Monthly Archives: October 2023

Still out here

Leave a reply

Along with some of our closest friends we have an ever met and are really not that physically close.

New Zealand bound boats

You can see the gaggle of boats that left Tonga on the right and boats that left Fiji at the top and outer proposed tracks directly into the wind. 😉

I think it might actually called a fleet of boats? if they are only bound by their destination are they actually related? Might just be a group..

The boats look close together, but there is only one boat within 10 miles of us at this point.

All good out here, 750 miles to go. Engines running making progress toward destination. Making water and batteries are full from the motoring. Looking for positives for listening to the engine noise instead of the wind noise. It is getting cooler but still shorts weather. At least 5 more days to go, especially if we don’t get some favorable winds soon, and it looks like it might be another day or so. For now the waves are way down and only 5 knots of wind on the nose so it’s time to catch up on sleep and just relax.

Cheers

First 24 hours to NZ behind us.

Leave a reply

Knocked off 172 miles toward the destination, it only cost us 10 miles or extra distance so far. Most of that was leaving Denaru and getting out of the reefs.

Sunny and still warm. A decent run for day one. The squall line that comes in tonight or tomorrow morning will not be too much fun, but it’ll happen.

Beautiful day, can’t see but it’s a little bit bumpy too

We continue to hammer down and keep the VMG toward NZ up, well should arrive before the cold front. COLD FRONT? Why did we leave Fiji? Oh yeah, boat work and cyclone season is in our future.

Broke out the BBQ Chicken Enchiladas for diner. Can’t go wrong with some good ole enchiladas!

All good on board.
922 miles to destination.

Passage Time: Fiji to NZ 2023

Leave a reply

Bula!

Matt and I are on passage again.  We will be leaving Fiji and heading back to New Zealand for cyclone season. 

Matt will be live blogging during this 7-9 day passage so I have suspended our previously written blog posts.  They will resume in early November.

Hopefully we will have beautiful days where we can fly this beautiful parasail, but most likley we will be flying our working sails.

Click here to read out our last voyage from Fiji to New Zealand in 2022.

The Plan

The plan is always written in sand during low tide.  But we plan to head west as far as possible before turning left and heading south.

We are part of the South Pacific Island Cruising Rally which just means we have access to a lot of resources we wouldn’t normally have as non-members.  It is not a race as everyone leaves on the window they feel safest departing on.

We’ve engaged a professional weather router, signed up for Passage Guardian who will be tracking us, have our amazing friend Donald Anderson tracking us, will be checking in with Gulf Harbour Radio (SSB) daily, and we will be posting daily.  This is in addition to our new to us life raft, multiple ePIRBS, and loads of safety protocols in place.

We are well prepared.  We ave dozens of meals prepared and pre-cooked in case we have rough seas, have stowed everything that needs to be stored, the first aid kit, ditch bag, jacklines, PFDs are out, the dinghy is secured, and the foul weather is out.

Hopefully, my beautiful the angels will be watching over us for a safe passage.