New Zealand

Moana finishes her Pacific crossing

Update #27 - Opua, New Zealand

Opua, New Zealand:
     11/05/2005
     35 degrees 19' South
     174 degrees 09' East

Our first sight of New Zealand

Hello from Opua, New Zealand.  I'm writing this on Thursday, November 12, 2005, November 11th for those of you east of the International Dateline.  You'll have to excuse me.  I'm using a keyboard we obtained in Mexico and there are many characters I cannot locate. 

We successfully left Nuku'alofa, Tongutapu, Tonga on Thursday, October 27th after spending two super busy days prepping the boat for the passage south.  Our first five days out we had boisterous winds and seas.  Though a bit uncomfortable with the wind forward of our beam, we were making great time averaging around  150 miles daily.  As we should know by now we should never count our chickens before they hatch.  Nevertheless we were super excited at the thought of making it down to New Zealand in seven days.  Five days out we had only 320 miles to go. That night the wind shifted to directly on our nose which meant we couldn't go directly towards our destination.  The winds held steady from the southwest blowing at 15 to 25 knots for the remainder of our trip.  Thus our two days turned into four. 

Moana at the "Q" docks in Opua, New Zealand

We were so excited when we finally spotted land.  It truly felt like we fought for every mile those last few days and I was starting to wonder if we'd ever make it there.  Okay, a little bit dramatic, I know, but if you have ever done the passage down to New Zealand before you may just understand how I was feeling.  It also didn't help that prior to making this passage us cruisers talked up the challenges of this passage so much that we found ourselves dreading it before we even began.  While uncomfortable and yes, a bit wet, we really did have a pretty good passage overall. 

There were a lot of jellyfish in the water

Since arriving five days ago we have been busy figuring out where to leave Moana for the season and prepping her to be on her own.  We decided to keep her here in Opua where we have quite a few friends staying with their boats.  It's comforting to know we'll have others keeping an eye on Moana for us.  We took Wednesday off to explore a bit of the North Island with some fellow cruisers we originally met in Zihuatanejo, Mexico.  We went to Waitangi National Reserve where the first treaty was signed between the Brits and Maoris as well as doing some exploring of Kerikeri.   Yesterday we took a tall ship over to Russel for the day.  We had a fun ride talking with the captain.  He even had both Sally and I take the wheel and steer the R.Tucker Thompson for a while. 

Sally at the wheel of the R Tucker Thompson (yes we were underway)

We have secured our flights home and will be leaving at 11 PM on November 21st <Happy Birthday Nona>.  We will be arriving in LA before we left, i.e. in the afternoon of November 21st.  We are hoping to arrive in Auckland a couple days prior to our flight to explore the city a bit.  This is the first time we've been in a first world country in over a year and I imagine the city will be quite overwhelming to us.  We look forward to meeting up with everyone once we return and get back into the swing of land-life. 

Sincerely,
Sam and Sally
s/v Moana
Currently located in Opua, New Zealand

The coast at Russell, New Zealand