Commodore
November 2, 2023

Friday 3 November – dolphins escort us into NZ

Another easy night for us with the engines on, we have been so lucky not to be caught in any squalls or bad weather. By mid morning the wind was back and we had the sails up. We had a lovely sail going at a good pace, through alternating sunshine and rain. We had dolphins alongside us in the morning. The waves have flattened out and there is a bigger distance between waves. It all made for a very comfortable day.

Mid afternoon we spotted land, the sky cleared, it was glorious sunshine in the cold. It was as if the dolphins sensed the excitement as they escorted us in, close to land. We passed so many islands and interesting rock formations. The land looks covered in pristine bush and trees, loads of birds as we neared land. It was all very exciting finally coming into the marked channel, knowing that we had completed the passage safely. Rowan had done a brilliant job of choosing a weather window and navigating our way down around the potentially scary bits, where the two weather systems meet.

There is a big harbour for oil tankers and cargo ships taking logs to China. Roy told us this fast growing pine timber is one of NZ’s biggest exports. We had a couple of tankers using the channel, with their pilot boats. With clear skies and sunshine and no wind it was the most beautiful arrival. We are so lucky.

We got to the quarantine dock just before 7pm, there was one other boat, Shindig that we had to squeeze behind. It wasn’t long before we were downing celebratory gin and tonics and got stuck into my slow cooked lamb shanks with a lot of the remains of our vegetable supply that we had to finish off. Rowan was falling asleep at the table, he has been up since early and all caught up with him. I got our duvet out of it’s vacuum packed bag, it hasn’t been out since Gibraltar! We collapsed into bed exhausted and very happy to be here safely.