To New Zealand

We left this past Monday for our last South Pacific leg of this cruising season. A trip of about 1,100 miles from Tonga, so expected 7-10 days. This is passage is notorious for bad weather and the problems always occur near to New Zealand so therefore difficult to depart Tonga with a reliable weather forecast.

We are now on Sunday, 67 miles to go and have had a good passage overall. The first three days were typical trade wind sailing with us running a SSW course across the winds to it was boisterous. We then ran into the high pressure system and horse latitudes where winds are usually light. They were for us and we pushed ahead under motor, our goal to get south of 30s before a strong low moved through.

Usually the lows move south of 35-40s so if one is to pass your course you slow down, because it will invariably have gale force winds a very rough seas. This one though was running well north so we hustled and did make 32s, avoiding the low and the worst of the weather. We did have to go through the associated cold front and got 20 knots of wind on the nose thus pushing us backwards for about 12 hours, but managed that well.

So the last few hours of our trip, weather is very clear, we are motoring in calm winds, and hope that it stays that way. Oh ya and it is cold...... we are all in winter wear.

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