South Pacific

From Tonga to New Zealand

We set sails for New Zealand in frresh winds caused by a large high pressure system with its cetre south of us.

Closer to the centre of the high the winds became more moderate, and the seas less chaotic, and our speed increased.

The temperature fell day by day, we were soon out of the tropics. Here David has donned more heavy cloths, even if the sun shines.

Mia sits in the lee, and the sun then makes the temperature more pleasant.

Also for the captain.

Rizing sun in the morning.

Setting sun in the evening.

And turning to the opposite direction of the sun, we found the full moon.

The captain ready for the first watch of the night.

David enjoys the last rays from the setting sun.

And so does Mia.

The wind died totaly, and we had to motor the last two days. Here under the setting sun.

The sun gets under the horizon in just the same second as the picture is taken.

We are close to New Zealand. Under starboard spreader the courtesy flag for NZ, under the port spreader the Swedish flag and the French tricolor for the international crew, and under them the Q (quarantine) flag to show that we have not yet been cleared in by customs and the other authorities in New Zealand.

The first sight of New Zealand outside Whangarei, after 7 days from Nukualofa in Tonga.

The Pacific Ocean is huge. If you check on Marine Traffic, and look at the entire ocean in once, you will find that there are a lot of ships out there. Even so, this ship was the first, since Panama that came so close that we could read the name through binoculars (except in harbours), and here we are already close to land in New Zealand.

We saw a few on AIS or on radar, two or three within sight, a few fishing boats and a few sailboats.

If it had not been for contact with other sailors on SSB, we would have felt that we were quite alone out there.

The captain happy to have landfall in Marsden Cove Marina before the next low pressure system arrives.

Wild formations greeting us welcome to New Zealand.

Marsden Cove Marina. We have moved Tatt av vinden to its designated spot after clearing in. Bio security is taken very seriously in NZ, and like many others, we had to let go of some food, and we were happy that they accepted the bottom of the boat as clean. They are very strict about all these things.

We had reached the land of the antipodes of us Norwegians. The great circle distance home is more than 10,000 nm. And we had done it without any serious accidents. Halfway around!