Here we go again. Day 3

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Another night another motoring night. Winds fell off again, they must have had a party to attend else where, say 30 miles behind us our 2 boats we left Noumea with made up some ground on us over night. We canā€™t have that. Hopefully daybreak will be different.

Into the darkness with our spreadsheets we go

Switching into night mode, the newly drafted quaterback wasnā€™t sure what he was in for. I changed the screen brightness which for unknown reasons rebooted the screen, the autopilot got upset that his playbook was changed from white to red and stated He simply didnā€™t know what to do so sat down. A few wise words like, it will be okay, or red light is the new white, and even a you got this, and he jumped right back into actions .

Well makes you wonder where the fault is, something is still not quite right with the auto pilot. We keep our track shoes on so either one of us is ready to jump in at moments notice and take over, should the beeping of sound terror starts. No spring actions were needed this evening he played well all game.

Daybreak and, sails up and it was off to the races. Well really just happy to turn the engine off, and splash splash along. Making comfortable speed, under a gray day, no rain, but just really overcast. Then somewhere around 2pm, I finally realized the sails were not well trimmed. So a tweak here, a tweak there and 8kts was our standard. Great sailing, just needed some blue skies to go with it.

The wind steadily increasing decided to take some canvas down before going into the night, had checked the radar and Norfolk island and there was some rain going to be crossing our path. So prudent to take a reef.

All well on board
Crossed the 1/2 mark, 430 miles left
jambon wrap for lunch, and pulled pork quesadilla for dinner

ps. Feels like this should be day 4, it maybe or just looking track.

Here we go again. Day 2

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Somewhere in the dark hours the perfect winds changed their tunes and shifted into the direction we wanted to go. Not terribly strong but enough to make us head due south when we need to go east too. Gave up when we started getting blown Southwest and decided to put the sails away and turn on the motors and went back to study the forecast. No where was this what was supposed to be. We ended up 20+ miles off course, so burn some diesel till the weather reads its forecasted playbook.

At the same frustrating point, the auto pilot started being finicky and decided he did want to drive for longer than a few minutes at time. He would start his shift and then poof, take his hand off the wheel and yell, I canā€™t take this any more.. His yelling sounds vaguely like a truck backup alarm. That made it kind of hard to sleep.
Little bit of investigational therapy, nothing seemed to calm his anxieties. And one last chance, but that didnā€™t work, so he got benched and the backup quarterback was brought on into service. I had signed the backup in NZ, but never finished. Luck would be on our side, I had finished the wiring and commissioning in New Caledonia, signed the contract and dotted the Iā€™s. So with a flick of a switch, Mr Finicky can pout all he wants while sitting on the bench, so long as the backup QB is ready for the long game of 700 nautical miles.

Morning brought the elusive wind shift, and we hoisted sails and were back in a groove again. The backup QB keeping the team together and reeling in the miles. The forecast again said 4-5kts, we had 14-15 and clear blue skies, a perfect sailing day with reasonable calm seas for ocean sailing. Maxed out at 10.7knts of boat speed according to the GPS log.

Upwind sailing at sunset

All well on board,
About 650 miles left till New Zealand šŸ‡³šŸ‡æ
Big breakfast of bacon and sausages, gotta eat it or customs gets it. Lots of naps during the day, and some good old Cajun Gumbo for dinner.

Here we go again. Day 1

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Another cyclone season is upon us and itā€™s time to get out of their playground. Those bullies just toss everything around if itā€™s in what they call their personal sand box. The Atlantic has their own gang too, called the hurricanes. Hells Angles can only aspire to the mayhem the ocean gangs have achieved.

We are bound for our second home again, New Zealand šŸ‡³šŸ‡æ. The plan was Australia but they decided they had too many tourists. We did get ā€œlong stay visasā€ but they came with restrictions. We could come and go as many times as we liked during our long stay, but we had to leave every 90 days. So for sailors that means finding a spot for the boat in a town with an airport every 90 days and flying out to get passports stamped and fly back. $$$$$ and itā€™s such a big country it just seemed like a painful way to avoid cyclones. So back to friendly New Zealand where we can happily bring $$$$ in for vessel upgrades and repairs.

We left Noumea after fueling up at 7:30am, the weather window has lots of light winds so the fuel might just come in handy. That and fuel wasnā€™t terribly expensive with the duty free certificate after you have cleared out of the country.

Fueled up and on our way.

The last baguettes and almond croissant šŸ„ were purchased, but the croissant didnā€™t make it till sails were hoisted.

First 12 hrs down, 800 miles to go. We wonā€™t set any speed or distance records this trip. So hopefully that means itā€™ll be an uneventful trip back to the land of the long white cloud. And of course the crazy weather systems that roll by with names like former cyclone Gabriel and their gang members.

Bright side, plenty of craft brews to choose from

Cheers