New Zealand bound tomorrow!

Finally! We’ve very glad to be heading out. We’ve been in Denarau Marina for three days to get the dinghy cleaned and rolled to be stowed belowdeck, our laundry washed and dried, do some final provisioning, fill the freezer with cooked meals and any ripe pineapple, banana and mango for smoothies and muffins.

There are strict rules and regulations as to what you can bring into New Zealand. For example no fresh fruit of vegetables at all, but you can bring in frozen.  

We are expecting a slow drama free passage, maybe a little rain a few days into the passage, and are hoping not to do too much motoring. Diesel is much cheaper here than in NZ and we’d like to arrive with as full a tank as possible.

We are looking forward to the drop in temperature. It’s about 30C/88F here and 20C/68F in New Zealand.

You can keep up with our progress on the blog via our Iridium Satellite Phone. Our position is updated hourly on the map at the top of the blog along with any posts we make to FollowSea.net.

Since the last post, we celebrated Thant Zin’s birthday at the beach bar at Musket Cove Resort. They have BBQ’s available for a small fee. The fee is usually money but in this case was a chicken and pineapple kebab for the bar staff.

From left to right Alistair, Tim, Nancy, Diana and Nigel, Colin and the birthday boy Thant Zin.  Dinner was chicken and pineapple kebabs with peanut sauce and one of Colin’s special salads, a lovely apple crumble and a chocolate cake for dessert.

Alistair is travelling down to NZ with Diana and Nigel on Panta Rei and they have just left Vuda Marina about an hour ago. We just checked them out on Marine Traffic.

Our Customs and Immigration checkout time is 10.00 tomorrow morning and we hope to be on our way by noon. Our passage should take around 8 to 10 days. We do have a great big High pressure between us and NZ that should eventually help speed up the second half of the passage.

All that’s left now to do is bake a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. :)