Big day to Waihau Bay

Very big day today. It started with the forecast southwesterly coming in, starting around 12 knots but building up to 25kt by mid morning. The sea state built steadily with it as well until we were surfing down 3m swells.

Nathan got excited when he set a new boat speed record for Starling of 15.3kt, but Vela quickly jumped on the handlebars and bumped that up to 16kt (much to Nathan's disappointment, because Vela also managed to get both of his sleeping spots soaked in the process, while Nathan was in them...) Once we stopped, we checked the system for the real boat speed record and saw 17kt... No idea who set that one but we'll share the record for now. (Vela edit: it was definitely Vela's record).

With some good top speeds and average speed around 10kt, we made great time and rounded East Cape about 2pm. Once we got around, the sea state settled and we started looking for a spot to anchor. We headed for Waihau Bay (apparently where the movie Boy was filmed) and found a reasonable anchorage. It was still a little rolly, but in our sleep deprived state it didn't matter much.

Nathan got some fishing lines in the water, and after a good tussle landed a whopper of a kahawai - maybe rivaling Jamie's from Doubtless Bay. A second big kahawai was quickly on board, plenty of fish for us for now, so we threw the third one back and called it a night on the fishing. Really good to be back up north and have some good fishing! On filleting the fish, Nathan found a couple of bonus gold bars in one, yum!

We had dinner, cleaned ourselves and the boat up a bit, and put our heads down to recuperate. It feels like the hard part of our trip is behind us now, and we're excited to catch up with friends and family now we're back up North.Read more