Anchor is down… breakfast before bed.
Blowing snot and big waves for the past 6+ hours. When your 23 knot high wind alarm goes off and you reset it to 30, and it still,goes off. The original 23 alarm seems so benign.
Cheers.
Surrounded in mystery that is for sure, or maybe just clouded in mystery.
Seems Daphne, Fred and the whole gang should be living there somewhere.
Well, morning came we waited still no word about permission to clear in with the cruise ship. Waited still office hours and Christine made some phone calls, and got the ball rolling. Not long after, the approval email came in, excitement was finally here. A destination instead of the unknown floating slowly along in building seas.
Alas, the excitement was short lived. A second email came through 5 minutes later saying disregard the first email and proceed directly to Tanna for customs, stating there is some weather coming on Thursday and the cruise ship stop maybe cancelled.
I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for them “Meddling Kids” (and Mother Nature) in the magical mystery machine van.
Bummer! But still we had a plan, now it was too late to make Tanna, Port Resolution in the day time, so the one more night out still held. We sped the boat up just enough to arrive at day break. The Port Resolution bay looks easily do able in the dark, we are not in that much of a hurry that a couple of hours makes a difference. There are 3 boats there currently, something like 6 left yesterday, so there will be plenty of space to anchor.
We did get caught by a weather trough, that has brought some crazy squalls all day and continues into the night. Gusty winds, near 30 knots and sloppy seas, the only saving grace is we are going with the waves and not into them. We have only a bit of head sail, jib, up and we are getting pushed toward our destination. At times too fast, arrive before sunrise and at times too slow arrive well after lunch. Here is hoping the law of averages works out and we arrive at day break.
During the email exchanges, and organizing customs for us at port resolution, we learn that we will arrive on a holiday and fees are doubled. Doh! So I guess the Vegas house wins again.
It is what it is, and it ps time to put some beer in the fridge so that there is a nice cold anchor beer ready for when we arrive. It might be a breakfast beer, before a long solid sleep. Which might be interrupted by the formalities of clearing into the country.
20 miles left
We leave New Zealand for the second time having accomplished a lot in the last 7 months. This time our passage finds us heading North West to a small country called Vanuatu!
The passage should take 8-9 days if all goes well. You can follow our progress on our blog by clicking on “Current Location.”
Our pre-scheduled blog posts will be suspended until we make landfall and should resume around 4 June. But you can count on Matt posting a few blog posts along our passage.
We will have Starlink which gives us access to the world wide web so feel free to email us or comment on the blog posts. It is always nice to hear from people when you are out in the middle of the sea for days on end.
We hauled the boat out and continued to work on our beautiful boat. We added Coppercoat, fixed some gelcoat work, replaced our rudders, added new vinyl stickers, varnished all of the exterior wood, added some more new canvas, updated our aft teak on the steps, repaired our water tank, replaced bathroom accessories and hatch frames.
We also sailed around the North island and explored so many amazing new islands, atolls, and motus. We spent a lot of time at Great Barrier, Mercury, Wiaheke, Whangapoua, Coramandel, Kawau, Tiritiri Matangi, Limsetone Island. We hung out with loads of friends and caused as much trouble as possible.
It was a fabulous, but short visit back to this amazing country.
The cover photo is a us at Marsden Cove Marina, Whangarei, Northland as we meet with the officials to clear out of the country.
Until we meet again Kiwis! We loved our stay and hope to see you soon.