POSITION REPORT ON SUNDAY 2 NOVEMBER 2014 AT 0800

22:21S  177:12W

We’re screaming along on a beam reach doing 7 knots, heading for Minerva Reef. We’ve done 145 miles in 22 hours, so we’ve made a good start to the journey – only 945 miles to go. We’re not quite sure whether we’ll stop in Minerva Reef or not – we’ll be making our minds up later today.

1 November 2014   Tongatapu to New Zealand (Day 1)

After the big party last night, we both had mild hangovers - it's not the best way to start a 1,000 mile passage, but by half past ten, we had everything stowed and were sailing away.  We went out of the Egeria Channel on the north side on Tongatapu, which was a ten mile jaunt through reef infested waters.

There were some very confused seas and winds on the north-western tip of the island but after a couple of hours, things started to settled down as we headed out into the open ocean and away from the effect of land.  For the rest of the afternoon, we had 15-22 knots from ESE, which with our south west course, gave us a fast boisterous reach.  These fabulous sailing conditions continued all night and most of the time we were bounding along at 6.5 to 7.5 knots in six foot seas.

We're both in a state of mild shock that we're actually heading to New Zealand.  It's only been four days since we decided to leave the Ha'api Islands and since then we don't seem to have stopped to take a breath.  At least we haven't had time to worry about this passage - yet.