The wind lightens over the course of the night but Sonsie still chugs away going 3-5 knots on the strength of the full mainsail, staysail and jib. The windvane steers on ably until 4 am when the sails flap as winds diminish. Time for the iron sail. It’s important to make headway but the noise is tedious.

It’s coming up to decision time and the latest available forecast and outlook suggests the easier and wiser option is New Caledonia! It’s thrilling idea, to go to a new land, and having a destination allows us to proceed with a renewed sense of clarity and purpose. I dig out the new courtesy flag and the guidebooks and we get reading.

100 nm west of Cape Reinga we say Good-bye to the Long, White cloud, Aotearoa.

By 15:30 the wind has backed so we cut the noise, turn off the engine and raise the gennaker! Peaceful and powerful, a vast blue, orange and white dream of a sail that fills with air and sucks us along silently towards sunlight shining brilliantly on the water ahead. Gentle swells swoosh us along, giving us a lift astern. It doesn’t get more thrilling! This is what I dreamt of when I was little, growing up 1000 miles inland from the sea, not knowing how, where, or when, but somehow knowing this was possible.

Our innate caution forces us to lower it before nightfall and once again employ the iron sail...