A life on the ocean waves

Current location    Smokehouse Bay, Great Barrier Island, New Zealand                              36 12S  175 20E Victoria has felt strangely quiet and empty for the last couple of days, after the departure of my sisters, Serena and Rosie.  Angus and I are now cleansing our livers, facing up to the vast amount of recycling we have on board, and have restarted "normal" boat life - homeschool, varnishing, laundry etc.  Serena has written a fantastic guest blog for us, which will give you a fresh perspective of life on board. Before handing over to Serena, I must mention Australia, who are in our thoughts and prayers daily.  The smoke from the bush fires, more than 1000 miles away, reached New Zealand a couple of days ago.  In the early afternoon, the sky turned an eerie yellow-orange colour, and it became so dark that all the boats around us turned their ancho...

Eloise getting ready for a sea swim off the rocks Town Basin Marina, Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand 35 43S   174 19E I didn’t mean to leave it so long before writing this blog – we have been back in New Zealand for six weeks already.   There is not much child-free time on the boat, so the only time to write is after the little munchkins have gone to bed, and as it’s light until 9pm here, and we are making the most of the lovely evenings, they are not going to bed particularly early.   The first week after we arrived in Opua, there were too many parties to attempt any evening admin.   The second and third week, Angus and I were both cobbling together our tax returns.   After that, I sort of got out of the habit of writing a blog. It became a bit like trying to make yourself go for a run when you haven’t been for ages – the longer you leave it, the harder it is to get going again.   For a while there was a vague cloud of intent which hu...

Position: 33 57S 173 05E, 30nm NE of North Cape, the NW tip of New Zealand Speed 6 knots, course 150T Distance to go: 99 miles It's  3.30am  and I'm hoping this is my last night watch for a while.  I have just put a big cross through the "100 miles" box on our whiteboard, which is a good visual reminder of how far we have come.  The passage was 930 miles in a straight line, but we have sailed rather further. Some of the miles have been pretty easy, and some of them have been hard fought, especially those that we had to sail twice due to drifting backwards when we were hove-to for nine hours..  The past 24 hours have been a bit of an effort, as there was much less west than we had hoped for in the forecast southwesterly wind.  It was pretty much a southerly.  So we have been hard on the wind all day, which in 20+ knots and 2-3m waves, has been somewhat tippy and bumpy.   In the old days, Jack would have been in crawling mode on a day like today, bu...

Day seven at sea.  Distance to Opua 315 miles. Position 31 02S, 170 00E Wind SSW 14 knots, speed 6 knots, full sails, course 135T, swell 2m Well, the last couple of days on Victoria have been absolutely action packed.  The half way cake ended up rather solid due to the arrival of dolphins while I was in the middle of softening some butter on the hob.  We all rushed up on deck to see some very small and beautiful creatures a few boat lengths from us.  They were very shy - maybe because Victoria was pootling along so slowly that we didn't look any fun to swim with - and they didn't come close at all.  We thought the show was over and then they started playing 100m or so from us, leaping clean out of the water at the top of the waves, in a sort of twisting flip, one after the other.  We watched, enthralled, for the few minutes that the show lasted, and then as quickly as they had arrived, they were gone.  The butter, meanwhile, had become a boiling liquid...

Day five at sea 29 48S 167 44E, speed 3 knots under sail, course 135T, distance to Opua 465nm This trip is flying by, even though we are not exactly getting the miles under our belt in the right direction at the moment.  We have a whiteboard with miles to go, and days on passage, and the children take great delight in putting a big cross through a day every morning, and a mile-marker every 25 miles.  We have just passed 465 miles to go, which marks half of the total distance, and are going to make a cake for afternoon happy hour in celebration.  We have actually sailed rather further than 465 miles to get to where we are now, but that's ocean sailing for you.  We are hoping we have put ourselves in a good place for the weather ahead of us, and a good wind angle for part two of the passage.  The second half of the trip should be faster and in a straighter line, hopefully.  We've heard there's a big rugby game here  on saturday evening , so will try t...

Position 26 54 S  166 46E, motoring at 5.5 knots, wind SSE 5 knots. course 175, swell 1.5m Distance to Opua, NZ: 660nm Hello from a very relaxed ship, ghosting its way south through a calm, kind, blue, gently rolling ocean.  Today is day three at sea; we are already over 48 hours into our passage back to New Zealand.  Things on board are great - the boat is pretty flat, the sun is shining, and the crew are all happy.  OK, so there are still a few inter-child disagreements, but so far, it is unlike any other passage we have done; no-one has been sick, or peed in their bed, and we are neither heeled over nor being tossed about by waves.  It won't be like this the whole way - the last few hundred miles may be a bit of a rollercoaster ride - but we're enjoying every single mile of these conditions.  We've managed to sail quite a bit, despite the light winds, but have had to motor for most of today. We've had two fishing lines out the back all day, but no strike...