November 22th

Day 8

Hopefully tomorrow this time we will be in Opua, New Zealand. Yesterday afternoon after getting many sources of weather, and reading many weather faxes we determined that our needed northwest wind wouldn't arrive for another day. To push further south and west of our 33 S mark we would extend our arrival to Saturday. We decided after several discussions to cut the corner and make a new rumb line for Opua. The winds were still from the east-southeast and we were able to keep the sails up and crank the motor to increase our speed. These are the times when you have to decide if we want to burn the Arab Juice or wait for the wind. The Arab Juice won and this will put us into Opua Friday afternoon. The winds tonight should shift to the northwest and that will help our push into NZ.
Last night was amazing. the stars went to the horizon and the seas were as flat as glass. Daybreak came and the winds were still light and the seas were calm. New Zealand's outer waters are known as some of the most treacherous due to the wild low and high pressure systems that roar through the region. The last two days you would never know, we are smack dab in the middle of a very large high and that is why we have no winds. Once the high moves west we will start to see the winds pick up from the north-northwest and they will increase in strength. We will be in port when these winds reach there full strength and stir up the ocean again. We will never complain about no wind and calm seas, this is truly a treat for us and a great welcome gift. We will see land later today and will follow south along the northeast coast to Opua.
Today we will take advantage of the calm seas. We have cleaned the decks of the salt that gathers so think on all of the outer surfaces and put some of our sails away. The sky is completely clear and bright blue in color.The warmth of the sun is always welcome. The spirits are high knowing that we will make landfall within the the next day and though being tired has slipped our minds. We have decided that for our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night we will try to find a seafood dinner house and go all out and celebrate our very successful and last crossing of the season.
I was just interrupted from writing by the New Zealand Air Force P3 Orion. They patrol the outer waters and they just did a fly over. We made radio contact and they asked for our updated arrival time. The protocol is for us to give customs a 48 hour update on arrival time which we have done through our single side band radio.
Have a happy turkey day and eat some turkey for us, we will give a report tomorrow upon our arrival. Position S 33 40.122 E 172 48.233