Sailing Log: Day 2

Two hundred and thirty eight miles north east of New Zealand: Dominic is spooling spectra line on his new reel, Dad is finishing a novel on the starboard settee, and I have no pressing chores, time to sit with pen in hand and write.

We are forty seven hours at sea, and all is well onboard. We left New Zealand with sunny skies, calm seas, and 12-15 knot northerlies; we flew the main and the jib, making tight northeasterly progress at six knots.

There was some queasiness and fasting our first night out, but with a four-hours-on, eight-hours-off watch schedule, we’re all happy, relaxed sailors as we finish our second day underway.

As an added bonus, mother nature has been putting on a show. We spotted whales 100 meters off our stern yesterday afternoon, and the Milky Way has been so bright, and the seas so calm, that we spend our nights watching star beams glimmer in our wake.

The birds in the photo are Buller’s shearwaters, a sea bird that migrates throughout the Pacific Rim, but breeds only in Poor Knights Islands off the eastern coast of the North Island. They hang out in rafts of up to 10,000 birds in the waters outside the Bay of Islands.