Blinkin' Nora it's a miracle

Well by some small miracle I seem to be on a stable and completely free internet connection, plugged into the mains, with unlimited time and power available to me, even Kieran is nowhere to be seen asking me if I've finished yet or not. This is a VERY unusual state of affairs and has renedered me virtually speechless. Luckily for you this means that I am unable to compose any witty commentary to go with all these photo's, but as you can see we had a pretty amazing passage from Opua, Bay of Islands, to Golden Bay, where everyone walks around barefoot with dreadlocks trying to outdo each other for how cosmic and alternative they can be. Six days of beautiful weather, whales, dolphins and albatross, with a 30knot blow on the last night that got us thoroughy wet and broke the jib was an amazing way to arrive at our new home.

First stop was Sprits Bay at the northern tip of the North Island by Cape Reinga, a truly piratical anchorage where the souls depart this land, and from then on we left the land behind.....

We love you too

When your ex crew email telling you that they had such an amazing time on Lilly they want to do something nice for you, it's easy to feel a little bit nervous, what could it possibly be......?? Will they attempt to single handedly dinghy sail around South America? Will they set up a business manufacturing canvas buckets? Have they invented a way to cook for 9 people on passage without throwing most of it on the floor?

Well no, none of these, but they have, nonetheless, achieved great feats of engineering and really got a taste for extreme weather conditions.....

(and just in case the blizzard is onstructing your view, the flag reads 'Happy 2009 Lilly Bolero'

We love you too Chris and Gilles....

A very serious business

Well the new year brought forth the Bay of Islands Tall Ships race. This is a very serious and prestigious event where lots and lots of boats gather together to compete once a year, they tweak their sails, polish their hulls, streamline the rigging, varnish the woodwork. keep a keen ear to the wind, agonise over the best course and race unto the bitter end with victory the only goal in sight. As usual we approached the event with the seriousness and commitment it deserved.To be honest I'm not entirely sure that everyone else appreciated the endless supply of water balloons and huge wads of soggy toilet paper being thrown at them, and the tumbleweed silence at the prize giving when I asked if there was a prize for fancy dress seemed to imply that maybe we hadn't taken it quite seriously enough.... by midnight when I found myself head banging to metallica even I realised it was time for us to go home

More pictures coming soon....

We're home

The passage back was calm and beautiful and Lilly sailed like a dream, it's not often on passage you can get a photo like this...

Although of course we got a bit of this as well...

And gave new meaning to the french 'bidet'

Kieran abandoned ship in dismay at our progress, but the sight of her fair lady lonely without the wind and her captain soon brought him home again and the wind soon followed

We had so many calm days that we swam regularly, avoiding sharks and the smaller yet stingier jellyfish cuningly disguised as bubbles

But eventually we arrived home and sat on solid land for lashings of pirate rum

It's been an incredible advenutre and the future now beckons, who knows where we'll go next. What I do know is that we make a wonderful threesome, me, Kieran and the lovely Lilly, and I hope the winds will continue to be kind to us as we move forwards into the next adventure. Thanks for staying with me, I've had a ball

xhil

Before we go....

After a day like this....



...we couldn't quite bear to leave, so we headed for the Iles de Pins for a few days for some last rays of sun...


...some last aquamarine waters...


...some last white sands...


...some last tropical sailing...


...and some last sea snakes (we saw 7 in 2 days, which for those of you who know me well is 7 times of total freak out)

As the sun set and the wind had still not swung round we knew it was just time to go, so it's farewll to the turtles and the warm clear waters and off we go into open waters....

To New Zealand, and beyond....

Well New Calednoia has been a strange and wonderful time, France on the wrong side of the world with all the joys of du pain, du vin and du fromage (I don't like Boursin), high heeled ladies and slightly lecherous men, it's all here, plus a totally different and very beautiful landscape to the rest of the pacific
So we came and saw a huge amount of rather large fish including manta rays under the boat on passage and barracudas just hanging out in our shadow

But it really is time to go, New Zealand is calling and this adventure has to come to a close sometime. We have great crew to get us back down south, so we had our last monthly wash

and I tied my niece to the top of the mast where she serves as not only a really good look out but also as our guardian angel

So I am getting myself and the boat ready for passage, mostly by throwing buckets of cold water over myself whilst fully dressed and vomiting into a bucket but I am looking forward to a week at sea with nothing around and time for reflection on this last life changing six months. I'll let you know when we're safely home, thanks for being with me

The things we do

Things we do on passage:

Sleep

Find ways to amuse ourselves on moonlit nights when on watch, Obviously we are also being very responsible and keeping an eye out for huge tankers that can wipe you out in a millisecond without so much as a ripple in their sinks. You can tell how responsible we are by the Kierans 'ready for anything' stance and the fact that I decided to grow a few more heads for better night vision