Lyttelton

Our current berth on the pile moorings at Lyttelton (Elenya is bottom right) taken on a rare day with the sun shining.

Storm warning in place for Conway. Guess where we are?

When we finally get to break the grip of the Marlborough Sounds we felt we would be able to head south (on a nice NW 15 knot breeze of course). Unfortunately whilst heavy rain and winds have brought more than a few issues to Marlborough and Canterbury over the last few weeks (while we awaited spares and felt smug we couldn't head south anyway) it appears the weather wishes to continue to be adverse. We moved to Port Underwood this morning after waiting at Tory Channel entrance for two days. The general plan was to head off tomorrow morning and finish our final part of the voyage. However this evenings forecast has given a Storm Warning of winds to 50 knots from the south, so, being wimps to the core, we will await a better forecast. This will most likely be Wednesday morning, but hopefully Tuesday evening. Four thousand eight hundred nautical miles down, one hundred and sixty six to go!

Port Underwood is as lovely as our last visit in 1997. We came here after a crossing of the Cook Strait in 50 knots. That was Tori's first sail with me after having known me for a couple of weeks. I eventually owned up after a few years to tell her that we were actually sinking on that crossing, but found the leak and managed to fix it before the water got too deep. Neither Tori nor Pete, who came with me , knew about the sinking bit. My cousin Bridget (Pete is her boyfriend) sensibly took the ferry across and back!

Lovely Weather

Lovely weather. Moored in Tawa Bay, heater on, hatches closed, a few good books. Heading south as soon as the weather allows.