June 18, 2016
With our arrival in Opua, we’re almost done with our season in New Zealand. But New Zealand isn’t done with showing us her ample beautificity (I’ve used the same glowing adjectives to describe New Zealand so many times, I feel I need to start making up some new ones).
Here’s the scene as we rounded Cape Brett this morning.
We’ll rest at least a couple of days in Opua, stock up on chocolate at Makana, cram some more food on the boat (other than the chocolate) and top up the fuel supply. Then we play our weather waiting and watching game again. I hope we’re off to the tropics in the next week or two. It’s COLD here!!!
Recent History: We sailed (well, motored actually) from Nelson to Gisborne and now to Opua – 740 nautical miles in total. We did that to try to find better weather to sail to Noumea, New Caledonia. Of that 740 mile beneath the keel, only 295 of it was made good towards New Cal. The rest of it went into ins, outs, and arounds that didn’t get us any closer to our target. That’s kind of disappointing, but we sure had fun in Gisborne and I really wouldn’t have missed our South Island time for anything. -Rich
