Articles tagged with 'pacific-ocean'

Greetings friends, join us as we sail the longest nonstop passage to date (3672 nm!) of our circumnavigation: Auckland, New Zealand to the island of Tual in Indonesia, but also one of the greatest milestones of the journey as we leave the Pacific Ocean behind us and begin our travels through Southeast Asia. Much more sailing to come, we are Feeln’ Good!

We are preparing for our departure from New Zealand on a very long passage to Indonesia. This will be our longest passage ever as it is about 3200nm but, of course, will be longer as we tack and gybe our way along the path. We are anticipating taking about 16-17 days for this passage and are all looking forward to being back out to sea. Our time in New Zealand has been wonderful and...

We may finally have a weather window that will allow us to make the passage from Vanuatu to New Zealand. At this time of the year, NZ has wild Spring weather with storm after storm coming in off the Tasman Sea (from the West). The storms are about 3-4 days apart so we have to time carefully to be able to do the passage and arrive in time to avoid running into the next storm coming...

Since we arrived in New Caledonia at the end of April, we have experienced a brush with Cyclone Donna, wonderful diving and island BBQ's, a visit from Eric and extraordinary islands, atolls and reclusive anchorages. New Caledonia has it all along with a vibrant capital city complete with any provision you'd like (as long as you are prepared to pay dearly for it!).

We used to do what most people of the world do; live in a home in a community enjoying the infrastructure and accoutrements of being closely connected to ‘normal’ society. However, since we took up sailing and decided to live full-time onboard a sailboat our view of what ‘normal’ is has changed a bit.

Ready to make the final passage of this sailing season from New Caledonia to Brisbane where we'll hold up for the cyclone season and do our annual repairs and maintenance. We had a terrific time in New Caledonia although, just like Vanuatu, it was too short.

Halfway to Fiji from New Zealand, in the middle of the South Pacific, we became becalmed for 2 days. For those not familiar with the term, it means 'stuck in one spot with no wind'. In days of old, this would be a common occurrence as no boat had an engine and when the winds stopped blowing, forward movement did too (unless you had lots of crew who could row!).

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....