Waiting, waiting....

The weather certainly has been what you might call "active"  here for the past week or so! Having had amazingly settled conditions for the 3 weeks before, the weather systems have made up for lost time, with weather fronts rolling in one after the other. It's been a case of "if you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes" as we've had bright sunshine one minute and torrential rain the next.

Last weekend we heard the Maritime Radio broadcast warn of "Storm warning for sea areas Coleville and Brett, Gale warnings for all other New Zealand waters" and the forecast for our local area, Brett, was particularly unpleasant:

Gale warning.
Saturday : Northwest 30 knots gusting 40 knots, becoming westerly 20 knots for a time this morning, then rising to northwest 35 knots gusting 45 knots early afternoon. Changing southwest 40 knots gusting 55 knots early evening. Sea becoming very rough in the afternoon. Waves may rise rapidly during squalls. Poor visibility in periods of rain, some heavy falls and possible squally thunderstorms.

We were very pleased to be in the Marina and, incidentally, very impressed with the marina staff who diligently checked the mooring lines of every boat, adding extra warps if needed, before the storm arrived.

Having survived that safely, we've had all sort of weather (not very nice, most of it) and there's another swipe to hit us this weekend:

But, with lots of things crossed, we're hoping that we'll get a window early next week..... In the meantime, lots of cooking of passage meals to go into the freezer.