Just left Whangarei Harbour

Eleven boats have left Marsden Cove today on their way to Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia or Vanuatu. 

Those of us going to Tonga or Fiji will be making a stop in Minerva Reefs about 800 nautical miles from the mouth of the harbour. In a weeks time there might well be a squally system passing through bring winds from completely the wrong direction. Minerva Reefs is a good place to wait it out before carrying on in our case to Fiji. It should take us about 6 days to get Minerva Reefs.

 There’s no wind at the moment but we are ready for when it comes.  Light winds are expected in the coming days.

The pink lines on the chart plotter show every trip we’ve made in and out of the harbour.

Once we passed Whangarei Heads and out into open water, we texted Customs to let them know we were on our way.  When we left Opua last year a Customs launch came out to the Bay of Islands to keep track of all the boats leaving.  In Marsden Cove there was only Customs agent, Andrew so the onus was on us.

Andrew also checked us out of Opua last year.  It’s hard to not remember his charming Scottish brogue.

We are still using our HomeHub router and will continue to do so until we lose the signal.  We’ll then see if the Skylink router works as well.  If not, there is always the Iridium to fall back on.

You should also still be able to see our progress on the map at the tiptop of our blog.

We are still motoring up the coast at about 5 and a bit knots in about a two metre swell. It’s a little bouncy but over night the wind is due to pickup and the seas to reduce, so with any luck we will have some pleasant sailing.

Thank you for all your good wishes.

Nancy and Tim 

FYI we have just enough wind 8 knots or so for a close hauled sail in not quite the right direction. Tim says the wind will ‘come around’ over night and then we will will be. :)

Just received departure photo complements of Francis and Rob on Alia Vita.