It's only been a short 6 months since I've posted. Thanks to Sophie for covering our entire 6 month New Zealand stay.We're in Opua, a little harbour near the northern end of New Zealand. It's the main point of arrival and departure for yachties. 450 boats arrived this season, and presumably will all leave sometime in the coming weeks. Hopefully not all on the day we decide to finally leave.
We are basically ready to go. The freezers and pantries are stuffed with provisions, fuel tanks are brimming, and the boat is rigged for ocean crossing. Now we just need the weather to cooperate. That's the big challenge with NZ: It's hard to get to, and it's hard to leave. In order to have favorable conditions, we need all the stars to align because during the crossing we will go through two different major weather systems. So, either it's bad down here in NZ, or it's bad up in the tropics. Right now we're waiting for a nasty low to pass New Caledonia so that we don't sail right through it (see the picture). We're hoping to leave next Saturday and just skirt the back edge of it. If the weather models are correct, we'll have a lot of wind and big waves, but both from a favorable direction making for a fast, bumpy passage. 5 1/2 days to New Caledonia would be fast. 4 1/2 would be warp-speed (speaking of which the new Star Trek movie rocked).
In the meantime we continue to work on the boat getting more projects done. Austin has been re-stringing our Spectra trampoline with Vectran rope (a liquid-crystal fiber) lashings to eliminate stretch. Our trampoline is the envy of all the other catamarans in the marina here. Now I just need to defend against our neighbors' constant attempts to recruit Austin away from us...
