Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

It couldn’t have gone much better. At 5:30am we left our slip and exited the marina beneath the raised footbridge. For the first hour the wind was light so we didn’t raise the sails until we were round North Head and west of Rangitoto. Leaving Auckland in the dark provided us with a fantastic last memory of the city twinkling away. Farewell Auckland and thanks for all the happy memories.

When the wind came it was just right. Over the course of the trip we saw anything from 15 knots to 27 knots. We had some good exercise shaking out and putting in reefs in the sails. The swell was light making the sail pretty comfortable. We arrived and anchored in Marsden bay at 4:30pm, 11 hours after we started. Not bad considering we’d half expected to arrive after dark.

We anchored here because this is where Suzi and Dave from Sidewinder were anchored and as this is our last night we can party it seemed as good an excuse as any. As they’d already stowed their dinghy for passage and we hadn’t I picked them up and dropped them off. We had a nice evening together. We’ll certainly see them on the dock tonight as we await our check out and departure tomorrow.

The forecast remains good for a departure tomorrow morning. The key thing is keeping the pace to avoid a high pressure system settling over the area 3-4 days from now. If that catches us we’ll run out of decent wind. The first 24 hours will see the wind direction changing a lot so it will keep us on our toes.

The passage overall looks to be pretty good. No signs of any really bad weather and we’ll be going from quarter to full moon so the nights will be nice.

It would be fantastic if we can make the passage in 7 days because then we’d arrive in Fiji on Sam’s birthday. We’d have to average 6.8 knots to make that which is possible but we’d need to be lucky. It’s more likely we’ll take 8 days.

We have a few final things to do to the boat before departure (like removing the outboard from the dinghy) which we’ll do on the dock this afternoon. But after our sail up from Auckland, crew and boat are looking pretty ready to go.

We’re now down to gobbling up the weather forecasts every six hours to help refine the departure decision. I have been favouring a Sunday departure for the last couple of days but that has now shifted towards a preferred Monday morning departure. Saturday now looks to be a feisty day to sail the boat up to Marsden Point so we can clear out there.

We decided to stay in the marina for an extra night or two but we couldn’t stay on the berth we were on. We had until midday to move down to the south end of the marina.

In the afternoon Sam went to visit crewman Paul at his new pad. Paul has some need of some graphic design work and Sam’s in need of projects. Seemed a good match and Sam may now have his first commission.

I spent some time researching duty free fuel and booze. Duty free fuel is only available in Auckland for mega-yachts who take fuel by the tank load and the booze options appear very limited and awkward. Oh well. Looks like our plans are revolving round the weather and we’ll just have to make do. It could be worse. We could be paying for an unusable return ticket for Sam.

So – subject to confirming Paul can synch with our plan we could be heading north tomorrow. I like the idea of getting some coastal sailing in for Sam before leaping across the ocean to Fiji. The Monday departure means we’re less likely to arrive in Fiji in time for Sam’s birthday on the 7th but that’s the weather for you.

We have a few last minute things to do here in Auckland which will be made less fun by rain which is now falling abundantly.

One nice piece of news is that we’re in contact with Suzi and Dave on Sidewinder who have similar departure plans. The rest of our friends still have things to do so will be looking to catch the next opportunity out of Opua. We hope to see them all up in the islands.