This morning we are 350 miles from the BOI's and we can feel that southerly bite in the air. The warm clothes are coming out of seldom used lockers now. The sea temperature is dropping too so no more bare feet below deck either as the cabin floor tends to mirror sea temp. Yesterday was a bouncy one with wind up around the 30 knot mark and large breaking seas. Rather uncomfortable, but it has since eased and is now quite pleasant again. The wind is coming right from where we want to go now, so the next few days are going to be a slow hard slog which will probably delay our arrival in Opua by a day or two. You will see from the map that we are traveling basically across the top of New Zealand to get in westerly miles before the forecast south westerlies winds arrive so that will put us on a better angle to travel south into the Bay of Islands. We have plenty of fuel, food and time, so no problems with that. We'll try to keep updating our blog but are having more trouble connecting to sailmail now that we are moving further south.