We arrived in NZ on Saturday, Dec. 8th after a surprisingly pleasant passage from Tonga.
Over the last several months there has been much discussion, apprehension, weather pattern dissection and general anxiety around this last leg of the journey, so we were prepared for the worst but ended up having an easy passage of a total 10 days at sea.
We left Nuku’alofa, Tonga on the 26th and had a pleasant sail for two days, then pulled into Minerva Reef on the morning of November 28th and spent two days there in the company of four three other boats. It is a strange sensation to be anchored in the middle of the Pacific with no land in sight – though at low tide you could walk/wade on parts of the reef.
On Nov. 30th we left the reef and had a gentle day and a half of sailing until the wind died and we fired up the engine. Then it was almost two days of motoring through the high, in calm seas. For the first time we started watching movies on the computer during night watch which is a good way to stay awake! (Of course we would be frequently checking the horizon throughout the movie for any other ships). Then some more pleasant sailing in 12-15 kt NW winds on the aft quarter until the evening of Dec. 6th when the cold front we had been anticipating finally hit, bringing gusty and squally SW winds of 20-25 which slowly backed around westerly and got stronger, blowing around 30 kts for just about 12 hrs on Friday, then slowly diminishing back into the 20 kt range. Seas got somewhat rough during the height of the blow but Picara sailed fast with the wind around the beam and a triple-reefed main with staysail and a tiny scrap of genoa out.
We approached the NZ coast in the wee hours of the morning on Dec. 8th, still having a bit of a wild ride but as we got into the lee of the North Island we noticed the seas smoothing down even as far as 25 NM out.
It was still dark as we entered the Bay of Islands at around 4 am. We watched the sun come up and sniffed up the scent of green trees and cold dirt (as opposed to palms and sand) as we made our way in with light winds and smooth seas in the inshore waters.
By 7:30 am we were tied up at the Quarantine dock in Opua and telling sea stories with our friends who had just completed the crossing with us!
Hooray!
More tonga updates and NZ soon to come...