Boh and her family are always good for a nice surprise. Yesterday she surprised me by visiting me with Terry, her grandfather. Boh brought me a glass can, exactly as the one we lost in the Minerva Reef and Terry had good news concerning the big salon windows. But how did all start? I sailed…

The next morning, it was the 2.Dec.2024 we were cleared in. First the bio-security officer came. A nice gentleman following the rules of NZ for bio-security. I really have a lot of understanding for bio-security but in NZ the baby is thrown out with the bathwater! In all other countries, which I visited we were…

Around 1730 we docked MaRe at the Q-dock of Mardsen Cove Marina. However we can’t leave the dock because we are not yet cleared in. Via Ch16 I called Whangarei harbor radio and was informed that customs officer will come tomorrow morning and we must stay at the Q-dock. Boh’s mother and grandparents came to…

In the meantime it’s 1055. We made and are making good progress. Right now we are between Poor Knight Island and mainland; the “MardsenCove approach N” WPT it’s just 23 NM ahead of us. As soon as Boh’s mobile phone logged onto the mobile phone net work she contacted family and friends and became really…

MaRe, a very good girl as she is, understands the upcoming onion disaster and does her very best to avoid it. After another all-sail-down yesterday, the wind came back just when we sat down to have another delicious version of Boh’s boiled egg sandwiches. Also delicious, we kept them on the plates and dressed up…

As usual, the wind doesn’t follow the forecast. So we still need at least 3 days to Marsden Cove Marina. This morning, during breakfast, we looked at the last 2 onions in the net above the cockpit table. Without many words, we understand the disaster ahead of us. Days without onions! Boh uses an onion…

..wind down, sail down, wind up,… It’s always the same old story and it happened today as well. However, now we are comfortably sailing with a STW of around 5 KN. The only thing we have to do is to reset frequently the wind vane angle of the autopilot because we often get wind shifts.…

Right now we are sailing 3 – 4 KN STW with a wind of 4 – 6 KN TWS coming from 215 deg TWD. Completely different to the wind forecast of the European (ECMWF) model and the IS (GFS) model. But we are sailing! Since I took sails down on early yesterday about 0100, they…

… manipulated the wind shortly after I hove to. The wind started turning in circles faster then MaRe could follow. Thus, I took all sails down and MaRe is adrft. Until when? The answer is simple! Until we have a wind we can sail with. Two so far outstanding events on top of the sail…

… we are fully in a no wind zone. Glassy sea around MaRe. TWS smaller than 2 KN; STW 0.0. The 2 KN whiff of wind is coming from somewhere between E and N. Therefore I opened the wind vane angle to 80 deg to get just a little bit movement into MaRe. Boom is…