“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.
In June 2016 I set out as one of a crew of 4 on board a catamaran, Ohana, to sail from Auckland, New…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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!
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…
By Thursday we were pretty much ready to go, and Chris booked our customs clearance meeting for Friday morning, June 3rd. The customs officer came to us on the boat, and she made the whole process of clearing out of the country very straightforwards and fun.
Good morning, second last day at sea for a while! I’m writing this lying on my bunk, listening to this morning scheduled radio call, or only half listening really, reading, relaxing…
We switched into a new mode on board today. I suspect it is partly as a result of the galvanising effect of yesterday’s excitement. Up to now some watches have been a bit hard, the weather has been a bit hard, the seas have…