Well it’s pretty darn nice to be back in open water. Hauled anchor, perhaps for the last time in the Bay of Islands before daybreak and motored out to sea as the sun rose. Winds didn’t fill in until the afternoon, but we’ve been making six knots on a beam reach.
Watched the sun set and caught the last glimpse of New Zealand as North Cape fell hazy and sank away. Albatross and gulls still around; they don’t seem concerned with being so far from land. It takes a while on a creaking, lurching boat to have their fortitude. Enchiladas help a lot with that though.
We’re estimating it’ll take ten days to cover the 1200 miles to Brisbane, and it’d be just peachy if they’re all like this. The sky is mostly cloudless and the moon is lighting up the sea. I’m on my favorite graveyard watch. I love the peace of the night time. I’ll keep this short. Have to keep a good look out for the big boats running in these waters. Eek. All is well aboard.
Winds from the south-southeast imposed a westward course upon us for two days as a trough blew over, pushing us more west than we would have wanted.Velocity Made Good (VMG) is a nautical measure of how fast you’re going in the actual direction of your waypoint based on speed, distance to target, and a little trigonometry.It doesn’t particularly matter if you’re rocketing at eight knots heading east if your destination is west, right?For two days our VMG oscillated between 0.5 and -0.7, meaning that we were going places, but often it was away from New Zealand.Yikes.Our wayward westing allowed us to later catch the favorable southwest winds which would zip us in to New Zealand after the front muscled through.Long story short, we’ve been pretty happy in the recent days sailing a beam reach southeast at a rejuvenating clip and enjoying our last days offshore.
The temperature has been dropping steadily as our latitude increases and is especially notable on night watches. Even curled up in the salon with a blanket and a mug of tea while keeping a lookout through the windows, the damp of the sea can put a chill in one’s bones. I’m becoming convinced that we’ve sailed right past New Zealand and are quickly approaching Antarctica. Miranda and I have been layering all the long pants, sweatshirts, and socks we can find. With our patchwork garb, stumbling locomotion about the boat, and itinerant living habits we might not be out of place on a New York City street with the folks screaming at passing cars. It’s a glamorous life on the sea.
The morning of the 8th dawned clear with light winds.In the late morning the jagged spine of North Cape rose slowly out of the sea to the west.Almost as if on cue the wind kicked up to twenty knots on our beam and we hurried the last hundred miles at a happy clip as sea birds swooped welcome loops around the boat.The scent of land greeted us forty miles out, light but distinct to our noses, acclimatized to the olfactory-neutral open ocean.At twelve miles out we hoisted the yellow quarantine flag, which indicates that you need to clear in with customs and aren’t trying to sneak in like bandits in the night.And night it quickly became.The sun dove behind the bulk of New Zealand spattering the cloud layer in reds and golds.As we approached the entrance to the Bay of Islands the conglomeration of pummeled seashore and rainy sheep pasture wafted over us and invoked memories of a year of bivouacking on the windswept coast of Ireland many moons ago. A young seabird hitched a ride in to port, plunking himself unceremoniously on deck for some shut eye.
The moonless and overcast night offered no aid in ducking the few freighters, navigating the ten miles into the bay, amidst the shallows, and up the Opua River to the customs dock.Land, sea, and sky blended together in charcoal gray and wood smoke hung in the air.Though dead tired, an hour nap before pulling into the bay and a cup of tea renewed us both, and picking our way through the beacons proved straightforward with a lookout on the bow.Moored vessels slid past in the mirrored water like specters as we motored up the river in a glow of blue-green seafire.On the 2AM slack tide we sidled up to the Q-dock, Cowgirl Miranda lassoed a cleat, and we wrangled Tayrona into her berth.I don’t even remember going below to rack out. Happy to be in New Zealand!
Wind continues to come from SSE where we would like to be heading.We tacked Tayrona upwind all day, which she really doesn’t love.I can’t say I blame her; we’ve just gotten coddled and soft from eight thousand miles of downwind run. The fifth was a beautiful day with cloudless blue skies and flat water, literally the calm before the storm.We knew that a nefarious front was incoming, dragging heavy weather with it.Preparing during the sunny day for the rough seas to come left me feeling like a nerdy kid that knows the bully is going to beat him up and steal his lunch money at recess.
And come it did!Yikes!“So when do you think we’ll see that front come through?” asked Miranda.Ten minutes later we’re donning foul weather gear, taking in sail, and dogging hatches.The wind kicked from twelve to thirty knots, accelerating the boat to nine knots almost instantly, sending us skipping over waves and giving a pounding to the bows and hull.Things haven’t abated; we’re still ripping along under reefed sails in the dark and rain.It’s too murky to see outside so the radar is blazing away looking for the next squall to tear through and, more fearsome on a dark night, freighters.
Feels like we’ve been on passage for an eternity with all the tacking, motoring, fighting upwind.We really haven’t hit a great sailing groove yet.We’re ready to get there and aren’t thrilled by having a raging front to punch through after nine days already at sea.Bleh.We’re picking up weather forecasts from various sources and compiling them to come to our own routing conclusions.We’re only 250 miles from New Zealand but can’t motor directly to it because the wind and waves are too heavy from that direction.We have to go out of our way to the west and wait for the post-frontal southwest winds to blow us in to New Zealand.It’s real sailing for sure, gauging weather, time, distance, and fuel, but I much prefer the “Set it!And!Forget it!” approach where we’ve run downwind with a spinnaker up for a four days straight.
It had been rough the previous days.Miranda’s birthday fell right in the midst of the trough when wind was gusting into the thirties on the nose and ten foot seas paraded through.I wrestle-baked a carrot cake, which is a neat procedure on a rolling boat because the batter stirs itself!I had to secure the pan inside the oven with two sets of vice grips to keep it from being ejected mid-bake into the cabin.The birthday festivities were rounded out with snacks, libations, presents, and Scopolamine patches.We have plans to go out for a more agreeable and much deserved celebration ashore.
Currently, the rain just stopped blasting our topsides, but the gloom obscures the horizon and waves shake us like a dog with a shiny new chew toy.Miranda is below and I’m on watch.We’re doing fine, just ready to be there.I think the boat is rather enjoying herself though, engaging in some nautical calisthenics after an easy month day sailing through Fiji.
