Here we go, the first big leg is over and LC is in Kaiteriteri with Marjon and me. We are now enjoying the sun and waiting for a good weather window to push further north.

It's been an epic 3 days of sailing to get here, starting with the ride of the southerly gale to push us to cape campbell and then port underwood, where we took a night of rest at anchor. Wind got up to gusting at 35 knots, which is still easily managed, but the swell was impressive, with a confused sea and waves full of whitecaps and peaking up to what we estimated to be 5 m! These were some tough times, particularly because night caught up with us in these conditions far before any of us got their sea legs (except for Val whose super hero power long list now also include a complete immunity to sea sickness!). La Chica behaved like a champ. With the autopilot on all night, all we had to do was to make sure we wouldn't run aground or on a rock and focus on keeping the dinner inside (not everyone was successful there).

We did wake up to the sight of a 10m sperm whale, some 25 m from La Chica! That was amazing! no pictures from this one though.

We took of on Wednesday from Port underwood to go through the cook straight and had some AMAZING sailing. Sun was out, moderate swell pushing us through with 25 knots of wind. Top that up with the currents in our favour and we actually averagred around 9 knots of boat speed for a few hours, until the tide turned! That day reconciled Kooki and Val with sailing, whose first experience of offshore sailing, mentioned in the previous paragraph, almost discouraged them for good!

Then French pass and the tasman bay and here we are. Marjon and Camille joined us for a celebration party by the beach, ending up in a swim in a bio-luminescent sea for the braves.

All is going well. A big up to the crew. They have been swell!

Cheers for now

Some videos at this link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XtULDmeu8iYq1CSeJIuAOubqDZ-3TRLO