[password] Cowboys99
[status]
:position 31 47.38s 174 44.84e
We departed Opua Marina yesterday at about 10:30am having cleared customs, filled up with diesel and checked the fine details of Bob McDavitt's weather forecast for the 20th time. We exited the BoI into 25-25kts from the East - ideal progress-making weather, except for the accompanying 4m swells. A bit uncomfortable and feeling a bit queasy, we carried full sail on the beam and rocketed North touching 12.5kts all day and into the evening when we put the first reef in. This slowed us down to 9-10kts and fortunately the swells started to lessen, as did the breeze, and we sailed through the night in 15-20kts. All a bit vigorous! Our 24 hour run distance was 194 miles - but there wasn't much sleep to be had :( This morning we're motoring through near calms and 1-2m swells, while I've spent the day in the bottom of a particularly unpleasant cockpit locker repairing our exhausted autopilot. Have it jury-rigged now - just hope it lasts until Fiji - looks like we need a replacement part :-( But everyone is well and we're down to 840 miles to go
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