“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name” - Chinese proverb

The ocean is deceitful.

*Paul working on his pose for Yachting Monthly and becoming the poster child for Burke….this is what happens when I’m not awake - Skipper Iain*

*Hold on! Carla is working on her Musto profile! Who’s sailing this boat????*

A bright, distant light on the horizon astern can resolve itself into a cruise ship bearing down so close as to reveal the lights of individual cabins, each occupied by passengers cocooned and oblivious to the sailing yacht ahead, or even to their own presence on the wild sea. Mid-ocean, a bright star or planet wheeling on the horizon can appear, perhaps hopefully, as a fellow traveller on the sea. Wind-blown wave crowns appear as the illusion of whale-spout. The strain on the line to a splashing lure is perceived as a fish-strike.

*Dean finally gets on the helm after many challenging days for him but not once did he neglect his watch regardless of how he was feeling. Turns out he is a gun on the helm!*

After leaving Hobart on 26th February, three days later we were sailing steadily a little north of west, with a warm northerly wind of 18 to 20 knots. The sea state extended to long rolling ocean waves, and blue skies made for pleasant sailing on a beam reach. By nightfall on 1st March, the wind grew more variable with some minor squalls and rain through the early hours of morning. The clouds cleared with the wind veering to the southeast by mid-morning, permitting some glorious sailing on full main and a broad reach by the afternoon. Only a lone albatross inquired as to our passing, no other soul, so perhaps in compassionate comradeship, it chose to accompany our passage, enlisting a fellow albatross along the way to assist in the sentry duty.

*Pramod took a swim half way across the Tasman, when he got out we found it was his first swim in the sea ever! That took some guts but he looked like a new man when he got out.*

Through the following day, we surfed long rolling swells with a slackening wind that veered to southwest until falling to a complete calm by midday. With no wind and mirror calm seas, we entertained ourselves with a swim in the deep-end of the Tasman Sea - 5000 metres deep - then a climb up the mast. More than 500 miles from the nearest land, it was ironic that as one of the worst cyclones in years struck the Queensland Coast some 1000 miles away, we were becalmed at the midpoint of the Tasman Sea.

*Sonia in training for this years Sydney to Hobart Race.*

With just enough wind in the late afternoon, we sailed into the night towards our New Zealand destination, to be met by choppy seas and winds strengthening from the southwest. We were feeling the inexorable pull of wind into the tail of the cyclone, its magnificent power drawing energy from a thousand miles away and propelling us forward. Through a long day with difficult, uncomfortable seas and gusts up to 30 knots, we settled more into the monotony of long-distance sailing. The night shifts crept on, though mercifully each only 2 hours long.

In those night-watches, the sea deceives your thoughts and emotions. The slow, foreboding feeling of approaching nausea on a tumultuous swell, the absence of new stimulus. The slow, mechanical process of waiting for the kettle to boil, casually making a midnight tea. The dreaded waking from a tossed and broken slumber for a 4am watch. Long hours in contemplation and conversation, disconnected from the crutches and compulsions of our technology-commanded lives. You begin to mistake those feelings for boredom, deceive yourself that the fatigue and lack of stimulation equates to drudgery. You mistake the occasional surprises in conversation with an amiable crew, the slight rush of excitement from a tack or sail change, the fly-by of our perpetual companion albatross, as mere punctuations in a background of boredom.

*Ulf taking a leap of faith 500nm off shore in the Tasman Sea. Carla is already in hanging off the mermaid line.*

It is a self-deception, and as with all self-deceptions you are a willing accomplice, a role you unexpectedly discover. Because after ten days on a lonely sea, you find yourself wondering in awe at the arrival of seagulls that you know to nest only on land. You eagerly anticipate the approach of land, and the inevitable proclamation of ‘Land Ho’ - a shout that echoes in the barely-glimpsed shared history of every sailor. With enthusiasm, you report and track contacts, recognising their presence, willing inside for their recognition of your own. As we pass the northern cape of New Zealand in the early hours of Saturday 8th March, and motor down the east coast, pilot whales on port and starboard announce our welcome. Land slips past and lighthouses disappear astern. The crew awake as if from a slumber and get busy preparing for arrival.

And you recognise your mistake, your self-deception, but you’re ready to instantly forgive the error.

Because the ocean is truthful.

*Paul is at it again! Burke, if you are interested contact us at Ocean Sailing Expeditions and we will connect you guys.*

You acknowledge in that moment that the feeling of boredom, of the long drudgery of night watch was actually something else entirely. It was the necessary juncture for the hard-won emergence of a feeling that is at once more profound and connected. A feeling of presence and awareness, of mindful sensation and active existence, unhurried and unburdened.

*Sunrise on the east coast of New Zealand North Island.*

For the brief moment before connectivity brings its relentless cascade of commands and diversions, you call the feeling by its proper name.

You call it peace. - James Kavanagh

Arriving in New Zealand, 8 March

Back to the Islands!

Hobart to Auckland, March 1st