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 Keeping Up with 
I am presently tied up to a new marina in Opua, New Zealand, having arrived a couple of days ago after a nine day passage from Sydney. I've cleared into the country in Opua a couple of times in the past. You used to have to tie up to an old rough wood pier that was not yacht friendly. Now you tie up to the outer floating breakwater to the marina, with lots of space and room to maneuver, despite at times strong tidal current. I had called on my handheld VHF as I entered the Bay of Islands, ten miles from here, and the officials were waiting for me when I arrived two hours later. They even took my lines and, being Kiwis, tied them properly. The entry was quick and painless. One of the trends I have noticed over the years is that New Zealand has made it increasingly easy for foreign yachts. They now include a form for you to show anyone you buy something for the boat or have work done, such as sail repairs or boat yard haulouts, so you don't have to pay the GST, which is very nearly impossible to reclaim in Australia. New Zealand wants your business. It is probably against some cosmic law to sail to New Zealand without having a gale, but I pretty much did. I did have gale force winds a couple of times, but only just barely and they were behind me and only provided good, if rough sailing. I left Sydney with a nearly record-shattering low south of Tasmania. It had been sitting there for a while and was providing strong west winds across the Tasman from Sydney. It was at 942 millibars, which is about 27.4 inches. This is lower than the wildest dreams of most hurricanes. For my first two days out of Sydney, Australian coastal and high seas weather forecasts were horror stories, with gale and storm warnings from 16 miles south of Sydney all the way to Adelaide, 50-60 knot winds, 20-30' seas. So I stopped listening to them. I was halfway across the Tasman, sailing under just a deeply furled jib, before the low finally moved, as it was expected to, off to the southeast. If it had come north I might have had some new experiences that I do not need. While the wind moved from south to north a few times, it stayed on or behind the beam, except for one day of about twenty knot close reaching. We had no head winds and no calms except for four hours off North Cape, which is the northeast corner of New Zealand's North Island, the last full day at sea, and no breakage except for the coupling on the Monitor servo-rudder the first night and a grommet that pulled out of a lee cloth. This is the second time the breakaway coupling has broken away. The last being on the passage from Cape Town to Fremantle a year ago. It is not possible to overstate how unpleasant, difficult, and dangerous it is to replace this coupling at sea. This time I did it in an hour and a half of hanging arms and shoulders over the stern, while waves rose and fell and tried to rip the servo-rudder from one hand while I tried to line up a pin through four moving parts in the other and then keep it in place while I threaded a split ring through the pin's end. Last year it took me five hours, counting breaks to regain strength and concentration for further attempts. But then last year it was blowing 50+ knots and this year only about 30. I had trouble with breakaway couplings on the Aries vane during my first circumnavigation and think they are more of a problem than the problem they are intended to solve. The likelihood of hitting something with the servo-rudder on the vane is remote. It is protected by a much deeper spade rudder just in front of it and an even deeper fin keel. While the likelihood of the coupling, which is intentionally a weak link, breaking just through stress is obviously high. On the Aries I eventually had an unbreakable coupling made and think I will for the Monitor too when I can find a machinist. This was my first paperless passage. I now have electronic charts in the computer, as well as the Simrad chartplotter, and didn't even take the paper charts from stowage. It is very good to be here. I am a month ahead of the crowd, which will be arriving en masse from the islands in November. This is my fifth or sixth time sailing to the country. As I rounded North Cape I recalled seeing it in EGREGIOUS almost thirty years ago. Although THE HAWKE OF TUONELA is a similar boat, the contrast could hardly have been greater. On the nearly-sinking EGREGIOUS I was at the end of a passage twenty times longer — 20,000 miles versus 1,000 and five months versus one week. When the next morning I rounded Cape Wiwiki, which is the northern side of the nine mile wide entrance to the Bay of Islands, the sun broke through a gray dawn and brightened emerald hills, rocky headlands, fir tree-covered islands. This is a very beautiful place. I was the only boat underway across the Bay. In another month there will be dozens, and over Christmas, when half the boats in Auckland come up here, hundreds. For myself to avoid the crowds and because I so love Boston winters, I will be flying back there to enjoy the snow for a few months. I need to leave the boat out of the water to dry the bottom, which has osmosis, and need to do the final rewrite of a book manuscript that is due by the end of the year to be published next fall as Return to the Sea. I'll probably spend October cruising around some of my favorite coves, of which there are many nearby, then haul the boat in November and fly back then. Who would want to be in New Zealand in summer when they could be in Boston in winter? I'm in Sydney, in a slip at the Cruising Yacht Club, which runs the Sydney-Hobart Race, having completed a routine passage from Fremantle and my fourth circumnavigation yesterday. Sydney is as fine as my memories of it. The only problem is that so far there is no room in the inn. My slip is available only for a few days and I have yet to find an alternative. There is a designated anchorage in the harbor, but it is not very conveniently located. I may have to move over there in a day or two anyway while I search for a mooring or slip. It took 23 days to cover the 2,300 rhumb line distance from Fremantle. By the chart plotter log, we actually sailed 2,600 miles and have now done just under 20,000 miles since leaving Boston. The parts of the passage I thought might be problems — getting the 200 miles back south from Fremantle around Cape Leeuwin, crossing the Great Australian Bight where there is usually a big high with adverse or no wind, and an area in Bass Strait between Promontory Point, the southernmost point of the Australian Mainland and Flinders Island off Tasmania which is strewn with half-awash rocks and small islands complicated by strong currents — all passed easily. I did have to beat south from Fremantle, but against less than 20 knots, and a predicted southerly change the third day out got me around the corner. All the way across the Bight I had winds on or behind the beam and was not becalmed. I had even considered in the event of strong easterlies or calms to go south of Tasmania. I did dip down into the 40ties, but they were not roaring. A couple of fronts passed with what might have been low gale force winds, but they were astern and provided our best days' sailing. My wind instruments are still not working, so I can only estimate wind strength. And, after powering for a few hours in flat calm in Bass Strait, the wind blew about 20 knots from the west which enabled me to get through the Bass Strait obstacle course in daylight and with a single jibe. With GPS, it would not have been a problem even at night, but in the old days — which means only twenty years ago when I still used a sextant — it would have been exciting. I pass 0.8 of a nautical mile from isolated rocks well out in the strait that were themselves invisible except for the waves breaking on them. I'm sure a number of ships found them with their keels. The last three hundred miles coming north up the New South Wales Coast were the slowest, with 20 knot headwinds, an adverse current, and intermittent calms. But these were to be expected. There was also a considerable amount of shipping, which I tried to avoid by keeping well offshore, but one ship one night came very close. Either he was on autopilot and no one was keeping watch or, and for some reason I feel this is the case, he deliberately came as close as possible. My radar guard zone warned me when he was six miles distant and even though I tacked away my five knot speed was not enough to keep him from passing within a hundred yards. I cannot be certain but I think he altered course when I did. Way, way too close. I thought bad thoughts about "professional" seamen, opened a can of Emu Bitter — a West Australian beer — and then went back to sleep. It took me two days to make the last 100 miles to Sydney. On the final sunset I was only 30 miles south and tacked offshore, planning to tack back in at 0200. At 0100 the wind dropped, then veered south, when I no longer needed it from that direction, and I headed in. A couple of ships were making big circles offshore, waiting to enter port, so I stayed awake and was off Sydney Heads at dawn. By that time I was powering slowly. I think my prop must be foul and will have to dive to clean it. Maybe today. As we passed through the waypoint I put into the chart plotter three years ago in Boston, when it was 10,000 nautical miles away, I cut the engine back to low speed and played Sibelieus' "The Swan of Tuonela," which partially gives HAWKE her name, on the cockpit speakers, patted the deck and said, "Hawkey, they're playing our song." A fourth circumnavigation is of course an arbitrary goal, but it did bring a smile to my face. Being early on a weekday, the harbor was quiet, with only a single sailboat heading out under power, a couple of ships in motion, and the ubiquitous ferry boats. It is a wonderful harbor. If it is not the best in the world, I don't know what is. Now if I can just find a place to stay all will be well.
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