What a beautiful day we had here, blue sky, sunshine, gentle breeze. Snorkel with turtles, walk along the white sandy beach, and around the point to the other side of the bay. Clear water lapping over coral reefs, great swimming in waters of 24.3 degrees. Why are we leaving???? Well it does sound crazy to be leaving here, but we have decided the time has come and we set sail tomorrow.
The bottom of the boat has been scrubbed, again. The dinghy has been deflated and stowed for passage, again. We spent our last few francs at the local shop buying fresh baguettes and ready made toast. The gin has run out and the LPG is almost gone, so it is time to go! Don't be alarmed if we seem to be heading for Australia in the first couple of days, we plan to get a bit further west at the start of the journey to give us a better sailing angle to come back to NZ when we pick up southerly winds in a few days time. So our track will look like a bit of a zig zag, but we should still get to Opua in 7 and a half days.
From now on it will be short updates only while we are at sea. We look forward to arriving in Opua and spending the NZ summer in some of our favourite spots - we have a beautiful playground in NZ!