33: 10.6 S

175: 15.9 E

 

Distance last 24 hours:             124     nm

Distance since Nuku’alofa:      915     nm 

Distance still to go:                 112    nm                                                 (All distances are in nautical miles:  1nm = 1.8km)

 

It feel like we are in New Zealand waters and the excitement on board is building! We should cross the latitude of North Cape (the sentimental, northern most tip of New Zealand) some time early tomorrow morning, and then it’s real home straits. Having taken the direct course from Tonga, we are on course that takes us some 70 miles off the North Cape, going straight into Opua.

 

Well getting to this point has been full of challenges: You probably sensed in yesterday’s blog that I was preparing for a difficult night last night, and it did deliver on that..... The wind was around 18-22 knots across the deck, we were trying to sail as close to the wind as possible, the sea, wasn’t huge, but was a bit confused, it was totally overcast, so pitch black, the whole night. The wind was swinging in direction through 30 degrees from direct south to SW, just where we were wanting to go... I did think that I was now being shown wrong on my rhumb line gamble, but  1 degree further south I knew there were better angle, westerly's awaiting us. The challenge was how to get down there as quick as possible, when the powers that be seemed bent on making it very hard for us. As the wind really went south we were forced to do some easting, or more bluntly, going backwards. In normal circumstances one would take to get the better angle to our destination, but here it meant we would be going further west and into more southerlies, rather than getting to the westerly's. This forces one to back one’s grib, weather files, or not! I backed them and so for quite a bit of last night we were doing a small amount of easting as we moved strongly south. This goes so against one’s intuition, but eventually it paid off, and with little mileage east. The cost was two tired souls, who ended up watching the wind tease us and reacting to ensure the boat was sailing to its best. Ruth did a sterling job on her one watch... we changed the plan I told you about yesterday, because the night needed someone watching the sails and course all night. Anyway, this is just sailing, but given our relatively ‘new couple’ sailing team, this was a test, which thankfully we past.

 

The dawn brought lighter and more favourable winds, and then very calm patches with drizzle and then finally a huge fog! In amongst this we had our first evidence of civilisation nearby: A huge container ship which I spotted on the nearby, foggy horizon, passed 2 miles off our port side, but no issues as the AIS (Radio based warning device) had picked up the ship and was monitoring it for us! I was surprised we saw no traffic last night, and good job too...!

 

A lot of motoring this morning as the rain and fog chased away the wind, but things improved from lunchtime. We are right in the weather system associated with the low pressure that is passing across New Zealand tomorrow, but south of us. This system will bring us great westerly's, which have started and will move more west and north from midnight through tomorrow. This all looks like a great forecast for the last 100 miles to Opua, but I have learnt that in sailing anything can happen! It does LOOK like my gamble has paid off, and we should arrive in Opua sometime late to morrow (Wednesday) afternoon. Holding thumbs!

 

Some of today was spent getting ready for arrival in NZ: Customs procedures are strict, and then getting out the courtesy flag, and filling out all the paperwork, etc, etc.... We will have to dump all our fresh food, and opened food, as they are very strict on all that....

 

It is very exciting contemplating our arrival: A new destination, home base for quite a few months for me, but also the end of a challenging 5 month project that was born in January this year and has seen almost all it’s objectives met... Well we aren’t quite at the end yet..... So I’ll wrap that all up once we are in.....

 

As soon as I finish this blog, I’m off to my bunk for a quick nap before coming on my last nights watches...I’m going to cherish the evening’s sailing.... As Ruth said today:  “It is really special being out here on the ocean on our own”...

 

As I’m reading the book ‘Longitude’, by Dava Sobel, I realise how fortunate we are to be living in these times where we fairly easily can sail the wide open oceans on our own. The book is a fantastic read about the story of the solving of how to measure one’s longitude, and John Harrison’s life time work to develop a clock that would enable pone to do this. We just take all this for granted today, and books like this are great to make one appreciate the journey us human’s have come, and in such a short time too....

 

Ok, enough from me.....

 

Final blog tomorrow....

 

Cheers for now

 

H