New weather update came in this morning and showed a beautiful window direct to NZ without a stop in Minerva Reef. Tough decision to pass up such a unique locale, lying only 20 measly miles away, but everything says, "go, go, go!" All boats traveling with us concurred on the weather interpretation and made the same decision, altering course direct to NZ. Currently at 12 noon NZ time on Oct 5th (6pm EST 10/4) we have only 780 miles left to go. That's a 4 night journey at our normal speeds.

This lovely wind off our port beam will come behind us and then, die out sometime tonight or tomorrow. We'll motorsail for a while, eating up some of the extra diesel we have. After 24 hours of that, the wind will come up strong from the SE, forcing us to sail west of the rhumbline for about a day. Finally, it will go back into the NNE quarter and then move into the west, off our starboard beam, for our final 24 hour run into NZ. You don't need to be a pro to see how the pressure systems and winds fluctuate quickly in this area of the world.

Looks like we will pull into the customs dock in NZ on October 9th local time. All is well onboard, especially now that we know our team, the Patriots, are winning in the final quarter of their game! Thanks, J!!