Wow, what a lovely way to finish off a long passage, with a superb last day's sailing! At 00.00 UTC we were at 34: 33 S, 174.25 E with 36 miles to run.
We've been close-hauled all night but the wind has been gradually shifting to help us steer a nice curving line toward our destination. At the moment, the wind is still good, 13 knots from W beginning to turn WNW so we're easing sheets and making a good line for Opua at around 6.5 knots. The sun is shining, the sea has calmed and the Windpilot is doing a great job. Mind you, yesterday Dianne spend a couple of hours hand-steering, with a big smile on her face. "This is what it's all about," she said, "so I'm not letting Wiinie have all the fun!".
This has been a nearly-perfect passage for us. Apart from the horrible conditions in the weather trough on day 2 south of Fiji, we've had good weather and the motor has run for only 46 hours (but motor-sailing rather than plugging into zero wind). Maunie has performed wonderfully well and the breaking waves over her bows has been a very thorough test of the deck re-sealing that we did in Tonga; delighted to report no leaks at all. We're both feeling a pretty tired but otherwise very happy.
We should get in at about 9.00pm local time so will get our Customs and Bio-security inspection in the morning. So, need to find a way of eating the eggs and bacon left in the fridge before they are confiscated! Ah, that'll be breakfast, better make final batch of bread rolls and hope the officials don't start too early on Sundays!
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