30deg 01. 831'S 171deg 25.787'E

20th May 2009

The sun has just risen, or so the pink glow around the horizon tells me, the sun itself is hiding behind a bank of grey clouds. I have the sunrise watch, Alan and Jim are both still snoring away in their bunks.

We are nearly half way to Noumea, Norfolk Is is away to port and we are sailing in a light southerly breeze. We left Opua in a brisk NW on Sunday midday, so sailed east for several hours until the wind died then we motored for a few hours until the wind came back with enough west in it to sail towards Noumea. Up until the early hours of this morning we have been sailing in SW winds up to 25knots. The wind died in the night so a few hours of motoring but we are now back sailing, the auto pilot buzzing away confidently in the background.

Jim has just appeared with his breakfast, he must have his sea legs now, with the lumpy seas meals have been fairly small affairs for all of us.

It is a long time since I have written this blog , nearly forgotten how! We have enjoyed our 8 months home in NZ. We still didn't do everything we wanted to do, time goes by far too quickly. The time between Graham picking us up from the Hamilton airport in September and sailing Tuatara out of the Bay of Islands on Sunday has been filled to the brim. The most time has been used getting to know Tuatara and doing work on her. We have enjoyed the company of friends and family on Tuatara. Traveling back to Hamilton to visit Alans mum, 92 yesterday, as well as seeing to our finances in these recessionary times etc etc has filled in the spaces. Thanks to friends and family we had a choice of places to stay in Hamilton we ended up staying mainly with Lyn or Graham which ever house had a free bed when we needed it. Catching up with family and friends as well as making new friends in The Bay has been the theme of the past months.

We now start on our next adventure Noumea, Cairns on to Darwin where we join the Indonesian rally , seems like a rerun of 2007 doesn't it!! We hope to add some variations into this trip, we are taking a different route through Indonesia this time

oops must go outside for fresh air before my sea legs disappear!