The weather forecasts keep coming up good for a Monday morning departure. We had a busy day doing last minute prep. We had a final, final, final visit to the supermarket for fresh food. We did an inventory on our grab/ditch bag finding only we needed to replace all the batteries – an annual activity anyway.
I went over to Pier 21 to say goodbye to anyone we knew there. Passages were there which was good as they’re not heading to Fiji so our next chance to see Pam and John is in Australia. I dropped off a USB stick they loaned us up in Fiji.
I also bought some string to hoist our courtesy flags. The last one had chaffed during the bad weather up in Great Barrier Island. I found a fairly decent fishing rod for NZ$50 so I picked that up. Back on the boat it was up the mast to run in the new line and fly our NZ flag for the last time.
I made my duty free order in Marsden which we’ll pick up on Sunday. I bought gin and rum locally as the Marsden Off License is out of that.
Crewman Paul arrived just after 6pm. We ate together then settled down for an early nights sleep.
We plan to be out of here at 5:30am so as catch the last of the ebb tide and, more importantly, miss the flood. We should have a brisk sail up to Whangarei Heads where we’ll anchor tonight. It’s nearly 70nm so we may arrive after dark. We know the anchorage so that’s fine. Tomorrow we move onto the Q dock in Marsden ready for an 8:30am check out of NZ which is already booked with customs.
According to the current forecasts we will leave on northwesterlies which will turn to the SE over the course of the first day or two. We may then be in tradelike winds all the way up. We may encounter some weather after a few days but that’s too far our to be sure right now.
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