New Paige has finally untied her lines and sailed away.  On Wednesday, January 13th we cut the lines leaving Nelson for the last time.  We had a number of friends come wave goodbye and some of us even shed a few tears.  We enjoyed Nelson so much and left some good friends behind.
The weather was superb as we set sail for the Marlborough Sounds.  We thought we would do a few days cruising here before heading north to meet the ship shipping our boat to the Med.  We transitted French Pass at 1:00 PM local time as we needed to go through at slack tide.  Great volumes of water rush through this pass and going through outside of slack water can be hazardous to you and your vessel.  It reminds us of Dodds Narrows  in Nanaimo, BC.  We of course made it with no problem and dropped our anchor at 3:30 PM at Homestead Bay.  We got here just in time as the weather changed and we have had the wind blow hard with gusts up to 35-40 knots and higher.  It is now Sunday, January 17th and looks like the weather may break for us to leave tomorrow to cross the Cook Stait and head north along the east coast of New Zealand.  We have gotten our sea legs back and it feels good to be cruising again.  We have met a family from Wellington here in Homestead and they are coming over tonight to celebrate Paige’s birthday with us.  Yes, she is turning 12 tomorrow!!!

I will try to keep you updated going up the coast (or Roger) as cell coverage will be sporadic at best.  Until next time….

Joan

ps pictures when I get a better internet connection, probably Auckland.