The North Island is under a high pressure ridge with almost no gradient wind. There was a bit of a sea breeze picking up around 11am this morning. So we weighed anchor and had a beautiful afternoon, sailing out of the Bay of Islands passed Cape Brett and down to Whangamumu Harbour under sunny blue skies (all of 20nm! ;-). There is no harbour down here but remnants of an old whaling station and a very beautfiful bay. Braved the icy NZ waters for a quick swim this afternoon (why did leave the tropics again?).

After two weeks in Opua we weighed anchor at midday today (Saturday, 08NOV) and moved out into the Bay, to Urupukapuka. The unsettled weather of the past few days has gone and we enjoyed a nice sail and a beautiful anchorage this afternoon and evening.

We enjoyed our stay at Opua (even though the 2nd week was largely weather imposed), but is definitely nice to be "out" again. Now we're looking forward plan to meeting Seabright at Great Barrier Island in the Hauraki Gulf during their vacation next week.

We heard you Dave... and since we can no longer pull the excuse of having no internet access, we have posted three new albums on Picasa: Niue, Tonga, and the Sail to NZ. Enjoy - and stop nagging us ;-)

It's just a little over one week ago that we arrived here in Opua - time for a little update. Clearing into the country last Saturday was a pleasant 15 min affair - friendly, pragmatic and effective, a nice change. The drug dog (a very cute retriever-type - an instant star among the kids on the Q dock) was sent into the weekend before it got to Namani; I guess we didn't meet the "threat threshold"...