By now you've read about our preparation and anxiety over the passage to Opua, New Zealand. It was early afternoon before we could get our anchor up (it took maybe an hour or so) because the circuit breaker failed and we had to use alternative means to lift the heavy chain. Finally we were underway. As we headed out to the pass, another boat that had left about an hour before us passed us on the way back because of halyard malfunction.

Getting out through the pass by following our track was easy and the wind was perfect. We sailed at about 6 knots with a nice close reach and little to no seas. After just a few hours though the wind unexpectedly increased to 28 knots. We reefed down and headed further west to make the ride more comfortable.....Oh I love those new ball bearings! It wasn't until 2300 hours that the wind settled down to 16 knots but we kept the reef in all night. We sailed for about a day and then we lost the wind and started motoring. We had to fight about a knot current against us. By using the motor we now had to deal with another complete set of contingencies should the motor fail. We started doing engine room checks every hour to make sure we weren't loosing oil or leaking salt water. We checked the bilge to be certain the boat wasn't taking on water. The stuffing box, where the shaft goes though the hull drips water slowly to cool the shaft so we counted the drops per minute to see it was working properly. We felt the heat exchanger to be certain that the temp gauge was reading correctly. Checked the belts etc. After the engine room check we wrote down our position in the log and time. After several hours we got more confident that the engine was doing fine and we relaxed our schedule to every two hours.


We motored all night long and the next day with a slight wind on the nose so we just continued to proceed under power. The engine drones on and on and the hours under power are noisy with vibration....not as pleasant as sailing. After about 36 to 48 hours the wind started coming up from the west and we finally could start sailing again YEAH!

We started sailing very fast in a favorable direction but alas the weather gods shifted the wind to the SW and it became more and more difficult to sail in a favorable direction. It built up to about 30 knots and we had to start sailing close hauled but in these condition Always Saturday struggles and our best wind angle was maybe 60 degrees from the eye of the wind. The wind continued backing until it was due south, directly from where we wished to go. At first it was too strong to motor into but gradually is lessened and that allowed us to use diesel power.

Always Saturday was set up to carry 200 gals of diesel which is a large amount for this size boat. We've never needed to use it all but on this trip we decided to motor as much as we could to shorten the trip. The last 400 miles seemed to go on forever. We were exhausted but getting enough rest to carry on. The wind always came from the South and only when it abated to less than 15 knots could we motor. Finally on the last day the wind dropped to 10 knots and we could make 6 knots over ground in the right direction. All in all we motored about 4 to 5 days out of the 8 for the passage.

We reached New Zealand during the afternoon and had a very pretty landfall with verdant mountains and inhospitable shorelines. By the time we got close in though the day ended and we completed the harbor entry at night. All the marks were working and in the right location so it was relatively easy but because of our fatigue we had to be doubly careful.

At 2115 we reached the quarantine dock and fortunately there were some cruisers already there to take our lines. It was cold and dark and as Nancy was passing off the bow line she leaned over the life line and before she knew what happened she fell into the black cold water 3 feet from the dock. She apparently flipped over got disoriented and quite frightened. I didn't even know she had fallen in and was told she was in the water. We were extrememly fortunate that she didn't get caught between the dock and the boat. A man standing on the dock right next to her reached in and pulled her out quickly but it was a frightful experience. After sailing perhaps 7000 miles safely, just at the end we fell onto good luck that she wasn't hurt badly. It seems that it is always better to be lucky than good.

So our Pacific transit is done and we are here in this beautiful harbor and country. When we recover ourselves we'll put the boat back together again...she is salty and discombobulated, we'll fix the anchor windlass and then start enjoying our new location.

Thanks to you all for hanging with us! We do have pictures to post

From the Crew of Always Saturday