We had another leisurely start to the day with a delicious cooked brekky provided by Nick! Thanks Nick! My crew were getting lulled into a false sense of security here, with cooked brekkies and dinner ashore………we’d have to go on an overnight passage soon to shake things up a bit. To be fair, with the experience onboard I think my crew will be more than happy to get into the nitty gritty of running watches and doing longer passages.

With more head scratching and weather perusing we are still waiting for the perfect opportunity to make a break for it South. Question is which way will we go?

Another staff meeting was had with more head scratching and we made the decision to make a break for Torrent Bay in the Abel Tasman while the weather was calm. With a good anchorage here protecting us from the NW and plenty of places to explore, this seemed like a good place to be stuck for the next 4 days.

With our watch systems organised, my crew who have been wanting to get into some ‘real sailing’ were surprised to learn we’d be running our first night watch tonight as our ETA was around 3am. This may not have been something I had mentioned to them when we set off this morning.

It was a lovely sunny day mixed with sailing and motoring…..mostly motoring unfortunately but we weren’t in a huge hurry since we’d potentially be waiting out the bad weather at our next anchorage. We arrived at 2am to a calm Torrent Bay, and managed to dodge all the 5 knot speed buoys scattered across the bay. With our first taste of night sailing/motoring I’m sure my crew will be ready for the next adventure when or should I say ‘if’ we decide to head South!

Till next time,

Jess :)