Sydney — New Zealand

Preparations in Sydney and sight-seeing tours - 15 to 23 Feb. 2005

The crew: Borut from Slovenia, Tom and Julian from New Zealand, Susan and Ivo.

Everyone arrived few days before departure and on time to take part in final preparations and provisioning. This was Borut's first visit to Sydney so he went sight-seeing and took many photos - what follows is only a small selection. In the mean time, Susan and Ivo did provisioning while Julian and Tom were recovering in the pub from a 'long-haul' trip from New Zealand to Sydney!

We started sailing from Sydney to New Zealand on 23 Feb 2005 and arrived to Nelson on 3rd of March only seven and a half days latter! We had beautiful weather and good sailing - including two days of sailing with spinnaker which is quite an achievement for Tasman Sea which is notorious for bad weather and heavy seas! Our trace in the Tasman sea with our noon positions is on the picture below:

In total we made 1283 nm in 7 days and 18 hrs, giving an average of 1283/168= 6.9 kn or 165 nm/day . Not a bad average considering the fact that we had problem with the forestay and had to rely only to the inner forestay and baby stay and that we were sailing in Tasman sea which is notorious for heavy seas and head winds.

Next - Arrival to Nelson & South Island

We arrived in Nelson, South Island, New Zealand as planned, on March 3 rd in the early morning hours to a glorious sunshine after the only rough weather during that last night coming in to Cook Strait (the channel that separates North and South Islands and which creates a funnel effect for the winds so that it is nearly always blowing a gale in this area). And on the same dock as us, who else than Music!! Mary, Kenny and the kids had arrived back to their hometown in December and were happily settling in after 10 years at sea. How great to see them again and to reminisce about last year’s sailing. They kindly lent us their car and we were able to drive up into the Abel Tasman National Park and also across to Picton via the Marlborough Sounds.

After a week in sunny Nelson, Ivo and Borut headed off to Picton through the Marlborough Sounds on Fiu while Susan stayed on a few more days in Nelson. The Sounds proved to be one of the worse anchorages yet, with a Venturi effect coming down off the hills and producing gusts of 50-70 knots of wind. Never had Fiu been shaken and stirred before as that first night at anchor in Elaine Bay . Like riding a rodeo bronco!

Picton was the destination and we all met up again there four days latter. Susan had hired a car so we left Fiu in the marina and off we went for a 10 day whirlwind tour of South Island. We now know that early March was really the end of the summer – we had the last few days of sun and warmth before winter started creeping up from Antarctica .

West Coast - from Picton to Greymouth, Franz Josef glacier, Queenstown, Milford Sound

Touring South Island : land of the Lord of the Rings, sheep, last stop before Antarctica, some of the worst architecture (Lonely Planet agrees) the land where 'men are men and sheep are worried', home to a fake and cheeky sandwich eating kiwi (bird), sheep, vineyards we never stopped at, the smallest ever wooden box sleeping cabin, glaciers, sheep, the scariest mountain road, curious road signs, did I mention sheep, and last but not least, many friends. The most wonderful hospitality awaited us in South Island . Mary’s sister Lydia on their dairy farm near Invercargill, Peter, Simon’s father, a wonderful charming young man of 89, living in Timaru, Pym’s sister Annabelle and Michael & two children on Ellesmere Spit outside Christchurch , and of course Mary & Kenny in Nelson.

We drove from Picton across to Westport, then down the west coast for a quick tramp (hey, we are in Kiwi land) up to Fox Glacier, Queenstown (where Borut left us to fly home to Slovenia), Milford Sounds, down to Bluff the southernmost point of South Island, and back up to Picton along the East Coast via Christchurch.

Here we saw some of the funniest road signs - following are selected few:

Horsepoo for sale – half rotten, No Doctor, No Hospital, 1 cemetery, Eggs, fruit & things, Experience is what you get after you need it; The faster you drive, the bigger the mess; The homekill specialists; Hokatiki town motto is: great wildlife between 2 slices of bread.

East coast - Dunedin, Oamaru, Akaroa-Banks peninsula, Christchurch

Next - Sailing North - Cook Strait, Wellington, Gisborne, Great Barrier Island, Auckland

Sailing North - Cook Strait, Wellington, Gisborne, Great Barrier Island, Auckland

Across Cook Strait, to Wellington, windy city renamed by us rainy city! Here we saw the newly launched Volvo 75 Movistar Telefonica during its pit stop before heading for Cape Horn (they estimated a 9 day journey to do 3000 nmiles. Their maximum speed coming across the Tasman from Australia was 36 knots. We also saw the Russian boat Apostol Andrey as it came back up from it’s circumnavigation of Antartica. And in Wellington (lovely town if not for the rain) we met up with Ivo’s ex-colleague Andreas & his family from his physicist past, and Elaine, a friend who also used to live in Singapore. Elaine kindly drove us around showing us the town sights, amazing historical buildings some of them built in kauri.

After a week in Wellington we headed north, out into Cook Strait and then up the Eastern coast. Cook Strait produces a funnel effect of winds and in order to avoid gale force & contrary winds, there are only short windows of opportunity. But we were lucky and left on a northerly which helped us out of Wellington harbour into the Strait and then the wind veered and we had southwesterlies going up the coast. Fiu luck!

We stopped in Gisborne (first landing of Captain J. Cook), then Tauranga where we met up with Tony from Holly B and his wife and friends. We then headed up to Great Barrier Island which is supposedly one of the best places to sail in NZ. And it is very sheltered as we found out. We stayed there for two nights during torrential rain and gale force winds outside. On our way up to Great Barrier Island we caught a marlin which after a battle of a couple of hours, ended up swimming on the line just of our stern and wondering how to escape while we were looking at him wondering how to bring him onboard! Well eventually he managed to chew the line and did escape to some relief really – what would we have done with 60 kgs of fish??? New Zealand really is a great fishing ground – every time a line or two is sneaked overboard, up comes the catch of the day, whether it’s tuna, kingfish, local ‘salmon’ or dorado.

After sheltering in Great Barrier Island which we didn’t really see much off due to torrential rain, we then headed off for Auckland in the Haurake bay..

A two week stay in Auckland (April 14 th to May 2 nd ) during which time Ivo went back to Sydney and Susan and Fiu stayed in Westhaven marina. Here in Auckland we met some old friends: Mariusz from Katharsis is moored just across from us, Deep Blue is here too and Sympatica the catamaran we saw in Galapagos and Marquesas. Julian from Alexandra III lives in Auckland and of course came down to visit during our stay. Susan went on a Friday harbour race with Julian and his team mates (of course they won the race on handicap), and nearly fell overboard! We made some new friends: Kathy & Andy who were preparing their yacht for a crossing straight to New Caledonia and then onwards to South Africa. Perhaps we’ll meet them in Darwin later.

Winter is setting in: snow in South Island, freezing temperatures in North Island. Lloyd from Deep Blue lent us a spare heater, otherwise it would have been too cold to stay onboard. Fiona and Susan went for a quick drive up to Kerikeri and Opua, and Whangerei.

Paul joined us in Auckland and we then sailed up to Bay of Islands, trying to stay ahead of winter! We spent a few days here, enjoyed Russel, a lovely little village but otherwise got ready to the 1200nm crossing to Tonga! Went to a talk by yachtie famous meteorologist Bob McDavitt who declared the Cyclone season officially over. As we wanted to leave two days later, we certainly hope he is right.

Next - Tonga - Sailing from New Zealand to Tonga