We are loving this passage to New Zealand! How people can do this year after year (and we know of some that do) we have no idea. We have 200 miles left to persevere and hope that nothing breaks to make it longer. At change of shift on night watch we tell each other to sleep well, more as a joke than anything because as of the past 2 nights, there's been too much motion for sleep; we just flop around unintentionally. I said to Jon today to "wake when it's over" and we both agreed that next to teleportation, that would be a pretty sweet thing. Or, you could just not head this way and that would fix it too! That'll be our plan for next year. Like a fellow NZ cruiser who's on passage with us said today: "if you want to play, you have to pay" and we did have a great few months of playing. I used to think staying up all night was a big deal in college but now I can not only stay up all night, I can do this for days on end!

We've enjoyed traveling next to Mark & Anne. Each day, we chit chat on the VHF about the weather, what water is coming in from where on our respective boats, what's on the menu and other random thoughts. It's nice seeing their sail on the horizon by day and their nav lights in the dark. While we do believe every boat has to be responsible for themselves and go at their own pace, the truth is that there is safety in sailing with someone else. From having a better shot at being rescued sooner than later should you have to take to your liferaft to having more brains and potential manpower to sort a difficult situation, you can't beat having a friend nearby. But, as the wind picked up yesterday and we had to head even closer to the wind, Blue Rodeo pulled away from us with their increased waterline and we are bringing up the rear. We were joking on the radio about how we could really stand to "tie one on" when we get to Opua since any kind of overindulgence appeals at this point but the reality is once the motion finally stops, your body gets the message that it can stop too and you become a cheap date.

A couple of days ago, we sailed by Norfolk Island which we didn't even know existed until last year but we didn't pass close to it on our way from Tonga. I'm not even sure who it belongs to (maybe Australia?) but it is inhabited and you can go in there to anchor, especially if the weather is bad. Since ours is some version of good in these parts, we didn't stop. It was really odd to see it though, this many days out to sea, and not be stopping. We noticed a lot more sea birds hovering around our wake so you could tell land was near. Other than this distraction, there hasn't been much else to report. At one point I asked Jon what he was thinking and he uttered "primitive thoughts". I'll agree, after a few days out you do get to thinking pretty primitively. It's about basic needs and what other things you might wish you could be doing.

BUT.... we are really looking forward to another season in NZ and a good arrival to reunite with friends in Opua. We won't have much time to waste since we need to get to Whangarei in preparation to head back to the US but hopefully we'll be able to fit in a walk we did in Opua last year that was really fun. It runs along the shore through varied terrain and you take ferries on either end of the trail. It's early spring there so all the plans are just coming up. I hope it works out that we can do this!

Thanks for all of the emails that have kept us company this trip. They help exercise our brains and give us something to think about other than the waves and wind!