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31st - Halloween arrives with a landing from outer space

At 0016 local New Zealand time this morning as Dad and I swapped over our night watches we were both witness to an extraordinary event that 4 other boats later mentioned on the net the following morning. Dad was facing forwards and I was facing backwards in the boat talking. Dad described seeing the whole boat light up like day for a second. I saw the whole sky light up in a brilliant white light that I first thought was sheet lightening but as it lasted momentarily longer than lightening and had such a brilliantly consistent glow I knew that it had to be something else. It lit the whole sky up for a second in a brilliant white light that resembled a flash from an atomic explosion. I thought the world was going to come to an end, that Tonga had been attacked by New Zealand or something. I waited and held my breath for a few seconds waiting for the blast and shock wave to hit us blowing us forwards with a 1000 miles an hour wind. But nothing. We shrugged and couldn't understand it, putting it down to a strange lightening effect. It wasn't until the other boats that witnessed the same thing explained what they saw that we pieced together that it was some sort of shooting star or space debris that had come burning through the night close by. One boat described the sky after the light came, as being filled with a long vapour trail still glowing faintly. Was this a space ship going out of control, a rock from space, a bit of old orbiting junk or a witch crash landing? - I guess we will never know.

It's Halloween today and the kids awoke in a very excited mood. Helen kept them busy on her early morning 6am shift by organising painting their faces and helping them get dressed up. Although Helen has the 6am watch and gets a good night's sleep, she has to sort out breakfast, organise Lunch, Dinner and snacks (for 8 people!) keep everything clean and tidy and get the kids in bed by 8pm. I'm up for 7am to run the Net on the SSB and by being on the Net for an hour or so in the morning and another hour at night manage to get out of any cooking/tidying by hiding away behind headphones. Dad and Margaret have been such a great help, Dad has been a star all the time by tirelessly keeping on top of the washing up and Margaret has been hot on the dailiy bread, first she perfected 'soda bread' ( well baking powder bread) and now is a whizz at pita breads - turning out a huge bowlful for us all at lunch times.

Helen and the kids finished off the Halloween tuck shop today by making Ginger bread scary Men. We also played Halloween games in the morning such as apple bobbing, which used sticky lolly pops hung upside down from the ceiling on a piece of string, the kids being blind folded had to get the lollies in their mouths without the use of their hands. Pretty difficult with the waves swinging the string around. We also played other party games to while away the rest of the morning.

Meanwhile we were rocketing along in 12 knots of wind with the spinnaker-cruising-chute up. I had downloaded the latest weather and had decided that a good tactic would be to head south, therefore getting a tighter angle on the wind and therefore go faster, but also by being south of the rhumb line, would keep is in good position to bear away when the winds veered to the south. The plan was going great, we were stonking along at 9 knots when it all went wrong.

The cruising chute's seams dramatically exploded and a quarter of the chute was blown out. It was neat, the seams going on the panels on the sail, but it was unreparable at sea and so we had to take it down and bag it. This meant we had to resort to the jib and only doing 7 knots. Blast it ! - we were catching up with Omazey so well.

So our plan of arriving Tuesday night at Opua before the SW winds fill in seems unlikely now. I have calculated our fuel consumption and have started motor-sailing to try to speed us along. we should just have enough fuel to get us there. If we don't make it before the SW winds arrive we will have a very difficult last 12 hours of beating to windward, tacking our way in.

In the afternoon, the kids watched Scooby-Doo. Omazey were going to watch the "blair witch project" but didn't think it appropriate for the kids really. Afterwards we tucked into the Dolphins Home made Halloween sweet shop - Chocolate fudge, Honeycomb Crunchy, coconut Ice and ginger bread.

Helen and Grandma made meat pasties for tea, another creative idea from the Dolphins pie shop!They were sooo tasty.

There are plenty of boats arriving and all the talk on the radio is about what food we have to scoff before New Zealand customs takes it away from us. On board Helen and Margaret have been scheming about how to eat up all the food we have before arrival. The huge stocks bought for 8 people in Vavau have dwindled down to virtually nothing. We are even planning a night time BBQ on the quarantine dock if we arrive after hours to cook up and eat all the food that they will take - eggs, seeds, nuts and honey to name but a few of the somewhat unknown list.

The evening continued to calm inside and outside the boat. The wind dropped to under 10 knots dropping our speed and the possibility of an evening arrival tomorrow before the SW's. Emma and Louisa have been swinging on ropes on the foredeck, enjoying using up some energy after being cooped up inside.We all had baths and showers and sat afterwards and watched a Halloween face carved into a scooped out water melon. In terms of smell, I think I prefer the smell of candles burning inside a water melon rather than burning a pumpkin. One thing we learn at sea is how to compromise. It glowed like the real thing and no one really would have known anything different.

As it gets colder licorice is becoming more friendly. We have slowly been putting on more and more layers. The kids think it is like Christmas as Helen goes under the bunks and finds yet another long lost fleece/long sleeve top/pair of socks. Jack really wasn't sure what to do with socks! Poor old Licorice she has been steaming in her fur coat for the past year and now she has no wardrobe to turn to. She has sorted the problem out by becoming a puffball and is walking around all fluffed up to keep herself warm. She now sleeps curled up between us or the children for warmth at night - somwething she has never done. We all have no idea what will happen to her with quarantine - 6 months somewhere in a lonely cats home - poor soul.

The night drew in, stars appeared and the sea continued to calm. The engine droned on in the background pushing us through the night with the sails filled in a quiet wind. We entered our last 24 hours at sea.

1st Nov - Land Ho - The land of the Long White Cloud

At 0400 GMT (5pm local time) on the 1st of November we spotted the land of the long white cloud, Aotearoa or New Zealand 25 miles away. We are heading for the bay of Islands to check in at Opua. It is so close, yet so far.....

We have had a somewhat frustrating day trying to beat the imminent SW winds and failed. We have been headed too far west in the morning because of the wind slowly veering but at 3pm the wind died away and within 45 minutes we had what we thought were fantastic winds from the West to blow us right into the bay, 50 miles away. But over the following few hours up until tea time it backed until it was blowing 25 knots straight out of the SW right from the place we wanted to go. After a week of superb exhilarating sailing, we could not have asked for worse conditions to make landfall (Except hurricane force winds and treacherous seas of course, so it wasnt that bad).

Helen has been going through all the food and throwing stuff over the side (we were still outside NZ waters) that we weren't going to eat such as the last of the fruit and Veg.that we aren't allowed to take into NZ. Granddad cooked up a great bacon and eggs dinner to use up all the eggs and the last of our (non-fish) meat. The only things left on board that NZ will confiscate is Honey, Mayonnaise, powdered milk and helen's seeds ( sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, mung beans, lentils). They should confiscate any central American food products, but we cant really tell what we bought from Panama or not. I hear that they will not confiscate any of our shells or wooden carvings from the Islands we have visited thank goodness.

In contrast to having wind on the nose for the last 30 miles of this trip, we could not have asked for better weather to see land. It was clear blue skies and a relatively flat sea. While Rob was sleeping in the afternoon Helen, Brian and Margaret did a productive afternoons school. We had a shoal of dolphins come out to the boat and meet us and we all jumped about excited to see the long white cloud with the faint hues of land of New Zealand, our goal, peeping through the evening dusk below.

Our moment of exuberance died just after sunset. With the wind creeping up to 28 knots over the deck we were close hauled and the wind sending us in the wrong direction. We were slamming over the small waves shaking and rocking the boat as we tacked a long zig-zag course to the bay. Our VMG (velocity made good) was only 3.5 knots even though we were clocking 8 knots through the water. I became a little tense, knowing that our ETA was slipping way past midnight and into the small hours of the following morning. I was under pressure with the concentration of trying to second guess the wind, organising the sail trimming, thinking about the engine running hours vs. fuel left, watching the rising wind requiring reefs in the sails and on top of that I needed a wee. Things werent going well.

Helen usually comes out with the blindingly obvious solution, that always seems to stay hidden from me in situations like this, she said, "If we are only making 3.5 knots in the direction we want to go, tacking, and if we have enough fuel, why don't we concede defeat, aim for a day break entrance, roll away the sails and motor directly into the wind at 3.5 knots, at least we'll have a comfortable nights sleep without having to tweak sails, and we can see the bay of Islands as the sun rises."

I looked at her for 2 seconds, quashing my immediate desire to tell her not to be so silly, did a quick calculation about the fuel we had left (24 hours of fuel left - 12 hours to go) and gave her a kiss and said, "Thank you".

Dad and I rolled away the foresail, wound the Main into the centre of the boat and motored on a course to the bay of Islands now 25 miles away. We adjusted the speed to do only 2 knots, directly into the wind, which would get us there for day break. We put on the kettle and settled down to another night of night watches as we trickled into the bay of Islands dodging the fishing boats, commercial traffic and other yachts all heading this way.

Omazey, who have turned out to be the super star of the pack and have made excellent progress across the sea this past week have managed to just sneak into the bay of Islands at sunset just ahead of the SW winds arriving and have tied up by 10pm alongside the quarantine dock for the night. We couldn't catch them up no matter how hard we tried, so we will have to party with them at breakfast instead.

2nd November - Arrived New Zealand - Safe and Sound.

On the 1st November at 1800 GMT (7am on the 2nd November local time) We arrived at Opua Quarantine Dock In the Bay of Islands, New Zealand.

After our evening of strong headwinds we had slowly motor sailed the last 20 miles through the night so that we could make a day light entrance through the Bay of Islands, arriving at the dock in time for the officials to check us in.

It was an easy motor sail through the dark. My Dad and I managed the night watch between us, each other catching an hour or two's sleep each. We also fiddled with the radar and watched the shipping come and go, fishing boats trawling and a few sailing boats diddle about like us waiting for first light.

At 5 am the night sky started to lighten and we entered the Bay of Islands and slowly made our way through the rolling landscape. As the sky became brighter the details of the land became visible. They were lush green hills dotted with the little villages in sneaky little valleys. There were handfuls of boats anchored or moored in the protected waters. We could have been sailing into the River Dart in the West country of England, It was certainly cold enough. We almost felt as if we were returning home.

It was cold. During the night I had my thermal trousers on, socks T-shirt, sweater and 2 coats on to try to stay warm. It was only 19'c at night. I think we have become a little to used to tropical climates.

We navigated the easy buoyed channel down to the dock and went along side at 7am where we were greeted by Omazey and some other boats already on the dock.

Words cannot describe our feeling of arrival. Tiredness, relief, joy, excitement, hunger, cold, anticipation to name but a few words we felt as we made fast our mooring lines. Jonathan and Astrid from Omazey cracked a bottle of champagne and Helen made pancakes. We celebrated.

The customs guys arrived at 0830 and took a while working through the boats. The were very meticulous about going through all our food and removed any foods not allowed in New Zealand. They were very friendly and light hearted about the whole thing and we had a very enjoyable check in experience. The quarantine man talked to us about Liquorice the cat. Unfortunately she will have to be in quarantine for 3 or 4 months as she doesn't have the necessary jabs and inoculations. If she had them then quarantine would have been 30 days. If we had known this then we could have sorted it out in Tahiti. She can stay on the boat while we are in Opua, but when we leave Opua we have to transfer her into Quarantine.

By the end of the morning we were all finished and went into the Marina, we had lunch and a long needed sleep in the afternoon before going to La Novia's George's birthday party. AS we all partied on the dock Ocean Breezes arrived, a little too late for customs to check them in. We cheered them in to their lonely mooring on the quarantine dock and they had to make do with shouting across to us while we drank beer and ate cake. Soon they had another boat join them and they too could celebrate their arrival.

We finished off our day with a welcome steak,chips, and cheeseburgers in the local restaurant overlooking the Marina. We had a few more beers and wines (or double gin and tonics in my case) and talked about the crossing and the last three years and two months living aboard the boat. We talked about sailing half way around the world, the high points and the low points. We attempted to talk about what we are going to do next. But we had no idea.

We headed back to the boat and fell fast asleep. Deeply asleep.