Greetings from New Zealand!

We arrived last Friday – sorry it has taken us a while to post.  The wind and seas were on the nose the whole trip here, and we were very glad to arrive safe and sound to Opua, in Northland New Zealand.  I was going to kiss the dock when we came in, but there was bird poop all over it…

We have done a little exploring – New Zealand reminds us so much of early spring in the Pacific Northwest!  It is chilly, with a promise of warmer days to come.  There are many evergreens, with some palm trees thrown in for good measure. 

We are researching the different areas of the north island to find the best place to haul our boat for a bottom job.  There are quite a few choices, but less for a boat our size and depth.  We will stay in Opua until we find the right spot, then move our boat and get to work shining up Ruby Slippers.

I am taking a quick detour home to Seattle to see my mom and sisters.  I hope someone else on the boat keeps you all updated in my absence!  ~  Jeanna

The storm found us at about 6:00 Monday evening

It was 10 hours later and in a totally different spot than predicted. That spot was us. The wind went from 10 knots to 45-50 knots within 5 minutes, and held that speed through the night.

Great walls of water slammed across the top of the boat, leaving Ruby Slippers shivering like a wet pup. There were bone-jarring crunches as the boat did a swan dive from the top of one wave into the trough of another. It was shaking like dice in a gambler’s hand, all night long.

Early in the storm, Jim and I decided to take down all the sails (quite a trick in that weather), and just let the boat run under bare poles through the night. We knew it would turn slightly downwind and go slow, so we would not lose too much ground. The wind was howling so loud that we had to scream at each other outside just to be heard. It was kind of rejuvenating to scream at the top of my lungs, without being thought insane.

It was a very roll-y, bouncy, shaky night. Molly and Jessie slept peacefully through it. Jim and I, not so much. We must be through the worst of it; it is only blowing about 30, although the seas are huge from all the wind last night. We are still unable to go directly south to New Zealand – that is precisely where the wind is coming from. Two days ago, our navigation computer said we had 362 miles to go to our destination. Now (Tuesday afternoon) it says we have 360 miles to go. After all our northing and westing and back again, we are only 2 miles closer to land!

Our other passages have been relatively benign, and they have left me ill-prepared to cope with the brief moments of desperation I felt during last night’s storm. I envisioned the step by step process of getting our life raft out of our safety locker, tying it to the boat, inflating it and loading it up with food and water before the boat sank. I wondered how I would keep our passports dry, and whether I could take the hard drive with all our pictures on it. I suppose it was a good, but negative, mental exercise. Jim reminded me about what a good strong boat Ruby Slippers is, and how there have been no “stress” noises coming from the hull.

I can understand why people fall in love with their boats. This little box o’ fiberglass kept my family safe and dry through some very bad winds, and I am growing more fond of her by the hour. We are all fine, and don’t even blink now when a wave washes over the entire boat. We think the winds will start dying about midnight tonight, and we can turn more south and get to New Zealand by Friday of this week.

We will let you know when we get to land, right after I lie prone and kiss the dock to which we are tied. Then we can all be thankful together. Note to my sisters: don’t let Mom read this. ~ Jeanna

We have had to go west, about 250 miles

out of our way to skirt the gale-force storm that has developed over the top of New Zealand. According to yesterday’s information, that was the prudent thing to do. Today, we find out that the storm has switched directions, and it is now in our area! It should pass over us tonight (Sunday) at about midnight. Gulp. It has been down-graded to carry winds of 35/40 knots, instead of the 60 knots that were predicted yesterday. A lot of boats just high-tailed it north, from where they came from, to try to avoid the storm altogether. We will continue on this westerly course until the winds switch, then we will finally head south towards New Zealand. This little excursion will make the trip about a twelve-day crossing instead of a seven-day one, although we are still making 6-7 knots with only a small headsail. I think of the Rard-ism: “I don’t know where we’re going, but we’re sure making good time!”

We were so proud of Ruby Slipper’s ability to heave-to. Lots of boats just don’t do that very well. It’s difficult for a boat to stick it’s nose into the wind and just stay there, without sailing like it was built to do. It is like putting a race horse on a track and saying to it, “Don’t turn your head, stand up straight, and walk – don’t trot, don’t gallop- at a pace of one mile per hour for the next twelve hours.” A lesser thoroughbred would rebel, but not our Ruby Slippers. She behaved like a champ.

It’s strange what becomes “normal” when it is a constant in your life. When I look outside, the wind is howling, the waves are up to our windows, and the boat is heeling and lurching. And I say to myself, “Well, things look pretty good out here.” Today Molly and Jessie and I played cards for a few hours. Every few waves, we had to grab all the cards and hang on for dear life while the boat twisted and heeled severely to starboard, then we would continue playing. Jessie played the guitar for a while, and we listened to a book on tape – rather loudly to cover the sound of the wind and waves splashing over the roof of the cabin. Just a normal day…

It has gotten very cold in these southern latitudes. It feels like Pacific Northwest sailing. We dug out our long underwear and heavy clothes. Jim looks pathetic in the jeans he used to wear – they are about 3 sizes too large for him! Molly and Jessie’s clothes, as expected, are way too small. Mine? Oh, about the same. It doesn’t become summer in New Zealand until about Christmas time, so we’ll be wearing our snuggly clothes for a while.

We might be down to canned tuna and rice by the time we get to New Zealand. I didn’t overstock with food for this trip, since the New Zealand Customs takes all food items when you get there – meat, breads, eggs, rice, noodles – everything. I guess they don’t like the bugs in these tropical islands. We played the alphabet game with foods we wanted when we reached land – artichoke, broccoli, cake, Doritos, etc., etc. So, what are you all having for dinner these days? ~ Jeanna

It seems like we have been making poor decisions

ever since we started this crossing.  We are being punished for our choices now.

After we left the Ha’apai Group, we motored for about 200 miles.  The winds were almost non-existent.  There is one stop between Tonga and New Zealand: Minerva Reef.  It is just a coral berm around a 2-mile circle of water out in the middle of the ocean.  Just like the reefs in the Tuamotus, there is one opening, and once you are inside, even though you see the waves on the outside, you feel no movement at all.  We decided we didn’t want to miss seeing Minerva Reef – we had heard that the diving inside was spectacular, except for all the sharks. 

We spent two lovely days at Minerva – snorkeling, fishing, and getting ready for the rest of the trip.  There were 6 boats total inside the reef, so we invited everyone over for some music and food.  There were 17 people on Ruby Slippers, and it didn’t seem very crowded!  The musicians and fans were in the cockpit, and another group was downstairs visiting.  The kids were in the V-berth, coloring.  There was a lot of weather talk, and deciding when to leave Minerva for New Zealand.  We left the next morning, still with very light air.  It picked up later that evening and we made good time through the night.

We have been watching the weather closely, and have been exchanging information with the other cruisers out here.

 There has been a weather “development” down near the Bay of Islands, exactly where we are going.  It seems that within a couple of days from now, on Nov 11^th or 12^th, there will be 60 knots of wind exactly where we are going!  It built up very quickly, and has caught many people unprepared and in the wrong spot in the ocean.  Had we not made all the stops we did, we would be in New Zealand, tucked into our already-reserved slip before the storm hit.  So now, we have some decisions to make, and we better make the right ones. 

We simply can’t go fast enough to get in before the storm, so we have chosen to wait it out where we are, and hope that it blows itself out rather quickly.  Right now, we are “hove to”, which means we are just being pushed along by the current.  We are moving at about 1.5 knots, and it is a bouncy, jerky ride.  We have shut the autopilot off, locked the steering wheel down, and plan to be here all night.  We will still need to be on watch, to look out for other boats.  We will download some more weather info tomorrow, and see what the storm is doing.  We may just have to stay in one place for a couple of days, then move toward New Zealand.  There are some boats that are farther south than we are, that will not have the option of waiting out the storm.  Other boats have turned around and are trying to go back north to get as far away from the storm as possible.

The boat feels like a small cork in a big ocean.  The movement is constant, but not consistent.  Sometimes it jerks side to side, sometimes up and down, and, for extra fun, there are times when it agitates like a washing machine.  Since the wind is switching direction and building, the boat is heeling in a different direction about every 15 minutes or so. Molly and Jessie seem to take it all in stride; we’ve never hurt them before, so I guess they figure we are going to keep them safe now.  Jim is worrying and can’t sleep; I am just praying and writing updates.  We all cope differently, I guess.  Each day brings new weather information – often confusing, and opposite of what we have already heard. 

We’ll keep you posted. ~ Jeanna

We are holed up in Hunga, Anchorage #13

We planned to head south Sunday night for the Hapa’i group of the Tongan islands. If we left at midnight, we would get there about 9 the next morning – perfect for searching for coral heads with the sun behind us. When we got up at midnight to leave, however, there was no moon, the wind was howling and it was raining. Who in their right minds would hoist their anchor and sail away on a night like that? We have already checked out of the Vava’u Group of islands – cleared customs and immigration, so we can’t go back to town. We have to lie low until the weather clears.

It has been blowing and raining for 3 days now. Jim has the art of rain-catching down to a science. He has pvc pipe and hoses running every which way on our boat, and today he plugged up the drain holes all along the side and back of the boat, and siphoned the water into buckets. The hoses are going directly into our water tanks. Today, we were able to fill both 60-gallon water tanks, plus two 20-liter water containers, plus I washed and double-rinsed about 4 buckets of laundry, all with fresh, clean rain water. Molly and Jessie donned bathing suits and scrubbed our dinghy and deck. Where to hang all that clean laundry, now, is the big question. There is no where to dry it! Parts of our boat look like a terminally-ill patient with an IV drip, but it is sure nice to have fresh rain water in our tanks.

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The rain and wind kept a’comin’ and a’comin’, so we tucked our collective tails between our faded-tan legs and came back to the harbor in Neiafu. We confessed to Mr. Immigration that we hadn’t left, after all, and could we please stay a few more days? I’m sure this will cost us money. When we tried to leave before, we checked out on a Friday, and said we were leaving on Saturday, and the customs man charged us $44 p’anga for overtime, since we were leaving on a weekend. Not that he was going to come to the harbor and wave us goodbye; he simply needed to charge us because we were taking some sort of action on a weekend day. There is an interesting article about Tonga in the November issue of National Geographic. It was enlightening to read about the bureaucracy and the monarchy of the Kingdom of Tonga.

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Okay, this is serious. No more pussy-footing around. We are leaving in the morning – Saturday. We have checked out, again, and have bought the last of the fresh vegetables from the market. I have made beef stew, red beans and rice, and oatmeal raisin cookies. We have stowed the dinghy, battened down the hatches, and have received way too much weather information. We are just going to GO. We can’t stop at the Ha’apai Group now – we need to get ourselves to New Zealand before another bad weather pattern hits us.

We’re going, we’re going, we’re out of the harbor, we are motoring…

…And, we’ve stopped. We motored for 70 miles, and there was this beautiful island, right at the northern tip of the Ha’apai group. It looked so inviting, and we didn’t want to waste more fuel, so we stopped for the night. It might be the last white sand beach we see for a while (does New Zealand have those?), and we were tired of the engine noise. We had a nice beach walk, picked up more shells (as if we need more shells), and had a nice dinner. Jim caught a tuna today – can’t get a much fresher dinner than that.

We are really going to leave today (Sunday). The winds are very light, but we hear that they are better about 200 miles south of us. There is a group of 8-10 boats who are all traveling to New Zealand the same time we are. We have started an informal net on the single side-band so we can report our positions and weather. Those who are ahead of us say that the winds are picking up. No excuses now… ~Jeanna