The plan is to get to 30 S 175 W and then head WNW to Fiji. It’s a good plan, with a course of 61 degrees true from our current position of 32 degrees 26 minutes S and 179 degrees 42.6 minutes W (yep, we crossed the dateline and are now in the Western hemisphere). The problem is the wind is more often than not predicted to be coming from the NE. We’ve agonized over the weather files, looked for strategies, and with Peter’s wisdom guiding the overall plan, we’ve found a way to implement it. If the wind has more northerly in it, sail east, if the wind has more easterly in it, go north, but don’t give an inch westward and motor if the wind is on the nose. The big caveat for motoring is that the wind has to be light and seas moderate or we burn diesel while making painfully slow progress. We also have limited supplies of fuel, so in reality, from here on out, sailing is our ticket to Fiji.

Anson, aka “Q,” netted us our secret weapon: re-lead the jib sheets between the shrouds, watch like a hawk for chafe, and winch in that jib like a blade. He climbed the mast underway and cut down the interfering rat lines, savoring the challenge of going aloft at sea. (The rat lines are used for gaining elevation to see coral reefs while sailing in lagoons. The boys prefer to go straight up the mast to the spreaders to spot these hazards; I stand on the bow; thus the rat lines are rarely used). We’re now pointing at 45 degrees from the true wind, giving us a full range of options for sailing N or E as the wind shifts. But add big seas and stronger winds and we’ll lose some of that favorable angle as we bash and pound windward. So far, we can hold this sweet angle in 15 knots apparent and 1.5 meter seas, coursing along at 5.7 knots while still having a liveable cabin. If the forecast holds true, we may just have some lighter northerly winds, letting us slip through the gauntlet of strong northeasterlies to reach our waypoint where we’ll turn towards Fiji.

For most of today the wind has been 10-12 apparent, occasionally dropping to 7-10, and it backs and veers as it weakens and strengthens. Our speed goes up and down and our course has varied from 62 to 90. but we’re content as long as we’re making easting at 4 knots or more (and happy at 5 knots or more).

When we focus on the journey itself, and not the fact that we’re taking the loooong, upwind, way to Fiji, the journey is sweet. It is true that we’ve motored three times more than on our crossing from Mexico, having logged 32 engine hours thus far, but these hours have been interspersed with blissful light air sailing. Yesterday we flew the spinnaker in 2-4 knots of breeze at 60 degrees for three glorious hours. We were making 4 to 5.5 knots and it felt like magic. Then the wind shut down to nothing. Today we’re pointing high and the ride is still smooth. The sky is clear, the water a blue so rich it looks like paint, and the night stars shimmer through the crescent moon. A gift for sure. We’re treasuring these quieter days in the ambit of the high, for soon it will be rocking and rolling. But then comes Fiji! Kim
1800 on 5/11 NZ time

Day one: Sweet, light wind sail as we set out in the afternoon. Night one: Motorsailing with easy seas. Day two: amazing spinnaker reach where Anthea sailed at the true wind speed in 5-7 knots of wind on the beam. What a glorious sailing boat! We all took turns handsteering, as at 7 knots of boat speed and wind speed on a beam reach our massive spinnaker starts carrying her higher into the wind. The helmsperson must anticipate this trend and begin steering off the wind before the spinnaker drives us up, up, up and Anthea heels over and further over until someone dumps the sheet! (Marty, Yvonne and Nick had a joy ride like this on a small boat on SF Bay with Mark once, broaching until Nick pulled out his handy swiss army knife and cut the sheet.) Devon did a marvelous job with this tricky steering and Anson was in heaven maximizing boat speed and keeping us right on the edge. Night two: sweet, light wind sail, then motor sail, then motor in dead calm. Day three begins with slightly overcast skies in a calm sea with little wind. So far we’ve had very easy conditions with some delightful light wind sailing, but what lies ahead is not sweet. Strong NE winds all the way to Fiji, worse than predicted when we set out. We all agreed to just keep sailing instead of turning back to NZ and waiting for another weather window. So we’re on the easy part of the journey now, with motoring for the next 12-24 hours then some light wind sailing again as we make our way East, across the dateline, for a NW angle on the NE seas. We’ll be beam reaching in strong winds and seas for some 850 nautical miles. Not fun, but it should be safe as long as an out of season cyclone doesn’t pop up out of nowhere. Peter is in close contact on the weather routing and I pore over the weather files several times a day. Our route is now 12-14 days long instead of the straight route of 7-8. The weather won this race! Kim
33 degrees 14 minutes south; 177 degrees 58 minutes east at 0700 on 5/10 NZ time

We loosed the docklines, filled the fuel tank and jerry cans with diesel and motored out of the Bay of Islands in a dead calm. Once off of Cape Brett, the wind picked up to a sweet 12-14 knots from the west. Devon and Anson raised the sails and trimmed them like racers, so we’re slipping through the water at 7.3 knots, a glorious start on what very well may be a challenging passage to Fiji.

It hardly seems possible that we are sailing again, as we’re squeaking out of NZ on a weather window that is shutting down by the hour. Sweet reaching winds are soon to be replaced by winds on the nose – a game stopper for a 1000 nautical mile passage. The next weather window is at least 10 days out, and early signs are not promising. Ideally we would have left a week ago, or even yesterday morning, right after a low pressure system blew across NZ. We were still “on the hard” (the boat hauled out and resting on land) for that first opportunity to jump north, and yesterday the essential “to do” list was still a meter long and we had a car to sell. Frankly, while it feels like a miracle that we left the dock, it is the result of team work, tremendous effort, and the kindness of strangers.

A time lapse video of our last four weeks would show the four of us in constant motion, working non-stop on Anthea to get her ready for this new sailing season in the tropics. We had planned on scraping off decades of built up paint off her bottom; that job would have taken us 10 days from scraping to repainting. Instead we encountered blisters on the hull, which we opened with each scrape of the blade. Once opened, we had to treat them or new paint wouldn’t stick. Mark is the hero of this story, painstakingly drilling out 2300 small blisters over 3 long days. We all jumped in and applied a coat of epoxy and filled each hole with filler; Mark and Anson then power-sanded the hull, we re-filled low spots, sanded again and then painted 24 liters of barrier coat and 12 liters of anti-fouling to restore her hull. We painted a new boot stripe above the waterline and Mark polished the hull. Anthea looks stunning! The windlass motor was serviced, a seacock replaced and others serviced, the outboard motor handle replaced, the steering system’s bearings replaced, the steering pedestal scraped and painted, and the work went on and on and on for 30 long days on the hard! Once splashed, Devon and I took off all the cushions and steam cleaned them, while Mark varnished the interior and Anson played “Q” and re-rigged our whisker pole, spin pole and main traveler. His designs and splices are a work of art. While living onshore for four days during the cleaning/varnishing, Devon baked the most divine German chocolate cake perhaps ever made.

The time ashore was a bit of respite for everyone but Mark. I took most of a day off, as I was at a breaking point from long hard days of work on the boat, culminating with a late night of scraping, fairing and painting the bottom of the hull while hanging in the slings. Then I got back in the saddle and attacked the to do list. Yesterday we moved back onboard, finishing up essential projects, and then dashed off to Kerikeri to do our provisioning. Devon, Anson and I arrived at the boat at 8:45 pm with $600 worth of food and a car filled to the brim. We woke up, and after consulting with weather guru Peter, decided to leave. The massive stowing job was interspersed with final bill paying to the marina and chandleries, the passing off of the car to the caretaker of the air bnb who will sell it either to her grandson or someone else, and a drop-in visit to customs who generously cleared us out without an appointment. We finished the final stowing and cleaning just as the wind filled in and the boys raised sail.

Since starting this blog, the wind has now backed to a beam reach, and with 10-11 knots of wind we’re still slipping along at 7 knots. The sea is slight so we’re spoiled now. Our challenges ahead are sailing into a high pressure zone and hitting the doldroms, slowing down, running short of fuel, and being caught by northerly winds. We’re crossing our fingers that we’ll find the wind and stay ahead of the curving isobars. It’s a race against weather, so who knows how this will end. Kim
35 degrees 00 minutes south; 174 degrees 24 minutes east

Our return to the North Island began with two glorious days on the Coramandel Peninsula, just across the road from Hot Water Beach. We had rented a lovely beach cottage, more windows than walls, to serve as a transition space for Mark’s sister Zara to recover from jetlag before stepping onto our beloved, but very crowded, Anthea. Due to health issues, Zara had to cancel her trip at the last moment, so the four of us, with hearts heavy from the goodbye with my parents and the sadness of not seeing Zara, found ourselves ensconced in a beautiful cottage by the sea. Determined not to wallow while the sun shone, we set off to explore a new coastline. We hiked to the remains of a Pa site (fortified Maori village) and then returned for a low tide dig on Hot Water Beach. Joining several hundred other people, we shoveled holes in the sand to create an instant spa, heated by geothermal seepages in the ancient volcanic landscape. As the tide crept in, Anson and Devon wielded their spades ferociously to reinforce sand walls and keep our pool intact, while neighbors were inundated by cold sea water. Little did we know that years of playing “keep back the tide” on Humboldt County beaches would provide us with engineering expertise for the longest lasting pool! The following day we hiked to Cathedral Cave, a cliff-side hike with panoramic views of the turquoise waters, where Mark, Anson and Devon body surfed for hours.

After a month of land-based travel, hot showers, and separate rooms, the shock of returning to Anthea was profound. Mark and I found ourselves standing in the galley while Anson plugged himself into Photoshop on one side of the settee and Devon occupied the other. We were penned in with nowhere to go! Negotiating cramped quarters is one of the daily compromises of life aboard a 41-foot classic Swan. When the weather is sweet and the cruising grounds lovely, we rarely long for the comforts of home. But the bottom line is stark: Anthea is small for four, not to mention five!
The weather had shifted and once again we were on extra-tropical cyclone watch as Cyclone Hola was headed our way. Wind, rain and waves foiled our plans for a Great Barrier Island cruise, so we hunkered down in the marina and re-adjusted to life aboard. It quickly became apparent that Zara’s staycation in her beautiful seaside cottage in Westhaven was the perfect place for her to heal and rejuvenate (which she did), especially as rain dominated the weather for all but two of her planned 14 days in New Zealand. But this same rain, and Cyclone Hola in particular, brought us a treasure: a connection with another cruising family with young people the same ages as ours.

Seeking refuge from the predicted stormy weather, Fiuu, a spacious 50-foot performance cruising catamaran, pulled into the slip opposite ours. Seeing a family aboard and hearing French, Mark playfully joked (in French), that Anthea is the everyday people’s model by Citroen (think very small car) and Fiuu is the President’s model (think large sedan). We soon found out they were kiteboarders, and a plan was made to try out a local kiteboarding site, putting the high winds to good use. On board their boat that night we began to share stories and learn about this French family who has sailed for the past seven years. Pascal is an adventurous woman who loves sailing as much as I do, Yves a calm and gentle man who is a retired search and rescue helicopter pilot, Lucile a young woman with an open, joy-filled spirit, and Simon a young fishing genius. They are in the final moments of their cruise, with Lucile off to University to study biology and/or engineering and Simon to attend high school back in France.

With dismal weather predicted for several days we hatched a plan for a bake-off – two teams of chefs would produce the tastiest and most beautiful dessert possible, and the adults would take on the serious work of judges. To capture the day fully would require pages, as the competition quickly became serious: Lucile and Anson against Devon and Simon; the long drive for special ingredients; two galleys with cooks flying; heated discussion over design and presentation; moments of crisis and rescue; judges’ cards hand calligraphied and wax sealed; a trophy prepared; formal presentations of the creations; and finally the judging. The mystery dessert won (Lucile and Anson), as the reach was high and the risks many, but the perfect Carrot Cake (Devon and Simon) was the one that in the end made our bodies happiest. That night we reeled from the dense chocolate of the mystery dessert (chocolate, salted caramel, raspberry mouse with small basil leaves), but the sweetness of finding friends was the ultimate reward.
A weather window opened for sailing again, so we journeyed out for a short sail to an anchorage around Bream Head. Devon, Simon and Yves caught fish for dinner, we played an epic game of ultimate Frisbee on the beach, and the young people prepared for a beach barbecue while the parents cooked and dined aboard. We decided that evening to delay our plan to sail to the Great Barrier Island and follow Fiuu to Whangarei. Friendships were blossoming and our time all together was limited by Pascal and Lucile’s upcoming departure for a six-week tour of Japan (a birthday and high school graduation present of an epic scale).

We spent rainy days in Whangarei, enjoying time together, joining a birthday party of Celine (a friend of Fiuu’s), and helping Pascal and Lucile make their flight to Tokyo when their local flight was canceled. The rain finally abated and we set off sailing once again, delighted to hear that Simon and Yves would follow us to Great Barrier Island. Kim

It all began during the summer of 2016, when I was living with friends Yannai and Kathy in San Francisco while working at a boatyard and racing during my free time. Every time I sailed in the bay, there would always be kiteboarders out there, making even USA 76, an eighty-four foot long International America’s Cup Class all carbon yacht, I crewed on, look slow. I would go home and think about the massive yacht and then the speeds at which we were passed by people with only a board, a few lines and an inflatable kite. When I first realized that the gear could pack small enough to fit on Anthea, I voiced the idea to Mark and Kim. It was received with little enthusiasm, and the matter was dropped. From then on, vision for the cruise consisted of many hours of snorkeling and relaxing on the beach, interspersed with long passages; definitely amazing, but lacking speed! Everything changed on my eighteenth birthday when I was presented with a certificate for kiteboarding lessons in La Ventana, Mexico. Suddenly my daydreaming became reality, and the incessant planning and re-planning of where to store the kiting gear began.

March 3^rd 2017

We had just arrived in Cabo San Lucas and finally knew when we would be near La Ventana. I called up Baja Kite and Surf, the best kiteboarding school in La Ventana, and scheduled three days of lessons for all four of us. It was happening!

March 10^th 2017

Lessons began and I quickly learned how to kiteboard due to the stellar instruction from Norm, Dave, and Jessie. After three arduous days on the water, I was cleared to kite without further instruction and the search for the perfect launching beach began. This caused quite the conundrum: for kiteboarding I wanted anchorages where the wind reached the beach without any impediment, while the ideal anchorage for those boat bound has no wind or waves. It was not until we reached the Vava’u group of Tonga that we found comfortable anchorages as well as picture-perfect kiting areas in the same location. This was where I learned to go upwind, a game-changing accomplishment for a kiter, for it releases you from the restrictions of a rescue dinghy and crew. It was a truly magical moment when I gybed back to the launching area and discovered myself upwind of it! The small anchorage to the leeward of Kenutu Island in the Vava’u group was a kiting epicenter; we met kiteboarders from all over the world, on boats that ranged from fifty-foot catamaran palaces to the most minimalist of thirty-five foot monohulls. Every day at low tide, one mile by dinghy from the anchorage, a miniscule sandbar would emerge, and we would all converge. With barely enough room for two, we all had to make do. During this time, I became well aquatinted with two very generous people, Steve and Michelle. Steve, the consummate kiteboarder, devoted many hours of his time to instructing me on everything from increasing my speed to sliding transitions and toeside. The day to leave came all too soon.

November 9^th

We arrived in the Ha’apai group of Tonga in the early morning with perfect kiting winds. After carefully making our way next to a series of coral reef islands, we anchored in between coral heads beside a renowned kiteboarding location. Despite having stayed up late the prior night on night watch, I insisted on launching the dinghy and taking my gear ashore. The day was perfect: a light cloud cover providing some UV protection, and plenty of wind with clear water.

I have just uploaded a video of me kiteboarding as per Mark and Kim’s request. All of the video, except that taken of me from sea level, is from the first kiting location in the Ha’apai group described above. The shots in the second part of the video were taken with the gopro attached to my kite lines, giving an aerial view. The one issue with this mounting system is that it is right-side-up for only one direction of travel; this is why there are the abrupt transitions from upside-down after every turn. The type of turn first displayed is a sliding transition, hence the slide before changing direction. When I suddenly rotate my hips, switching my lead food, I am kiting toeside, a fun trick I learned from Steve.

 ^{Link to video: https://vimeo.com/258914884}