We’ve only been here a few days, but we’re really enjoying the place and the people. Everyone is so nice.

It feels really strange though to be:

-Wearing long pants -Wearing a jacket -Wearing shoes -Using blankets -Turning the heater on at night before bed -Driving a car (we rented one and on the wrong side of the road!)

We’re in a beautiful area named Opua. In a week or so, we’ll be heading down to Whangerie where we’ll leave the boat when we come home for the holidays. We drove there today. It’s a pretty good size town, so a good place to work on Charisma after the last year’s wear and tear. We need to haul out and paint the bottom and then renew the varnish (much of which is peeling from the tropical heat).

In Whangerie we bought a prepaid cell phone and a wifi wireless device (both from Vodaphone) to drive internet on the boat. My iPhone is way too expensive to use. Talk about simple. It took all of ten minutes to have phone, wifi device and load both with minutes of use. AT&T could really learn a thing or two from these guys. You can reload the minutes at any store or gas station. This way we know exactly how much we’re using/paying and won’t get one of those surprise $400 phone bills.

Teaching old dogs, new tricks. Here’s a good one. One of the nav lights we use when under power went out on the last night we used it. There’s a young guy here named Falcon who has been cruising with his family literally all his life at this point. I think he’s about 23 years old. So, I asked him if I could pay him to go up the mast and change the bulb. I’m too big for the winches on Charisma and I thought I could just winch him up and get it done. Well, he asked me; “what are you going to do if you have to go up sometime when you’re in the tropics at some uninhabited island?” Me; “Er, um, ah, I don’t know?” He said he’d come over and help me rig a block and tackle so I could haul myself up. I had always thought that I would be too heavy to hoist myself up, but once he got a 6:1 block and tackle set up, I sat in the bosun’s chair and voila, I could pull myself up with one hand! So, tomorrow I go up with a new bulb. Nice to know I now have the capability. Thanks Falcon!

This evening we went to a “cultural event” as it was termed. It was a historical play created to teach the history of New Zealand from the first Polynesians who came from Tahiti through the late 1800s when British Settlers came to terms with the Maouris (more or less-it’s complicated). Anyway, it was done in a beautiful ancestral house, hand carved to represent all the dozens of tribes in New Zealand. Really well done and fun.

So we now have cultural and a new phone. “Sweet as” (which is the saying down here for “cool”).

Good on ya mate.

Position: Opua, New Zealand

At the quarantine dock. You have to wait here with your yellow "Q" flag up until customs, immigration and quarantine all check you in. Took about three hours, but there were about four boats all checking in at once.

The view from Charisma in the Marina at Opua, New Zealand

Yay! We made it all the way from California to New Zealand! Now that's worth a beer to celebrate.

This is a delightful place on the Northeast tip of the north island of New Zealand.

Last night we battled through one last weather front with several associated squalls and 25+ knot winds. It’s gotten to be “business as usual” to get up in the middle of the night to make sail changes and adjustments, so we just did it and soldiered on, but the big difference is that we never had a chance to go back to sleep since we were on plan to make landfall this morning. We got in at 0800 local, got checked in with immigration, customs and quarantine, then signed up for a slip for a few days (which includes showers!!). A little lunch and we were back on Charisma in the early afternoon for a nap. Next thing we knew it was 2000 local time and John from Orcinius (bless him) was outside the boat calling us. Turned out there was a group who were going out to dinner and he came down and got us. If he had not have woken us, we would have missed a great meal out with many of our friends.

OK, I’m rambling because I haven’t had enough sleep yet. Going now. More detail to come, but WE’RE IN NEW ZEALAND!

Position: 34 degrees, 09 minutes south; 174 degrees, 05 minutes east

We’re 59 nautical miles from our waypoint just outside of Opua, New Zealand (Ann is getting very excited). We will probably get into the main bay around sun up and then it’s a couple hours further on into the bay and back to the marina area where we can check into the country and anchor.

At 9000+ miles from Berkeley, we’ve been reminiscing about this last year and what was the most fun etc, etc. One of the things that really stands out, but which has been unexpected has been the friends we’ve made along the way. Both among other cruisers as well as locals whom we’ve met and been given such hospitality. We planned to “see” lots of stuff along the way, but the friendships we’ve made have been a surprise and a delight.

There is no better illustration of this than in the email we got yesterday from our buddies on Orcinius, John and Lisa. They said they had; “…a bottle of champagne and box of dark chocolates waiting…” to help us celebrate the end of an amazing journey. Wow! This is the kind of thoughtfulness that we’ve found in this sailing community that we’ve been fortunate enough to have been part of these many months.

Champagne and dark chocolate. Until we got the email we were just thinking of this trip as another leg in the adventure. But it’s actually a reminder that we’ve made it to New Zealand (well, in 59 more miles)! All of a sudden I realized we’ve sailed all the way across the Pacific Ocean. Pretty cool!

So thanks John and Lisa (and everyone else we’ve met along the way) for your kindness, your friendship and the reminder that tomorrow is a day to really commemorate. An adventure is completed. What next? We’ll see about that, so you’ll have to stay tuned.

And thanks to all our readers who have made this blog part of their day and especially those who have shared some comments with us along the way. The comments are our nightly entertainment and we have enjoyed them tremendously.

We’ll keep writing for a month as we continue to sail south to Whangerie. There we will tie up for a bit and fly back to the Bay Area for the holidays.

We’ll be back on December 12 through January 31st.

“

Position: 32 degrees, 00 minutes south; 173 degrees, 33 minutes east

There are six or seven other boats out here with us doing the Opua Dance right now. What’s that? Well, you move to the left, then you move to the right and try to match the moves of our capricious partner, the wind. in other words, we’re all sailing back and forth trying to be the first boat to get to the westerly winds that are forecast so we can sail into Opua. Right now we’re all scattered over about a 200 mile stretch. Who’s going to find the wind first. We tacked this morning from our position well to the northeast. Opua is now bearing 150 degrees, but the dance has us going 120 degrees. In other words, we’re going more west than we want to. Some boats are heading 230 degrees on the other tack, and others who got blown further east by the storm are just trying to get back somewhere near the original course to NZ. It’s a dance right now because the present wind is coming right from Opua which is the port we’re all trying to get to in order to clear into the country. In our case, I believe we tacked at about the right place. The wind has to only shift 30 degrees for us to be going straight in. Cross fingers. If we can the shift sometime tonight we can be in by Monday.

In the mean time we wait. Fortunately the wait is not unpleasant. Now that we’re two days removed from the storm we have had a glorious sailing day. 6 foot long period swells, 10-12 knot winds and clear blue skies. If we weren’t so anxious to get in after being out for 9 days now, we’d really be loving it. Actually we are loving it. Tonight promises a stunning display of bright stars in a clear night sky. So it’s not all bad our here doing the dance, waiting for our partner to make her next move so we can make ours and together dance into New Zealand, some 9000 miles from where we’ve come these last 12 months. It’s a dance sailors have been doing for centuries, so we’re in good company.

Position: 31 degrees, 05 minutes south; 173 degrees, 53 minutes west

Even after the main part of the storm it was still smokin'

After a long second night, the wind and waves finally eased this morning and we were able to take down the storm sails and put up our regular ones. We’re still double reefed on the main, but the wind is only 15-20 and the waves are down to maybe 6 feet. It still seems a bit boisterous because we hard on the wind-which means we’re going into the waves and Charisma is tilted on a 40 degree angle, but at least we’re sailing again instead of just hanging on.

First off, the crew of the boat I mentioned yesterday that got in trouble have been rescued. A large ship diverted and they were picked up after waiting 15 hours for the ship and then for the seas to subside enough for the ship to deploy a boat to pick them up. It appears that early reports of a crew washed over were incorrect, so it seems all are OK. I don’t know what the disposition of the boat is-whether they are going to scuttle it or if it will just float around and people will have to watch out. Hopefully the former. I hate to think about having that thing floating out here in the night seas with no lights.

Our night last night was long because in the after effects of the storm there was a combination of moderate wind in the high 20’s and gusty squalls into the low 30’s. The combination made the sea state incredibly confused and we were bouncing around like a cork. The combination of the storm day and last night where we couldn’t really control our course and just went with the wind and seas put us around 140 miles off course to the southwest. Fortunately there’s a wind shift coming in a day or so that should help us get back to where we need to go. It’s predicted to shift from the southeast, which is where it is now, around to the south (not good for us since we’re going south) and then around the other side to the southwest and then west. These last two shifts will allow us to tack and then run downwind into Opua. We’ll probably be a half day later than planned on the optimistic side and maybe 36 hours late if the wind doesn’t shift at favorable times. For now we’re sailing a course of 220 degrees True which puts us north of the north island of New Zealand. At any rate, we’ve got a day or so before we need to worry about what tactic to use to get southeast.

One thing about going south. Even though it’s Spring down here going to Summer, it’s getting colder. It’s like going from Mexico to San Francisco. The flip flops we’ve been wearing for a year now have been replaced by wool socks and sea boots and we’re both layering. Tonight I’m going with thermal underwear, a vest, a sweater and a jacket with wool cap. Ann’s following a similar route. Part of it is that we’ve been in the tropics so long now. For instance I was very cold last night sitting in the cabin and decided to look at the thermometer to see if it had hit freezing yet. It was 65 degrees F! So I guess we have some acclimatizing to do now that we’re away from the equatorial regions.

But, I miss my flip flops.

Position: 30 degrees, 06 minutes south; 175 degrees, 23 minutes east

This is about 12 hours before the storm. Once it hit, we were kinda busy...

We got pushed about 100 miles west of where we wanted to be.

Wow, last night was a very long night. Before I tell about it, I’ll say that we’re doing well right now. Just had dinner, the wind is moderating and the seas are going down. We’re still under storm sails and will leave them up all night tonight if for no other reason than to have low maintenance and be able to get some sleep.

So, the storm. It was almost a cyclone. Labeled a “Tropical Depression”, it was a doozy. Very good that we were not further to the north where the center was. Up there the storm brought up to 74 mile/hour winds.

In fact (and very unfortunately) about 300 miles north of us a boat that was too late in leaving got caught right in the middle of it and apparently rolled sometime in the night or early morning. Their EPIRB, or emergency beacon went off and there was a search started. The boat has been found. One person is missing and presumed washed overboard in the rollover (why we wear harnesses at night and day during inclement weather) and there is some other injury on board. We don’t know any more, but it’s going to be 15 hours before a ship can get to them. The New Zealand search and rescue is flying planes looking for the person washed over. Our prayers are with them all. This all happened in the vicinity of Minerva Reef which is where we were a few days ago and is why we didn’t stop there. We were literally racing south to get away from it.

As for us, we were very glad to have switched to storm sails before the big winds and waves hit during the night. The wind was sustained over 35 knots gusting to 45 knots. I saw a 47 as the top speed when I was watching. The average sea height was in the range of 16 feet and I believe some were higher although tough to see in the dark. What you see is a white glow which is the top of the wave breaking and if it’s substantially above your head you duck and hang on, so not a lot of time to assess wave heights although this morning when they were still up I have to say they were impressive!

Charisma did well. Reaching along with the storm jib and trysail at about 6 knots, we were able to parallel the waves for the most part. If they had gotten much taller or the wind exceeded 45 knots for any length of time I would have hove to, as we were close to going too fast. We took a couple big hits, one was so big I involuntarily shouted, “Oh!” when it hit. The boat shuddered which I could feel through my feet and up my spine, but after shaking it off, Charisma was back on her feet and moving forward again. There’s no damage. One of the jerry cans of water came loose on the foredeck and I had to go up there. It was too heavy to mess around with in those conditions, so I just emptied it and brought it into the cabin. The Monitor wind vane did an excellent job steering so we could just hunker down in the cabin. At one point the steering lines came off the wheel, but Charisma kept more or less on course until I had time to put on foul weather gear, PFD, harness and go out and fix it.

There’s been some other miscellaneous damage to the fleet that we heard about on the net during the morning roll call. A couple of boats have blown out sails, one boat had a port hole blown and took on some water before they patched it and you could hear how tired and stressed people were. For our part, other than the jerry can, the head isn’t working. The water intake isn’t letting water in for flushing, so we have resorted to a flat bucket we have that we put under the seat and then dump over side. It’s working without too much trouble for now. I’m just too tired to deal with it at this point, but will fix it in the days to come.

Speaking of days; unfortunately we had to “run off” a bit to keep from smashing into the big waves, so our schedule has been delayed by a day or two. We were hoping for landfall on Sunday, but at this point with the wind changes coming that are moving the wind around to the south (which is right where we want to go) we’re looking at more like Monday or Tuesday. Tonight’s going to be slow because the wind is alternating between the mid-twenties and low thirties and the waves are very confused and still steep although not as tall, but it all adds up to the fact that we can’t make any kind of speed in the right direction. So we’re kind of trimmed to go slowly but comfortably (and safely) and we’ll catch up on sleep. Tomorrow should bring better conditions and we’ll drop the storm sails and get going again. Fortunately we have lots of food, rum and beer, so we’re set.

There it is. We’re in the Tasman, we met Gale and she was a beaut.

P.S. For Orcinius watchers-they reported on the afternoon net that they are two hours from Opua as of 4:30 this afternoon (the 8th in New Zealand. The 7th for you all). We are thrilled for them and a bit jealous too! Soon we will join them. Our advance team has landed!

Position: 29 degrees, 03 minutes south; 177 degrees, 16 minutes east

…Changed from the big jib to the small one while the weather was nice Took down the mainsail and put up the storm trysail Took down the staysail and put up the storm jib In general, battened down the hatches

Because it’s blowing and the waves are getting large. We’re definitely in the Southern Ocean. As one of the other boats said on the radio net this evening; “I’m in the Southern Ocean and I don’t like it!”

It’s dark now and we’re glad we made all the changes because it’s no fun to go up on the foredeck in the middle of the night with waves breaking over the bow and 38 knots of wind trying to turn the sail you’re trying to take down into a raging beast that’s struggling to toss you over the side.

This all started yesterday when we sailed through a squall line. I didn’t realize at the time that since the barometer had dropped two millibars, this squall line was actually a weather front. We had been tooling along in 12 knots of wind and as we sailed through the rain and out the other side, the wind literally jumped to 25 knots and the waves went from a couple feet to 6 feet. That fast. So we went with it but after dinner had a discussion about the weather forecast we had and decided we had better drop the mainsail and go with the storm trysail. It would be a bit slower, but we wouldn’t have to wrestle with it at 3 in the morning if the wind came up as advertised. Well, not 30 minutes after we made the change the wind came up to sustained 28 gusting into the 30’s and seas doubled in height and became confused and very rough. Dodged a bullet there. A little later in the evening a breaking wave dropped into the cockpit. There was so much water it literally floated one of the floorboards out of place.

The seas are so steep and rough as Charisma goes up them you’re eyes sink into your cheeks from the acceleration and then on the way back down you lift off your seat like being in an elevator. We have to be very careful when moving around that we don’t just fly off into space.

So, we made it through the night OK, although it was a little nerve wracking. We still had the stays’l up and the wind was getting past its limits. So, this morning we decided to drop that and go with the storm jib. Well again, good thing because now the wind is sustained in the 30’s gusting to 40 (with rain squalls) last I looked. We don’t even see 20’s anymore on the annenometer. It’s blowing hard and the seas are getting really nasty. But at least we’re snug with our smallest sails. Two little sails, each about the size of a Laser sail, but we’re still doing 6 and 7 knots. Other than the seas slamming into the side of the boat and occasionally going over the top, we’re pretty snug. We’re keeping the hatches closed and sitting down below. We get up every ten minutes or so stick our heads out and look around, usually with eyes bugged out watching the size of the waves, then as one is about to break on us, duck back into the cabin and close the hatch. This is supposed to get worse through tonight and then (hopefully) ease sometime tomorrow, but I haven’t checked the latest weather GRIB yet, so we’re not sure.

Such is life right now in the Southern Ocean. We’re about half way across to New Zealand. It stopped being fun a while ago, but will be fun to talk about someday (maybe).

Position: 27 degrees, 12 minutes south; 178 degrees, 16 minutes east

Today was a slice of heaven. Sitting in the cockpit enjoying one of my favorite lunches. I finally made the meatloaf right, so the leftovers made perfect sandwiches. Ann made some of her great pressure cooker bread and I had a Maka-which is a Tongan beer. Yes, life was especially good today on Charisma. Last night and most of today were pretty nice sailing although the wind was up and down, so I had to make a lot of sail adjustments. One especially happy note was that we had light enough wind this morning that we could take down the big jib and put up the yankee. I should have done that in Tonga but I was thinking of the light air we might sail through not the heavy air. The reality though is that big jib really reduced our options in heavy air. I’m so happy to have it down and packed away-especially now that it’s so windy.

The last couple days have been nice, but we’re paying for it now. Late in the day we sailed through a squall line and what did we find on the other side? 25 knots of wind and two meter seas. It has gotten snarly out. We’re down to a double reefed main and just the stays’l and doing 6 knots close reaching toward Kiwi Land. The next step to reduce sail will be dropping the main and going with the storm trysail. Probably around 30 knots of wind or so. Getting to New Zealand means four days of this and the bonus is that sometime, probably on Friday (which for those in the US will be Thursday) we’re likely to see a gale. Winds in the 40 knot range. We’ll see. We can always hope that we’ll get far enough south to avoid that. Knowing we have some rough weather ahead, I made a green curry eggplant dish with rice today and put it in the fridge. All we have to do for a hot meal is heat it. So, if it’s stormy, we’ll have an easy hot meal with no prep.

That’s our report from the “other” side of the international date line.

Pumice on the water (this pic is actually the day before when there was little wind for a while)

Position: 25 degrees, 24 minutes south; 179 degrees, 14 minutes EAST

We’ve crossed the official date line of 180 degrees longitude. We’re now on the east side of the line versus the west side. Now today is officially your tomorrow even though Tonga has already designated they are in the east side time zone.

So…lumpy, bumpy. That’s the gist of the day. Last night was a nice ride but this morning the wind picked up around 0400 and built into the 20’s. In SF Bay that’s not a big deal, but out here the seas make it much different. You just can’t keep as much sail up or you’ll break something flying off a big wave. You have to slow down. So, I’ve been changing sails all day long. I think I reefed and unreefed the main about five times, the jib at least twice and put up the staysail, then took it down and now it’s back up again because the wind was getting back into the mid-twenties with 6 plus foot very steep and confused seas. We were going really well, but now the wind has dropped again and I’m thinking I’ll have to take it down in the dark sometime tonight and unfurl the bigger jib so we can keep moving. Not my favorite chore, especially if I just woke up and am sleepy. Oh well.

Keep moving. That’s the order of the day. It’s why we didn’t stop at Minerva Reef. We were within three miles of it but there’s a tropical depression building over in Fiji that is scheduled to move on toward Tonga and Minerva Reef by Wednesday. We considered spending the night anchored inside the reef’s lagoon, but decided that the time would be better used moving southwards away from the storm. The weather gurus are saying it might even turn into the first cyclone of the season. That’s a lot of motivation to move south fast, which is what we’re doing. We should miss it, but we’ll catch the outside of the low pressure area and probably see 20-40 knot winds at some point in the next couple days. The boats that didn’t make it out of Tonga in time-and it’s too late now- won’t have fun either as they will have to worry whether their anchor will hold as they get blasted and buffeted by 40+ knot winds. There are going to be a lot of stories to tell next week one way or another.

We took a lot of blue water over the bow today and guess what it netted us? Pumice! Yup, there’s a bunch of pumice in the scuppers that we scooped up by burying the bow into waves full of it.

That’s the news from Charisma for the day.

And…Happy Birthday to my daughter Christine who turns 25 today (the 4th for you)! Have a great one Chris!!

Position: 24 degrees, 04 degrees south; 179 degrees, 24 minutes west

Silently gliding through the night sea. Moonlight and friendly stars guiding us toward our next destination.

It never ceases to amaze and give joy-the wind gently pushing Charisma along. This is one of the nights where it all comes together. Gentle breeze, waves travelling thousands of miles to greet us, lifting us-for a moment- then softly setting us down, thousands more miles for them yet to go. Ancient light from the stars, hundreds of years old, reaching out to us just now. What message does it bring?

Following seas, the moon, stars and the bow slicing through the night, the water parts as we pass, gently gurgling like a mountain stream. Our wake glistening in the moonlight leaving a trail into the distance and for a few moments a trace of something that shows we were there.

And there’s not another soul out here in this expanse except us.