Land ho! (part 13)

Saturday June 18th

“Land ho!“ was called by Chris at 03.59 am this morning. Just then the wind gusted for a moment, and Ohana gave a giddy little jump too.

Rapa Iti voyage 2016 (part 1)

In June 2016 I set out as one of a crew of 4 on board a catamaran, Ohana, to sail from Auckland, New…

Action stations, again! (part 8)

Saturday June 11th

After a few days of mostly grey skies the sun came back today. We sailed on an odd course, just south of east and some way off our course to Rapa, because… as we were motoring north east towards Rapa earlier this…

Into the swing of things (part 4)

Saturday June 4th

I was on the 3am — 7am watch again last night, and again it was hard to stay awake by the end of it, but Chris our skipper had us steering by hand (rather than using the autopilot) which was a good way of…

Whales (part 9)

Tuesday June 14th

I was on the 9pm to 1am shift last night, and had a very pleasant first three and a half hours sailing. At that point Chris woke up, having heard something change in the sounds that the sails and rigging were making. A couple of minutes later…

The sky is on fire (part 11)

Thursday June 16th

Another dream watch last night on the 1–5am shift. Low winds but still enough for sailing with, a moonlit then starry night sky for company, then a bright sunrise at dawn… perfection. I was grumbling on these pages a few…

Auckland to Tauranga shakedown trip (part 2)

Monday morning bright and earlyish, Chris Joe and Niko arrived at Kennedy Point on Waiheke Island to collect me, the 4th member of the crew.

A bit of everything (part 10)

Wednesday June 15th

During the night the VHF radio did some “ghost squelches” — no words spoken, just static noise as if somebody just out of our range over the horizon was trying to transmit something. Quite startling when it burst into…

Action stations! (part 5)

Tuesday June 7th

This morning, in the last half hour of my dawn watch, I was on the helm through some fairly big waves (4 or 5 meters high) when all of a sudden…

BANG!

A very happy birthday (part 7)

Thursday June 9th

I had a lovely dawn watch this morning, calm and peaceful in the morning sun, what a great way to usher in my 47th birthday. At some stage during the last hour of my watch we passed the half way mark in terms of distance…