Mon, 10 Dec 2001
Greetings to All --
We arrived in Opua, New Zealand (in the Bay of Islands at the north of the North Island) on Wednesday 5 December after an excellent eight-day passage from Tonga. We had light winds for the first two days but then the wind picked up from the E/ENE and we had nice winds from just aft of the beam for a comfortable, quick ride for the next five days. We were very glad for winds from this direction as lots of the boats ahead of us had had to go directly into the wind which makes for a slower, uncomfortable ride. The winds were a bit light the last day so we motor sailed as we still had almost all of our diesel left. This calm weather gave us a good opportunity to get the boat cleaned up for customs and take showers ourselves. We were very glad that we got to make landfall in the afternoon on a nice sunny day, it just makes all the difference in the world as opposed to coming in at night and/or in the rain. We ended up by passing Minerva Reef as we had nice wind from a great direction when we were passing the entrance and a wonderful weather window for the passage. So we just kept on going and were glad we did. Perhaps we will stop at Minerva Reef on our way back up next year. All in all we were very happy with the passage and feel fortunate that we did not take a "pasting" as can frequently be the case.
The evening before we arrived we had a group of dolphins riding our bow wake. It was wonderful to have this welcome to New Zealand and especially nice as we had not seen dolphins for quite a while. The day we made landfall one of the boats a few hours ahead of us had caught a nice yellow fin tuna so we put out the line and caught a nice three-foot plus Mahi Mahi! She provided enough food for two great dinner parties with friends once we were into Opua. Once through customs and quarantine we received a wonderful "Welcome to New Zealand" packet from our friends Rick and Mary on Tranquility consisting of a liter of milk, half a dozen eggs and loaf of bread. It was a nice treat as customs and quarantine had just taken away our milk and eggs an hour before so now we could get up the first morning and make breakfast with these great fresh items without having to go to the store. We passed this wonderful tradition on to good friends from Canada on Elakha (Gordon, Lynn, Colin and Aiden) when they arrived two days later.
We had one more day of sunshine then it absolutely poured rain the next two days with lots of wind. As one friend described it, the rain was of "almost Biblical proportions." But the sun started to come out Sunday and we headed out for some of the anchorages. Found a nice, well protected bay and caught up with Wendy and Garth on Velella and some other friends. We have taken some nice hikes in the area and are enjoying the beautiful scenery, meadows, glens, forests, flowering Pahutukawa Trees and sheep grazing in meadows.
Trying to decide what our plans will be for the next few weeks but will probably end up exploring this area for at least one or two more weeks, perhaps spending Christmas and maybe New Year’s in this area. There is just so much to see. It’s a treat to find well stocked grocery stores and to be able to get almost anything that you want, but we are especially enjoying the wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. We are frequently reminded of all the things we take for granted at home. Lots of our friends are buying cars to do errands and take land exploration trips and we have been able to tag along at times. You can get a really nice car here for about US$2,500 or more of a beater for about US$1,000 then resell the car before you leave for US$500 more or less than what you paid. This car option may not work as well for us as we plan to move about a bit more on the boat. Will have to wait and see what happens. On another note we do have to add that it looks really impressive when we look at a map of the world and see how far we have come.
Hope this finds everyone well and preparing for the Holiday Season. We wish you all the very best for the coming weeks.
All our best – Suzette and Paul