Arrived off Nelson

Written by David Townsend

10, February 2008

Position 35°18’746S 174°07’426E

At anchor off Opua, North Island, New Zealand, South Pacific Ocean.

Hi dear friends, thank you for following my journey. Here is this week’s update.
Many have emailed / telephoned me to say they have not been receiving these updates, could I please ask for you to take a few moments to just let me no that you have received this okay. Thanks.

Life Onboard:
Life has settled down once again in to the Opua style, this means frequenting the yacht club on a regular basis, oh to be back at sea (laugh). I departed Whangarei on Tuesday morning, proceeded 15Nm down stream then anchored in readiness for the following mornings tide to sail back to Opua.

Wednesday morning and the forecast did not sound too good however as I would be heading North, the wind being from the South East it should be a quick passage, with winds of 25, gusting 35kn it took me two and a half hours to motor the four miles out of the bay and in a position where I could set sails. Those two hours or so can best be described as like being inside a washing machine, I had two metre seas breaking, 30kn of head wind and going against a 2kn tide. All in all a refreshing start to the day.

The sail to Opua was excellent, good wind, nice sea’s, I arrived off Nelson, New Zealand’s first capital city at sunset. Dropped anchor and turned in.
At dawn I weighed anchor and proceeded the three miles to Opua, arriving there at 08:00hrs NZDT (New Zealand Daylight Time, that’s New Zealand standard time plus one, like British summer time). The rest of the week has been spent focusing on socialising with friends old and new, oh my poor old liver.

The Boat:
I have removed the deck mounted solar panels which stopped working some six months ago, the area underneath now needs to cleaned and brought up to match the rest of Pinta.

Pinta”s batteries which have slowly been failing since Tahiti are really knackered, alternatives have been sourced however I shall wait a few more weeks before carrying out the replacement.

On Sunday night (in NZ) a friend of mine Seth, off SV Heretic dived and had a look at the shaft anodes for me, they are okay, a little worn which shows they are working. I took this opportunity to add another so hopefully that should see me to Darwin which will be around August 2008.

Fair winds, calm seas.
David.