February 9, 2022 – real-time
“You were here just two weeks ago and heading south! What happened? Why are you back at our Island?!”
Good question sheeple, and I hope you don’t mind having us in your bay again.
To answer your question(s), we got to Tauranga before the weather turned bad, took advantage of our time there to get Legacy’s bottom painted, and then couldn’t see any weather in the near future to get further south. Rather than sitting at the marina for another 10 days or three months, we headed north.
Yesterday’s ride was miserable with rain and very, very lumpy seas. We took shelter here at Great Mercury Island with our sheep friends (nice photo Cyndi) and tomorrow we’ll probably head to Great Barrier Island. Oh well, such is cruising!
We always tell ourselves that we are willing to wait, and wait, and wait until we get good weather to make the passages as pleasant as possible. Pleasant passages might not be coming this season for a trip south. To add to this, there isn’t that much of a carrot to offset the stick of long, hard passages We’ve already been as far south as Stewart Island. It’s beautiful but we have a little been-there-got-the-t-shirt mentality about it. I think the carrot we need next will look a lot like warm, clear, tropical water. We’ll see. -Rich
