Leaving Minerva
27 November 2011
Catherine
28 November 2011
I'm excited. We are 700 miles away from Opua, the conditions are beautiful, we are putting good miles in. We have really noticed a difference in our boat speed now we have a clean hull and hardly any provisions left! We received an update from the weather man in NZ, who said leave at noon on Sunday and don't dilly dally. If possible leave earlier. So, we were all ready to leave at 10am, when another boat returned to the reef with autopilot problems. So we put the motor back on the dinghy and Mark went over to see if he could fix it for them. He found out the problem, but it wasn't a loose wire or a dodgy connection unfortunately. The motor was knackered and he couldn't do anything about that. Luckily, they have other means of steering so hopefully they got those sorted. We had to leave. Bob had said. Three hours later and we were off. We've caught up time nicely though, even passing another yacht (unheard of!!) And whilst I was waiting for Mark to get back, I cleaned the bilges, made some soup and some bread and the boat has never looked so tidy, so all was not in vain!