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

Less talking more pretty pictures

When it's not wet, I'm not seasick, the engine works and the crew are nice sailing is really quite something you knowIt can even be quite romantic. Here is Gilles sharing a special moment with his special friend (admittedly his special friend is a coconut but you try telling him)

I even got trick or treated, well mostly tricked cos my lovely niece threw up all over the boat in the middle of the night, in fact the whole crew have been sick, except for me, who says vegetarians aren't healthy??

After an embarrasing incident with the coconut Gilles decided he had to leave immediately to go to South America

And the rest of us struggled on without him, heading off to another Volcanic island, non active this time, and managed to drag 4 kids and 5 adults up to the top with a selection of lovely locals who were clearly a whole heap fitter than the rest of us put together



So the new plan is to leave Vanuatu this week for New Cal before heading back to New Zealand, however the engine has turned into a stroppy teanager and only very occasionally does what we want it to do, so if it works this week then we'll go, if not we'll make a new plan, stay with us....