A change of plan - instead of stopping at Minerva reef we are heading straight to Nz. The weather looks ok, although we may have some light winds, so we are expecting a lot of motoring. The next low/trough is due in Northern NZ on the 17th and we should arrive a few days before that. We have been communicating with Bob McDavitt and he has confirmed our interpretation of the weather, and provided us with a voyage forecast. The wind peaked last night to 20 knots and has been between that and 17 knots all day. We put a reef in to make things a little bit more comfortable but with the wind angle at 60 degrees we are healing a fair bit and banging through the swell. Not terribly comfortable. The biggest problem is getting the toilet to flush as we are on a port tack and the toilet inlet is on that side. So we have had to use some precious fresh water to flush. But the watermaker is working and we only have 6 days before we arrive in Opua, so things are not dire by any means. Yesterday we managed 157nm and currently we are sailing at 6.5 knots with 17 knots of wind.