1st Days At Sea

Hi all,

Position 34 deg 38 min south 175deg 31min east at Saturday 1300hrs 2nd May 09

We left Auckland in the great excitement of our trip and had to motor sail for the beginning expecting to find the start of the gale through the night that was forecast to intensify on Saturday morning. And indeed we had at one stage 3 slabs out the main, storm sail up, and very reduced head sail peaking speeds of 9.4kts. But not too sure what has happened but we have found our selves motor sailing for half of the past 24hours with lumpy seas that at one stage were 4meters. The crew have had periods of excitement but at the moment of writing are all laying around the deck having all consumed various remedies for sea sickness and have been feeding the fishes with our precious provisions. We are some 70 nautical miles north east of Brett in stunning blue seas. I am sitting at the chart table downloading a weather fax bravely typing a short first entry into our blog. At our morning schedule with Opua offshore communications, Des told us that the Tongan fleet decided to delay their departure till Sunday because of the gale warnings. Wise because this is certainly a rough bit of sea and our hope to have been �sling shotted� out into the pacific with the strong South Easters is now just 4 knots of wave wind.

We are grateful to our good friends the Pah�s that brought bacon and egg pie, quiche and apple pie. A good start to the trip and not something we would have whipped up in this weather.

Skipper

Sunday 3rd May 09 1600 hours: Position 31degrees 57 min south and 176dgrees 55min East. Wow I could eat my words � the wind picked up after writing the above and we had some wild seas with breaking waves up to 6m high and peak wind gust of 50 kts with sustained wind in excess of 40 knots for a lot of the time. We took down all the sail bar the storm jib and ran before the wind with a few waves breaking over the stern. At the time of writing the winds have now settled to a comfortable 20 to 25knots from the South East and we are heading 020 degrees true for Minerva reef. The moral has improved and everyone has started to eat food and show some good humour. Its stopped raining feels warmer, no vessel or anything sited for the past 2 days. We are now 250 nautical miles north east of North Cape (top of the north island) truly far away from anything. Still haven�t quite got my sea legs as this writing is still taking a bit of effort. Matt
is still trying to catch up on sleep, he and I had steered the Carenza through all this stuff. Even now still too much swell in a following sea for the autohelm. Tom has been fantastic this morning by taking the helm for nearly 4 hours and proving himself quite a good helmsman.

Skipper