Warm Rain Ship's Log

Cleaning Up

We've nothing exciting to report here after our first few days back in Opua. We have, however, had a couple drinks and dinners out at the Opua Cruising Club where we've reunited with many of our cruising friends and swapped stories about the season 'up in the islands'. I've also done 8 loads of laundry - in washing machines and dryers instead of by hand - yeah! We've cleaned up the boat a bit and have moved a bunch of stuff off of the boat and into our storage unit - sails, life raft, ditch bag, medical bag, drogue, etc. - stuff that we won't need to use while in New Zealand for the next 6 months. We got our car out of storage and have wheels again. Driving on the left-hand side of the road isn't nearly as daunting this season as it was last year. On my first drive into Paihia on Friday I looked in my rearview mirror and I had 6 cars stacked up behind me. I hadn't realized that I was driving slower than the speed limit because it felt fast to me after cruising along at 6 knot in the boat for the last 6 months, so I sped up as not to get rear-ended!

We're in New Zealand!

We arrived at the quarantine dock in Opua at 7:30 this morning (11/5) after a 4 1/2 day passage from Norfolk Island. The passage was easy - no rough weather and mostly light winds and we motor-sailed the entire time.

Norfolk Island was wonderful and I promise to update the blog with pictures and stories within the next week . But I've been up since 3am and it's almost 10pm now, so I'm off to bed. Stay tuned...

Opua bound

We are 283 miles out of Opua and should be there Thursday if the wind holds. All is well on board Warm Rain

Safe Arrival at Norfolk Island

This morning at 8:30am we dropped anchor in Cascade Bay on Norfolk Island. There are about 10 other boats anchored in the bay. We're all waiting for a good weather window to continue on to New Zealand and according to what we're seeing, we may have to wait here a week or so.

We're going to spend the remainder of today cleaning up the boat and catching up on our sleep. Tomorrow we'll start exploring ashore. People that have been here before say it's worth renting a car for the day to see this small island, so we'll plan on doing that some time this week.

Destination Norfolk Island

We got underway Saturday from Noumea, New Caledonia to Norfolk Island which is about halfway to New Zealand. The passage yesterday was very rough close reaching into winds of 18-25 knots for 24 hours. Today the winds and seas have moderated which is good news. We should be at Norfolk Island tomorrow morning.