I’m back in Whangarei getting ready for the haul out in mid January. I got to see Kirsty at the Alpine lodge in Mount Cook Village with excellent weather, even had red sunset light reflecting off the snowy mountain. Mary is there at the moment and will be back here in the new [...]

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Getting ready to go across the Cook Straight tomorrow. The wind is suitably strong and the area is living up to its reputation.
Had a great time touring the North Island with a car and now off to the South Island and Christchurch for a Christmas.
Happy Christmas and a great new year.

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In Whangarei at the moment. Looking forward to meeting up with Barbara and Deryck again on Monday. Kirsty has a job in a lodge on Mount Cook starting in a couple of weeks. We will bring the boat back here after Barbara and Deryck leave and then go land based sight seeing [...]

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Arrived 22:00 11th November.
This is a small place but very friendly and many good yachtie services. Lots of boats arriving all the time from Tonga, Fiji and New Caledonia.
Will be here in NZ until the end of cyclone season in the Pacific which is April time.
We will focus on maintenance and [...]

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Lots of Sooty Shearwaters and some Albatrosses which make a lovely sight. It makes up for it being so cold.  We now have full thermals as per UK early season sailing!
Wind now around to the west so making Opua on this tack and keeping up a good speed.  Position of tack on Monday morning has [...]

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Weather now very changeable in wind speed and direction.  Constant sail changes and several tacks.  Wind from 5 to 30 knots and direction from SE to west.  David’s slept in oilskins to allow fast changes in sail plan overnight.  Had a great period with the staysail and 25 knots of wind for a few hours [...]

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Now in the SW airflow and the adverse current.  Made as much west as possible overnight hence poor progress towards Opua.  Tacked at 10:00 local time and making good progress but need a wind shift into west to get into Opua without tacking.
Mary and Kirsty have excelled themselves with baking.  They don’t get thrown across [...]

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Wind filled in about midnight and then from dawn we have been tripled reefed with a reduced headsail.  Sea is very lumpy.  Still making good progress though.  Still heading SW ready for the SW winds
Position: 29°46′S 175°15′E [-29.763,175.257] at local 16:00, GMT 03:00 November 8th
24hr run:  130.5 miles by GPS, 131.6 miles through water.
343 miles [...]

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Wind died this morning.  We put up the big reacher for a while.  Wind filling in again but from the direction we want to go!  I suspect we will be hard on the wind now until the last short stretch into Opua.
Tactics are to stay on the port tack well out to the west and [...]

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Another big milestone - now in the eastern hemisphere.  Longitude will reduce now rather than increase!
Great nights sailing wind holding up until dawn and then we put up pinkie - our huge pink masthead spinnaker!  Had it up for about 6 hours until the wind filled in again.  Making very good progress given the large [...]

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