11 March 2012

Great sail from yesterday 0600 to this evening. No rain and long swell. Better than hoped. Now just past Cape Palliser entering Cook Strait between North and South Islands. Should be into Waikawa Bay near Picton late morning. Timing to arrive Tory Channel entrance at slack tide with subsequent 6 knots flood to kick us along will be perfect. Obviously superior navigatorating... or possibly lucked out in the only decent weather window for a few days. Anyway, if we can live through the next 10 hours of no wind, wrong wind & rain and then 4 of the same after that we'll be laughing.

For those of you who are devotees of the Napier Gazette please note that Anthem and crew are renowned. Our 15 minutes of fame describing past adventures and future plans will commence with next issue. Apparently writer Alister was enamored of Jan. Must be because folks in Napier, like the sheep on great Mercury (26 Feb.), don't see many Canadians.

As both the Inspiration Ladys and Jacksters are enjoying life on the hard having their bottoms anti-fouled (no Cal this does not require anything that is squeezably soft) we plan to steal one of their moorings and then con them tomorrow night into buying us sody pops at the local watering hole. This effort will include harrowing tales of terrible storms, crazed tanker pilots and possibly, depending upon how drunk they get, vicious sea monsters from which we barely escaped with our lives. Being from Canada (polite) and the U.K. (unintelligible) they should be easy marks and we expect to get away with it.

Jack