We spent six days in Nawi Marina, catching up with friends, restocking the boat, and getting a few boat jobs sorted. Savusavu, the town across the river from the marina, was great for re-provisioning, but other than buying food and eating food, there isn’t a whole lot to do there. Indeed, the local geothermal streams,…

We left Vava’u on Monday the 17th of June, two days before our thirty day visa was due to expire. Exiting the country was straight forward, the only complication being the number of yachts trying to leave, or enter, so that the short customs dock ended up being two yachts deep. We were fortunate, once…

A short sail of about two hours brought us from Pangai to Fau at the northern end of the island of Nafuka. We had heard of a place called Matafonua Lodge, located just off the beach there, which has a reputation for being cruiser friendly. Anchoring off the island was a bit of a game…

We arrived in Tonga on 20th of May, thirteen days after leaving Opua, NZ. The first few days were spent acclimatising to the hot and humid weather and catching up on lost sleep. Due to the heat we spent a lot of time swimming and snorkelling in the beautifully warm water. When we first set…

Tuesday May 7th saw up early as we had an appointment with NZ Customs at 8:30 am. The guys were friendly and relaxed but they made a point of making sure we understood that when we left we had ‘cleared customs’ and had to go straight back to Taurus and leave. No stopping for coffee,…

We left Whangarei Harbour on Monday 22nd of April. Leaving the heads we were caught out by an unexpected squall that caused us to struggle with our sails for a minute or two, and managed to make such a hash of it that a container ship coming in to the harbour blew its foghorn at…

Having spent a couple of nights on anchor in Okoromai Bay we set sail early, heading to Scotts Landing for the Ocean Cruising Club weekend. The festivities didn’t start until late afternoon so we had time to sail, and as the wind was coming from the direction we wanted to go in, we had the…

Cara and I left Waiheke Island on Tuesday, 5th of March heading to Okahu Bay, Auckland. The bay is next door to the Akarana Yacht Club, which was putting on a Yachting NZ presentation about offshore sailing safety, and while anchoring in the bay is free the club generously allows visitors to use their showers…

Our plan to leave Tauranga on Tuesday was foiled by strong nor-easterly winds that would have blown directly onto our nose. Rather than burn a lot of fuel and waste a lot of time we chose to delay our departure and make sure we were ready to go the following day. One of the items…

Sailing from Wellington to Tauranga involves travelling some 440 nautical miles, or 815 kms, up the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. The journey passes through some notorious stretches of water, the Cook Strait, Castle Point, and East Cape. Part of this notoriety is due to the fact that once the trip is underway…