Hamish Hand steering.
The Famous Fish that Lindsay caught in his bare hands!
The days sped past but the list took a long time to go down. The weather was fine for the first two weeks then, like everywhere in New Zealand, it turned nasty. There did not seem to be a break in the weather which would allow us to leave NZ safely. It was very frustrating although the children didn’t mind as they made some good friends nearby and got to do some cool things like go to a highline park which a friends parent was setting up and go out with the Marina manager on the ex-police boat to help clear logs and debris washed done in one of the storms.
Well now we have arrived in Lautoka after an 8 and a 1/2 day passage from Whangarei. We made it!!! We left New Zealand after a small low had gone through so the first 2-3 days were quite rough. It took one day for the sea sickness tablets to wear off then we had a day of heads in buckets as you can see from the photo. But by the third day we were on the way up again and soon recovered.
The children spent most of the colder days down in the salon playing on Hamish’s Nintendo or reading. Once it got warmer they would spend their time out in the cockpit. A good challenge was to search the deck for stowaways or visitors. The boat collected 3 flying fish (the first one Lindsay pretended to catch in his bare hands – but fooled no one!), one small mackerel and about six squid.
We did not see much marine life – just a whale's tail, lots of petrels and 9 gannet like birds which were called ( much to Hamish’s amusement) Masked Boobies. The weather was quite varied but we had little rain just different types of wind and wind strength. We would have liked it all to have been in the right direction but in the way of sailing, had to make do with what we got, and we made the best of it. We only used the motor when the generator broke down 3 days out of Lautoka and the motoring was for helping our batteries rather than for propulsion.
We have stopped in at Vuda Point Marina while we sort out our generator. It is near Lautoka. Lucky for us they are installing a new internet system and it is free for the moment. Our generator problem looks to be a minor glitch so we hope to head out of here tomorrow. Once we have sorted out the boat and got fresh food.
We hope you like our photo’s. Lindsay would probably have liked some of when it was rough at the start but we were all too sick or too busy to think of pictures.
Cooling off.
Kate helping in the galley.
Kate helping in the galley.The Famous Fish that Lindsay caught in his bare hands!
Our time in Whangarei was pretty hectic as we frantically worked at getting things done before departure. Some of the main ones were: finishing the benchtop access to the storeage cupboard in the galley, inserting a stand for Kate’s keyboard, putting netting round the guard rails, securing the laptop by the chart table, installing navigational software, buying, labeling, vacume packing drygoods, storing food for the passage and for longer term, fitting spray cover over our companionway, filling in forms for customs and cooking 7 meals and deep freezing them (that worked well on the trip)and installing the watermaker.
The days sped past but the list took a long time to go down. The weather was fine for the first two weeks then, like everywhere in New Zealand, it turned nasty. There did not seem to be a break in the weather which would allow us to leave NZ safely. It was very frustrating although the children didn’t mind as they made some good friends nearby and got to do some cool things like go to a highline park which a friends parent was setting up and go out with the Marina manager on the ex-police boat to help clear logs and debris washed done in one of the storms.
Well now we have arrived in Lautoka after an 8 and a 1/2 day passage from Whangarei. We made it!!! We left New Zealand after a small low had gone through so the first 2-3 days were quite rough. It took one day for the sea sickness tablets to wear off then we had a day of heads in buckets as you can see from the photo. But by the third day we were on the way up again and soon recovered.
The children spent most of the colder days down in the salon playing on Hamish’s Nintendo or reading. Once it got warmer they would spend their time out in the cockpit. A good challenge was to search the deck for stowaways or visitors. The boat collected 3 flying fish (the first one Lindsay pretended to catch in his bare hands – but fooled no one!), one small mackerel and about six squid.
We did not see much marine life – just a whale's tail, lots of petrels and 9 gannet like birds which were called ( much to Hamish’s amusement) Masked Boobies. The weather was quite varied but we had little rain just different types of wind and wind strength. We would have liked it all to have been in the right direction but in the way of sailing, had to make do with what we got, and we made the best of it. We only used the motor when the generator broke down 3 days out of Lautoka and the motoring was for helping our batteries rather than for propulsion.
We have stopped in at Vuda Point Marina while we sort out our generator. It is near Lautoka. Lucky for us they are installing a new internet system and it is free for the moment. Our generator problem looks to be a minor glitch so we hope to head out of here tomorrow. Once we have sorted out the boat and got fresh food.
We hope you like our photo’s. Lindsay would probably have liked some of when it was rough at the start but we were all too sick or too busy to think of pictures.
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