Extremely slow progress to New Zealand today. We only went 6nm between 9am and 5:30pm. Due to the weather changing so that the winds are on our nose we have had to go north west for most of the day and are actually still going west. This will continue until the wind swings around and the sea state calms down so we are not pounding into the sea. Last night started well and as my shift ended the wind decided to do the change and so I got little sleep as we were still going south but pounding. In the end I was not too impressed and said to Neil to go any direction, but not continue into the wind and seas as the pounding for hours was horrible. He changed course slightly and it became more bearable. So we have been on that course for most of the day.

Winds are still high at the moment and we have had 2m seas. Some waves have been close period waves, others not too bad. For lunch it was so bouncy that I microwaved popcorn and gave Neil a bag of popcorn and a bowl of fruit. He looked amused and I said, "Well it was the only thing I could think of that was easy and would not slide all over the place". When I gave him the popcorn, I said for him to imagine he was at the movies and he chose to see Castaway with Tom Hanks. Neil actually didn't mind the popcorn, as he likes it and I also thought I might as well use it up, as Time Bandit said the only thing that immigration took off their boat after going through all the food, was their popcorn. Tonight will be another pasta meal as we finished off the curry last night.

Today, we got more weather updates from Bob and new waypoints to head to. The disappointing thing is he has added an extra way point which has added another day to our trip. Not happy about that and every day it seems like I have 6 days to go!! The trip has been changed and increased three times now. The reason he has added the extra waypoint is because of the front that arrives Friday/Saturday. We will have to go through the end part of it to head to New Zealand before the next front comes. The swell is going to be 3-4 m and winds up to 35 knots. Not what I wanted to hear, but what I suppose we expected. So to avoid being in worse conditions and in the middle of the front we will go more west and take longer to get south. So the actual time we will arrive, is constantly changing and so I will just do one day at a time.

I was net controller today which gave me something to do, but it was a little rocky at times. Signing off now as the winds have picked up again and I am not feeling too good writing the blog.

Our position is 26 degrees 23.453 minutes S and 176 degrees 46.341 minutes E. We are doing a course of 274 degrees True and we have a boat speed of 5.8 knots (we are heavily reefed) in 17 knots from the S. Lovely sunny day with 20% cloud cover. Barometer is 1014. We have 553nm as the crow flies to Opua.