Passages crewed with 'carmen'

After six months of enjoying all New Zealand has to offer (and it’s amazing how wonderful this country is!) we are more than ready to leave. Tracy wrote an article about our experience here. New Zealand will always have a warm spot in our hearts as we met so many wonderful people here, so enjoyed touring around and seeing the specular scenery and loved the food, wine and cheese....

After almost two months in Tonga exploring the archipelagos of Vava'u, Ha'apai, Nomuku and finally Tongatapu we are ready to begin our passage to Port Opura, New Zealand. It'll be about 1100 nm depending on if we stop at Minerva Reef or not. The weather will be the guide here as this passage has a reputation among sailors as being a tough one weather-wise. In anticipation of this we...

After almost four months in the islands of French Polynesia we begin our passage to Tonga. Our plans are to make a number of stops along the way to break up the passage to be able to handle this with the crew we have on-board. This means we'll be doing 2-3 days passages at most before stopping and resting for a few days before moving on.

After some lovely days spent enjoying Moorea, it's time to move on to one of the places that has been on my 'bucket list' for many years... Huahini Hui (and Ita). We prepared the boat last night for an early morning (06:30) departure knowing it would take most of the day to sail the 85 nm.

Tomorrow we begin the passage from the wonderful archipelago of Tuamotu to the main island of Tahiti where we'll put Feelin' Good in a marina for the first time since Colon, Panama. Tracy and I as well as the crew will take a well-deserved month off to relax and visit with friends and family back home. This short, 205 nm, passage will only take us about 23 hours to accomplish as the...

After a number of wonderful weeks spent exploring the islands of Marquesas we continue onto the archipelago of Tuamotu where we will have completely different topography from the volcanic mountains of Marquesas. Tuamoto is comprised of atolls barely above sea level. Each atoll has usually has a pass or two that allows a yacht to enter the interior lagoon to anchor. Our first atoll to...

We are ready to push on for the Marquesas after having spent a couple of weeks exploring the islands of the Galápagos. It’s a truly interesting place and an historic stop-over point for vessels sailing further into the Pacific. This is the launching off point for fully committing ourselves to crossing the Pacific. We could still turn back to Panama as it’s only 850 nm behind us,...

After our Panama Canal Transit, we anchored off Panama City for a few days to do some last minute provisioning for fresh fruits and vegetables. We’d also been waiting for a good place to update our fishing gear and luckily found everything we needed to allow us to catch fish all the way across the Pacific.