Photo: North Cape, New Zealand...

In the misty light of dawn we could just make out the towering cliffs of North Cape, the northern tip of New Zealand. Our five year long destination appeared as a grey, cloudy smudge on the horizon and we both stood staring silently on Sänna's pitching foredeck. Our twelve day sail from Brisbane had certainly been eventful. We'd even logged a record 200 miles in one day, blown by an intense three day storm before the winds died 700 miles out. And somewhere ahead, waiting for us in New Zealand, was Fat Annie...

We knew she was berthed in Whangarei, only a long day distance from us. Sänna and Fat Annie share the same dream, the common bond of soul mates that's taken both vessels half way around the world to this wind battered land transcending out of the morning mist. It seemed to me that Sänna sensed something. She reared her bows and quickened her pace... our incredible journey would soon be over.

Rounding the Cape we were boarded by the Navy. They came aboard and we gave details of the body we'd found in the water some 500 miles out. We provided the position recorded on our GPS and they left us alone to head south east on a brisk north easterly breeze on our port beam. We tracked the spectacular coastline before cutting across the stunning Bay of Islands with the sun setting over the forest clad shore. A gentle sail through the night would bring Sänna to the Whangarei estuary, our destination and Port of entry. Not that long to go now...

This was easy sailing and we needed to slow down. For once, we tried hard to enter port in the coming daylight, having little appetite for another night entry into an unfamiliar estuary we knew held treacherous sandbanks and currents. We timed it well and the sky lost its inky blackness to give us enough light to pick our way around the headland into the buoyed approach channel of the misty Hatea River. In the early morning haze our radio crackled and then, loud and clear, Robert's voice "Sänna, Sänna, Fat Annie, Fat Annie, Over"... She was there, right where she should be, just as the tip of the rising sun appeared above the eastern sea horizon....
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