Our stay in Kiwiriki Bay on Great Barrier Island (see previous post) turned out be more of a pit stop. We had planned to stay there for 2-3 days but the weather forecast the next morning meant that to make it to Auckland by Christmas without excessive motoring we would have to leave right away again. So off we went, hot on Seabright's tail for the 25+nm back west to Bon Accord Bay. Flakey wind at times, but a good sail overall. In Bon Accord Bay (the one with old Governpr's Mansion) we had a nice surprise when we saw Victoria anchored there and Heike, Kay, Nicklas and Hannes stopped at Namani later on their way back from shore. We had good laugh at us barely being able to keep up with Seabright's pace during their 2-week vacation. And indeed: by then we had done 300nm of day sailing since leaving Opua a little more than a week earlier...

We did spend a 2nd night in Bon Accord Bay (moving anchorages inside the bay though ;-) and were lucky to be able to tour the old Governor Grey Mansion despite ongoing restauration work. Meanwhile, Beth and Nicky had a great time jumping of the dock their into what we think are still freezing cold waters. Today then we moved on to Tiritiri Island (with a stop in Shipwreck Bay on the way). No we plan to make it into Auckland on Saturday, before the remnants of cyclone Ivan (or Evan?) arrive here on the weekend with lots of rain. We've been a bit cut from the news but apparently this cyclone did some extensive damage in Samoa and Fiji. We have not heard anything about its impact on Tonga yet.