Safely back in New Zealand, again

We arrived back in Opua yesterday morning after a 6 day passage. Not the perfect conditions we'd hoped for - wind on the nose with some rough seas making us crash and bang and then the high pressure system didn't move east as we'd hoped so we ran into light winds instead of getting the nice northerly winds to push us home. As a result we decided to put into Opua to clear in rather than having a final day motoring to Whangarei further south. 

Still, 6 days was still pretty good, we all arrived fit and well and our arrival day was just fantastic - we hadup to 100 dolphins escorting us into the Bay of Islands and then just as we'd completed the clearing-in process, we saw four Orcas swimming into the marina!. As we motored out to a mooring across at the little town of Russell we saw them again - as close as 10m from Kiapa.

More stories, videos and photos of the passage to follow. Today we sail south to Whangarei (about 60 miles) and it's beautifully sunny; the forecast is for 15 knots of westerly winds so we're hopefull that we'll get the conditions that Kiapa will love.