Two At Sea

December 10, 2015

We’re on the move again. After a change in plans, we’re going to harbor-hop down the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island until we get to Wellington. From there, it’s a short trip across the Cook Straight to the South Island.

Our first stop surprised both of us – Bland Bay.

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We didn’t think we’d make it this far, having left the dock at 1PM. If we did make it this far, we’d planned to anchor in one of the usual spots: Whangamumu or Whangaruru. The wind came up. The seas got rough. The tiny ship was tossed. Oh wait, that’s Gilligan’s Island. We weren’t tossed much at all, but it would be more comfortable if we could stop before Whangaruru.

Bland Bay? Anchoring here saved us at least an hour over winding up into Whangaruru. David Thatcher, author of popular NZ cruising guides says this isn’t a good overnight spot. We disagree. We had a great night, not quite out of the wind but there was no fetch from the southerly wind we had. There was also very little east swell running. We could see how that might be a problem if there were. David Thatcher must have been here during an east swell. (Click to enlarge and scroll through pictures below.)

Below is a photosphere of Bland Bay. Click on it and after it loads, you can pan up, down, and all around. You can also zoom in. It’s not perfect. I have a hard time taking these on a moving boat, but it should give you a feeling for the place.

Anchor Waypoint:
We anchored at about 35°, 20.62′ South, 174°, 21.56′ East in about 16 feet of water. There’s tons of room here and the bottom feels like sand or mud. We felt no rocks where we anchored.

-Rich

December 1, 2015

We ran across this picture that we took earlier in the year and it was strange seeing it out of context…

We have a little slide show that runs on our computer desktop and randomly selects a picture to display from all the pictures we’ve taken on this almost four year cruise. This one was from May of this year, taken in Australia at the Sydney Aquarium.

Not so strange when you see the entire sawfish, but we were momentarily sure we’d snapped a pretty good photo of an alien. -Rich

November 2015

Thoughts about this…

The amount of time we ran the engine came as a surprise to me. It didn’t feel like we motored that much. Actually, we motored for a full day or more at the beginning of the trip in very light winds. When the wind came up strong and headed us, we continued to motor through the boisterous conditions because we were able to point higher into the wind and it also made it more comfortable as we could use less sail (with a more slack trim) to make way. We motored another day at the end of the passage when the wind died.

We didn’t motor much to charge. Our new solar panel is amazing! We did motor a couple of times during the night when the wind dropped below ten knots. We wanted the speed and the electricity didn’t hurt either.

There were a couple of times during the light wind times mentioned above when we’d have been very happy sailing in light winds and making 3.5 to 4 knots but as usual, we were racing a front in to New Zealand. That always seems to be the case!

The other thing that surprised me was our fuel consumption. I’ve seen it just above a half a gallon an hour but never below. I guess the wind was just helpful enough that we could run the engine slower than usual. It doesn’t take much wind-assist to really up the mileage.
-Rich

Our track (crooked line) versus the rhumb line, displayed on openCPN on my android phone.

November 2015

Pictures from our passage from Fiji to New Zealand…

November 2015

A Warm Passage!

Usually it’s a very cold passage and cold when we arrive in New Zealand. Not so this time. It was very pleasant and most of the time, we slept without a blanket and wore only minimal clothing.

A few days before New Zealand, we broke out a light blanket. A couple of days before arrival, we broke out the comforter. The day before, Cyndi found it necessary to sleep buried…

That’s OK. It got so hot in Fiji just before we left that this is very welcome. And besides, it’s usually much colder here this time of year. Thank you El Nino (or global warming)! -Rich