Wellington - Hawke's Bay (Day 1)

Today marks the beginning of our journey homeward.

Vela spent her morning tidying up some work items, while Nathan completed some final prep work - tying the dinghy down, topping up the water tanks, running the jack stays and sorting everything with the marina for our departure. We popped out for a bite to eat for lunch before saying goodbye to Nathan's parents.

We walked back to the marina, cast off our lines, and headed out of the harbour for open waters. NZ is a small place and you can't do anything under the radar, we were spotted twice, once by our marina neighbour Yann as we left the marina, and also from the air by Mum and Dad as we were leaving Wellington harbour.

Nathan enjoyed some more funky clouds, and also some big swells as we left Wellington. On our sail across to Cape Palliser we had two visits from dolphins, the first went like:
Vela - "I really want to see whales... EEEEEEEK!" As a dolphin broke the surface less than a metre from our port rail.

We are making good time, with speed consistently around 7 knots. We rounded Cape Palliser at 8pm and Nathan heated up a batch of chili for dinner.

We're now settling into our night sailing mode, expecting the wind to build towards midnight. Looking forward to seeing the Hawke's Bay sometime tomorrow afternoon!Read more