New Years Day

This morning a S/SW wind picked up, so we headed across Doubtless Bay to Takerau Bay. We chilled out, recuperating from last night, and Nathan and Daniel went for a dive, hoping to run into a school of Kingfish or other nice eating fish or locate the eligible crayfish. Unfortunately the water was a little unproductive, and we came away with just a couple of Parore.

Afterwards we headed into Mangonui to drop off Daniel, Atusa, Nathan M, Jenny, and Max, with just Nathan, Jamie and Vela staying on board for the passage down the West Coast to Nelson. After topping the fuel tank up (once Nathan finally figured out how to put in the right pump number...) we pulled out some sails and headed out of Doubtless Bay to spend the night in Maitai Bay. A few other boats are anchored in here with us tonight as well.

We will have a bit of a planning session tonight for the journey South. But the brief version is that we'll head around North Cape and Cape Reinga, before heading south down to Nelson. The trip from Maitai Bay is roughly 470 miles which we expect to take around 3-4 days. The weather window is looking really good and we are excited to keep exploring our beautiful country!

Time to get a good night's rest tonight, and we'll touch base again once we're back in cellphone reception.Read more