Better Progress Today

Last night at 2am the wind suddenly shifted from the SE to more S, allowing us to tack from our course going SSW to one going ESE, a much better course. This would take us over the top of Norfolk Island although we had no plans to stop there. We were changing watches and it was Cindy's turn and I was much tired and may be a little grumpy so didn't really want to do a major sail change when the bunk was calling me. But you can't ignore something like that as it doesn't just go away because you are a little tired.

It was blowing about 22kts at the time but the seas were not too bad, but it was still difficult to get the bow around to the new tack. We dealt with getting the main boom over to the center, then reefed in the jib, then tried to turn the boat but she refused to go around all the way despite full rudder. I turned on the engine and let it warm a bit (not having actually tested the new belts out yet so a little nervous about that) before putting on the power to help turn us around. It still was balky but made it. All of a sudden we lost steerage though and we were going in the completely wrong direction. By the way, there was a little scare during all this as one of the other boats in the group that left on the same day from Noumea all of a sudden appeared out of the dark on an almost collision course with us, crossing in front of us already on the new tack we wanted to go on. They did not have a good watch out and we could have had a collision on the very lonely wide open seas after 400nm of sailing. Go figure. We called them on the radio and they finally answered and said "how nice it was to see us" as if it were an every day event.

In any case, we had to jibe the boat instead of tacking again to get it around on the new tack. It was great to be going in more of the right direction for NZ as our previous course would have taken us to Tasmania and no where near NZ. We thought the wind would change but not until 12 hours later so it was early. We got the sails squared away and I laid down for a well-earned sleep and then couldn't being all keyed up from the activity. I am still tired now the next afternoon.

But, we have had a great day of sailing, on a good course, crossing very near Norfolk and leaving it behind. We cannot point in to the wind as much as we would like, or as much as the boat we almost hit, so will take longer than they will to get there. It is about 340nm to the northern cape of NZ and then another day to get to the river up to Whangarei, so about 4 days off still provided the winds are favorable. I think they will be some of both so who knows. At least the sun came out and we are making good progress. I may even sleep tonight. If I could only shake this nagging seasickness. I don't seem to get over it very easily, but Cindy is doing fine.

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