Footnotes from Water Music

Position: 21.35.5S, 174.18.8E

We came out through the Navuka passage at 1630 on Monday afternoon after the delights of Denereau and its swanky marina. For reasons we dont understand, the marina had parked us amongst all the superyachts to clear customs - nothing smaller than a Swan 82, so when we came
back to the boat after clearing customs and spending our last Fiji dollars, Water Music took some finding. On finding that we still had spare dollars, Alistair and Stephen set off to the bottle store - so we shall see what they come back with. On their return to the boat, they bumped in George
& Karina (off the Greek boat) who took the general message that we considered good wine was all we would need en passage. Lets hope they're right. The marina had pretty much all you might need - with the exception of someone who could update the software on our generator. That
means we have no generator and so will have to rely on our water tanks for the first time and use the engine to charge batteries. Neither should be a problem as we believe we have plenty of fuel.

The route we will follow takes us a long way to West - just North of Norfolk Island before we head South through the High and then back to the East for a couple of hundred miles before we get to Cape Reinga at N end of N Island. The total estimated distance is about 1380 miles - which
compares with a rhumb line of about 1050. Lets hope the extra 350 miles is worth it in terms of sea and wind conditions.

Back to the passage. No sooner out of the passage, the wind picked up in a lumpy sea and we found ourselves in 25 knots of wind on a fetch. This was certainly fast - but also pretty wet and so we reefed all sails heavily and settled down to a night where we were averaging over 8 knots
to our first Way Point (near Norfolk). We are joining a radio net twice a day (which covers yachts through a radius of about 1000Nm) to find that we are amongst at least 6 yachts making exactly the same journey and, as far as we know, there are a dozen or so in Tonga about to set off.
For ourselves, we can see nothing - but it is good to know there are other boats around. On the first of these nets, we were told that it always blows out of the SW corner of Fiji, with rough seas and we had about 15 miles to see through before getting back into Trade Winds. This was spot
on advice and our first night did settle down - although it did feel like we had come out of the traps quite fast.

The next 36 hours have passed uneventfully - very little sea life in evidence and the occasional bird. Yesterday was bright and sunny, but the evenings are beginning to get rather colder. A heavy dew forms at sunset and then it is oilskins overnight. Not something we have had to cope
with for some time. Today the moon came up at about 0200 - so in a couple of days we shall have clear view of the stars, clouds permitting, and sunrise is getting earlier. We reckon we now have 10.5 hour nights and the days are lengthening at the rate of about 15-20 minutes a day -
partially as we come out of the tropics and also as we are moving through the southern hemisphere spring.

On the radio net this morning, we heard of some weather warnings further south of us and we are expecting that our long dog leg will take us around any nasty stuff. However, we do k now of a couple of yachts some 500Nm ahead of us have heaved to (stopped the boat completely) to sit
out any bad weather before continuing again. They reckon they may need to do that for 36 hours.

All this means that our trip to Opua will be slower than we had hoped and it may well be the end of next week before we get in. At least we dont hear anything about brexit where we are.

Meanwhile, all is well on board.