Hi everyone! Last time we left you we were enjoying life at anchor in Tonga and sampling the delights of playing gigs again. This time we sail from Tonga to New Zealand and get settled into the life of Land lubbers!
The sail from Tonga to New Zealand has a fearsome reputation amongst sailors. Its perhaps because most cruisers like to stick close to the equator where there is generally nice easy trade wind sailing. Once you go 30 degrees North or South of the Equator you are into the area of weather described as the variables. Thats the kind of weather that hits the UK and whilst settled in summer and characterised by high pressure systems, as we all know in the winter those variables produce a string of depressions bringing rain and often strong winds.
The North Island of New Zealand lies about 35 degrees South of the Equator, so the passage from Tonga transitions from trade wind sailing into variables sailing. At this time of year, springtime for New Zealand, the weather generally flips between high pressure systems and nasty depressions that roll through from the west every 8 days or so. The trick is to time your passage to pass through the region in between those nasty depressions.
Thats the principle any way, the reality for us was somewhat different.
First though we had to check out of Tonga and renegotiate the horrendous customs dock!
Everyone in the anchorage had been watching the weather, and most people generally agreed that now was a good time to set off. So, the customs dock was busy. We decided to walk down to the dock first and assess the situation. Our friends Mark and Donna had somehow managed to avoid going to the customs dock the day before and checked out anyway, so we thought we would try that on. The customs lady was having none of it! She told us to bring Azimuth to the already crowded dock and only then would she check us out.
So, we returned to Azimuth paying our mooring fees on the way and slipped our lines from our trusty buoy we had been tied to for the last month. Thankfully there was no anchor to pull up by hand. We approached the dock and hoped to raft up alongside another boat already there. They wouldn’t answer their radio, so we were forced to go alongside the commercial dock where another boat was already moored. Its horrendous! Metal and concrete in a state of disrepair and huge rubber bumpers that are falling off. All designed to wreck the gelcoat on the side of your yacht. In the end we managed to get slowly in place, and the wind blew us on. We have some nice rubber marks on the side of the boat now that we need to polish out … oh well.
Customs were sorted and we managed to get off the dock and motor out of the harbour. Sails went up and we slowly sailed out of Tonga.
As we left the refuge of land, the swell picked up, and soon we were sailing along at 7 knots on a beam reach even with a couple of reefs in the main and our tiny jib, which we have nicknamed the handkerchief.
On that first day we covered 175 miles. A great pace and things looked good for an easy passage. The next 24 hours we slowed a little and covered 157 miles and then 132 miles the next day. it was easy sailing; the only mishap was one of our reefing lines snapped (first reef)
By now we were not far from a place called Minerva Reef. This is a possible stopping off point where you can sit and wait for better weather if it looks bad on the approach to New Zealand (there is about 800 miles to go). For us, we thought we would carry on. We didn’t want to drop the anchor because of the hassle of getting the thing back up. And anyway, the weather forecast was okay.
A depression was due to pass between us and New Zealand in a couple of days, but it was much further South of our position and potentially we could ride the back of it into New Zealand. It looked good on paper, so we started to head West to be in a good position to catch the wind when it arrived.
Over the next couple of days, the wind pretty much died! We were still sailing though with a full main and both the stay sail and handkerchief out we were bobbing along at between 2.5 and 4 knots on a lovely flat sea. Really nice sailing as it happens!
We were checking the weather every day, and it was changing radically every day. The passed through faster than predicted, this was followed by huge high-pressure system which we eventually found ourselves right in the middle of! No wind. Most people would turn on the engine at this point. However, we didn’t have enough diesel on board to motor any significant distance. We just had enough to maybe motor 100 miles. It was hard to tell from the tank gauges that were mostly pointing to empty. So, we dropped the sails that night and went to bed whilst we drifted on a flat sea.
The next few days were much of the same. We had at least 250 miles to sail South to get through the high system. Occasionally thew wind would start to blow up to 10 knots. We would put all the sails up and bob along at about 2.5 to 3 knots. It was lovely sailing, and there was no stress. The long-range forecast didn’t predict any depressions on the way, in fact it looked like 3 high pressure systems would all converge on our position.
At some point we crossed the international date line proper, a longitude of 180 degrees halfway round the planet from the UK! We celebrated that little milestone
We did have one day of crazy sailing. The wind picked up to 25 knots as a front passed across our location. Great wind we thought, but it was on the nose! Coming from the South where we wanted to go. We were hard on the wind, and I noticed that the handkerchief had ripped. So, we had to get it down and spent a few hours resewing it. Only a little tear in a seam.
In the end it took is 19 days to complete the sail! During that time, we saw all kinds of amazing sunsets. The highlight was a visit by a whale, whilst we sat with our sails down. It was a moment that made the whole trip worthwhile and our closest ever encounter with a whale.
Eventually we sighted land!
We had another very slow sail down the side of New Zealand and overnight we entered the Whangarei River and pulled into Marsden Cove Marina to the customs dock early the next morning.
It took a while for the customs guys to turn up. And whilst we waited three other boats turned up, meaning there were 5 boats in total squeezed in to the tiny Q dock. We were all checked in by lunchtime, so we visited the fuel dock to take on diesel and then motored up the river to our new home for the next few months at Port Nikau Marina
It feels weird to be in a marina! We haven’t been in one since we left the UK 2 and half years ago. You can just step out of your boat straight on to dry land!
We have been here just over a week and so far, we are loving what we have seen. Everyone is incredibly friendly and helpful. We have been welcomed into the community. So far, we have managed to buy a car, go to the cruiser’s meetups, pull the old anchor windlass out of the boat and hopefully source the new parts we need to fix it. As well as dispose of the old ripped genoa :-(.
We have driven about 30 minutes out of town to the beautiful Whangarei Heads and had a lovely walk. Check out the video below taken with our new 360 degree camera!!
Join us next time as we start to explore New Zealand, this time by land in the new (to us!) car.