A quick scan of the morning forecasts was not immediately encouraging. The forecast looked better for the afternoon and pretty light in the morning. Not what we wanted as we were eager to go. Another boat mention motoring up to the Poor Knights Islands to do some sight seeing on the way out. That seemed the basis of a good idea. We could do the same and if the wind picked up along the way we’d switch to sailing for Fiji.
Bruce the customs/immigration guy arrived about 9am and cleared us out. He was as cheerful as ever. We headed off almost immediately and motored out down the river against the incoming tide. Once out of the river we put out our headsail to help us along. About a third of the way up to Poor Knights the wind did pick up so we furled the head sail, put up the main and then put out the head sail again.
We carried on motor sailing for a short while towards Poor Knights Islands before I decided to turn east. “We’re on our way to Fiji”.
The wind still wasn’t too strong and whenever we dropped below 4 knots we put on one of the engines to bring us up to 5 knots. We rarely had the engine on for more than 15 mins before the wind picked up enough to turn it off. The sea was almost flat so the going was easy and noone really felt seasick for too long.
The wind direction was as predicted and took us off nearly east. Also as expected it gradually turned and strengthened over night. We are now on course for our first waypoint which is placed to minimise the swell that works its way around New Zealand. We’re making a respectable 8.5 knots even though we’re running downwind. Not our best point of sail.
It’s been cold and wet overnight making the night watches less than pleasurable. I suspect we have another day of gray weather ahead of us before it clears.
All is well aboard.
Our friends aboard Sidewinder also departed yesterday and we’ve been in frequent radio contact with them. Sam received a call from them during his night watch and learned that David unfortunately has some issue with his leg which has caused them to head back to NZ and check into Opua. We wish them all the best. It means we’re out here on our own this time.
We caught a skipjack tuna yesterday. Not our thing. It got tossed back after a gutting demonstration for Sam.
Leave a Reply