Jim
20/Nov/2009, Gulf Harbour Marina

Wetnose is enjoying a well-deserved rest and a long sip of shore power!

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Capt. Jim
08/Nov/2009

We had a very pleasant check-in with customs, immigration and agriculture at the Q dock in Opua on Saturday afternoon. The customs officer, Gary Burton, said they'd checked in 20 yachts already that day, and over a hundred more were expected for the coming week. After clearing, we left the Q dock for the anchorage, then headed ashore in the dinghy for a well-deserved celebration of a fine passage. At the Opua Cruising Club we met a few old friends. Tom and Betty Lee of Quantum Leap were there, who we'd cruised with in Fiji in 2007. Also on hand were Sven and Jola of Dana Felicia, with whom we talked by VHF radio throughout our passage. So it was a fine reunion, and nice to have a meal prepared by someone else! Yesterday (Sunday) we had a tour of Dana Felicia (check out their beautiful website to see what a nice job Sven, who is a retired design engineer, did designing and building). Sven and Jola, who is also a former engineerand now a full time yacht crew, came over for a look at Wetnose. By then it was time for lunch, so we all jumped in a 3-wheeled taxi and headed for Paihia for something to eat and some cultural and historical education. The latter was undertaken by Steve and me by walking to the Waitangi treaty grounds and having a look around. Dinner at the club again, then to bed early as we wanted to provision and leave Opua by 8am. That accomplished, we are now well past Cape Brett on our way down the coast toward Gulf Harbour, where Wetnose will be spending the rest of the year. We're planning one more night at anchor somewhere near the half-way point, probably Whangarei. Today is the best sailing we've had, with 20 kts of offshore breeze on a nice easy reach. Perfect conclusion for our voyage. Cheers, Jim, Steve, Joel SY Wetnose

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Capt. Jim
05/Nov/2009, 119 miles from Bay of Islands

There's a saying in New Zealand that if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes. It was one of those days on our passage today. We started the day under blue skies with a steady NW breeze sweeping us along at over 9 knots toward our destination. Then the sky clouded over and a light rain started to fall, and before you knew it the wind switched from NW to S, and the temperature dropped by 10 degrees. Since we are headed south, nobody aboard ordered S winds! After a few more hours of bashing upwind in a gray drizzle, the clouds completely disappeared. Unfortunately the S winds remained, but much diminished., so we are able to motorsail at reasonable speed in the general direction of our goal. At this rate we should reach the entrance to the Bay of Islands about 1pm tomorrow afternoon. Cheers, Jim, Joel, and Steve SY Wetnose

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Capt. Jim
05/Nov/2009

We missed the nightly scheduled radio call-in tonight...the pot of water for our spaghetti finally came to a boil just at the wrong time! We've really been enjoying the night watches with the bright moon making the sea sparkle. For much of the day we had blue skies, no wind, and glassy smooth seas with a big swell coming in from somewhere far away to the SW. Now at 2 AM we have a nice 10 kt breeze from the west, but we're still motor-sailing to get into Opua before the winds shift around to the south or SSE, 15-20, as they are predicted for later Saturday north of North Cape. Then on Monday it looks more like 20 kts WSW, We'll probably take the opportunity of the nice WSW offshore wind to continue down to Gulf Harbour, perhaps with a stop somewhere for a night. We've seen very little sea life, just a few birds (no albatross, but one fine frigate bird). Today we saw a large fin wending its way through the smooth water, which we agreed probably belonged to an ocean sunfish.
Here's Steve enjoying a private movie on his heads-up display!
Smooth sailing, Jim & crew SY Wetnose

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Capt. Jim
04/Nov/2009

Ideal trawler conditions out here...water is smooth as a millpond and we're doing 7.3 over ground at under 1200 RPM, nearly full moon, no other vessels seen for days. Last night we were treated to another spectacular sunset. In the hour or so after sunset and before moonrise it was dark enough to see the bioluminescence in our bow wave as we cut through the glassy smooth water. We're on constant watch for other vessels around us, especially Dana Felicia, which left Port Vila a short time after us and is within VHF radio range (about 30 miles). But we haven't even seen a radar blip in days...we're starting to call the DF the "ghost ship"; we can hear her but we can't see her. Yet! Over 100 yachts will be converging on the New Zealand entry port of Opua over the next few days, so as we get nearer the traffic out here is sure to increase. We're thinking of moving our landfall down to Whangarei to avoid any long delay waiting for customs to get through the line of boats ahead of us, and because Whangarei takes much less time to reach the customs dock from the sea than Opua, and it's right on our way. We'd miss the All Points Rally party in Opua on 12Nov, but would probably have moved on by then anyway. Our decision is complicated by the fact that we will arrive on the weekend. Cheers, Motor Trawler Wetnose

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Capt. Jim
03/Nov/2009

As expected, winds fell into the single digits, still from the SE, as we sail into a large high pressure system, known down here as a "Big Fat High" or BFH for short. Seas are calm, and the skies were clear up until 2 hours ago. We now have 75% coverage by fluffy cumulous clouds, a couple of them in the distance with rain beneath them. We are motor-sailing to keep our speed up in the 7 knot range, shooting for a 7-8 day passage. We've seen no other vessels since we crossed tacks with Dana Felicia 2 days ago, nor have we seen anything but rain and waves on the 64-mile radar. Despite dozens of yachts heading back to the same port in New Zealand from various places in the south Pacific, it's mostly a big empty ocean and we can feel like we have it all to ourselves. But twice each day we check in with other yachts on passage using our long-range short wave radio. We take turns giving our position, heading, speed, and wind, reporting where we're headed and how far we have to go. Despite the vast expanse of empty ocean, it's nice to know whether there are other boats "nearby" to avoid running into at night. This morning I cooked up a couple of pounds of Vanuatu ground beef with onions and garlic. We saved half of it for spaghetti sauce later this week, and made chili of the rest, which we had for lunch. Yum. Tonight we're cooking hotdogs on the BBQ. No fishing success as of yet. Cheers, Jim

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