The Sea definitely let’s you know who’s in command during the first 24 hours out. It’s a salty, rough process as we relearn the rhythms - it’s our first passage since February 2016.

First, we need to grow sea legs, get used to balancing, standing, living in the saddle on the back of a restless, bucking bronco of a sea. It is astonishing at this point to think that soon we will barely notice the outrageous, disorienting, ceaseless swaying, pitching, lurching, rolling, bucking motion.

Second, we need to adjust our sense of time, get used to the sleep interruptions and fatigue, get into a watch cycle that works for us.

Third, we need to accept and 1. not overthink the weather, stop fretting about whether there will be too much or too little wind, fronts, gales or doldrums, sudden changes or no changes, and 2. not worry about all the possible misfortunes that might befall us!

And this time setting out we also have the added conundrum of, Where exactly are we going?

Jim’s mulling the implications of the nice big High that’s settling in. Steady, warm weather can also mean calm.. . our fuel tanks are full but our top range is 600 nautical miles and we’ve 1200nm to go anywhere near the next bit of land. I’m concerned I’ll get seasick, that awful debilitating mal de mer, which I usually do when setting out on a passage. Thankfully I don’t! Just a few dry retches and I’m good to go - what a relief to not have to go through that torment!

And just as thankfully the wind picks up a little, to 12-15 knots, 6 hours after departing Nelson harbour, so we can shut off the Yanmar and sail!

Off we go, our little sea-kindly cockleshell of a boat, out the western end of Cook Strait, heading North in mild southerlies. The swells at 3-4 metres, languidly sweeping up from the Southern Ocean gales, are a fraction of what they were last week and in the process of diminishing.