We finally managed to slow down off Cape Brett to have Giselle moving very uncomfortably with the short chop in the area so we put the sails back up to get comfort again. Luckily the wind shadow of the hills down to Whangarei allowed us to arrive all tied up in Marsden Cove Marina at […]

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David’s mother’s sister Una in her later years stayed in the family home in Penzance, Cornwall. On of the comments she is well remembered for is “I have eaten up that xxxx in the fridge” with a tone like it was nearly going to waste so wasn’t I good. The reality was that the tasty […]

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We’re British so we allowed to complain about the weather. The pilot books and cruiser stories are full of how bad the lows can be as you approach New Zealand especially if you are south of 30°S. The trysail was rigged on its own track to the mast and we even replaced the ropes on […]

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We have seen our first Albatross. Now officially allowed to feel cold even if it is 20°C! Such graceful flyers. I saw a shearwater with a fish close to the boat earlier in the day. First time I have seen one of the good flying birds feeding. I was getting to wonder when they ever […]

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It turns out that we are on the shipping lane from New Zealand to China. The cargo vessels on this route are heading up between New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea. So we have been having 2 or 3 cargo ships a day go by, some visible some just seen on the AIS screen. We […]

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Colder last night mostly because we had South West winds and rain squalls. So it was out with the excellent fleecy hat that my Mum gave me after we delivered Madog to Cork, Ireland in 2003. We were expecting light winds but have had good sailing winds of 10 to 20 knots. With the change […]

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We have left New Caledonia and this will be our last ocean voyage before we return to Scotland. The circumnavigation of New Caledonia was fun. It was a total of 774 boat miles with the last 400ish to windward. The flat seas of the lagoon made the sailing very like coastal sailing in the UK. […]

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We have just had one of those unexpected magical days. We got up expecting to sail into 25 knots to windward to Yate. Then we noticed that the anchorage was blissfully quiet despite the strong winds blowing along the coast that we could easily see beyond the headland. Time to go up the mast and […]

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Our first overnight sail since we arrived in New Caledonia. We have spent nearly all the time here since the beginning of September inside the lagoon with flat seas so its seems a big deal, even daunting, to venture outside. Once outside there was a great sense of freedom, no more triple checking that you […]

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OK the sun eclipse wasn’t this year, it was on 6th September 1774. We stopped on the island on the north east end of New Caledonia which Captain Cook used to make observations of this eclipse. The island is tiny so you can be pretty confident that you have walked on the same spot as […]

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