJ

 

 

We did have a slightly more “exciting” day or two about halfway up passing through a trough that involved dodging and weaving our way through rain cells in the middle of the night - any offshore sailor will tell you – the bad stuff loves 2am or there abouts to jump out and scare you – it would be way too easy to happen during daylight hours J  We were treated to a startling thunder and lightning show that got a little too close for comfort on occasions when your mast is the only metal sticky thingy poking up in the air for miles around.  No more than about 20k in it and not a lot of rain so we shouldn’t complain.  Our B and G Zeus 4G broadband radar again proved invaluable at night helping us spot and avoid the squalls.  Below – the red patches are the rain – we didn’t quite get out of the way on this one but at least we could see it coming!

 

 

We kept up the cloud dodging for another couple of days – fortunately during the day they are very easy to see and you have plenty of time to go around them.

Here’s what one of the suckers looks like in the daylight….

 

 

All gone before we knew it and back to uneventful days where the biggest challenge is actually getting the coffee INTO the cup and then trying to get the right proportions of water and milk in after it.  Fortunately for us our well designed little boat has plenty of places to wedge yourself and brace your body against the constant movement.

 

 

I dunno what it is about Navara, but we’re a magnet for any other vessel within a 100 mile radius it seems – here we are nearly there (just before dawn) and some dodgy fishing boat just keeps on aiming for us and worse thing is we cant actually see it but luckily “Zuesy” can J

Dawn reveals Aneityum exactly where she should be (phew) and as always we are pleased to have arrived – and what a stunning spot it is too.  Our good friends John and Wendy on “Midnight Sun” are already here along with a couple of other boats soon to be new friends so all is well aboard the good ship Navara.