We're in the middle of our first rain squall and Jim says he can tell we're getting closer to his home, New Zealand. Its colder today - 20 deg outside and the boys are out in the rain. Jim is nice and dry as he has new super duper wet weather gear on. Greg's getting colder and wetter as he has his old Henry Lloyds wet weather gear on, bought in Hong Kong about 17 years ago. He really needs replacement gear. At least it's not freezing cold (yet!!!) to boot.

This is the south westerly cold front we have expecting, at least the wind has come up and enabled us to start steering in the right direction. This morning, early hours, 3am when I was on watch, we were heading for Norfolk Island. We were also in very light wind conditions and looking forward to a bit of action. So we were able to get that in as we had to pull the big colourful spinnaker and shorten the sails.

The cook, well I more like to call myself the chef, sprung to action and before the rain hit I gave the boys bikkies and cheese. Then when it hit served them cup a soup as per their request. I said a happy crew is a well fed crew. Brother Jim said a happy ship has a Debbie in the galley which made me very happy.

We still have 548 miles to go to Opua, New Zealand, our entry port. It's been a longish trip so far, as we've had to tack back and forth therefore not head in the right direction. So here's hoping we make it in time for Jim to get on his plane on Oct 22nd to attend a conference in Newport Beach, California.

Not much sea life, or bird life out here, although Jim said he did see a bird yesterday and also a couple of dolphins. We haven't been fishing as we still had fish left over from the one we caught on the way out of Fiji. Also, we don't want to catch any more as we probably wont have time to eat it before New Zealand. All our fresh food and veggies will be confiscated, so we're trying to eat everything up. We had our last bit of fish last night, I served chilli fish with long beans and savoury potatoes and carrots. It was really yummy.