Minerva to NZ

The passage to NZ is renowned as being difficult and we would see how deserved this reputation is.
We spent three days at Minerva Reef exploring and getting our best possible weather window.
Minerva Reef is a barren reef of several hundreds of yards wide and very flat. It has ankle to knee deep water depending on the tide which you can walk on. As it always above the water it provides a safe anchorage and many boats go there for the welcome break before heading on to NZ. While we were there were always 5 or 6 boats coming in and leaving. We went walking on the reef which was a little like walking on the moon. It is very barren and we were wondering if a cyclone had hit it in the recent past as there was very little living coral and not a lot of fish. Ken tried wading on the reef at night looking for lobster but saw no signs of them anywhere---his lobster hunting has become an obsession which has not been fruitful since the Marquesas months ago.
Our last night there we weathered a squall which came through with winds to 35 knots and were happy we were secure on our anchor and not at sea—several boats had left that day and had to suffer through it.
We are in touch with a weather routing man in NZ who specializes in giving safe passage schedules as much as is possible, he said we would have a window the next day with not too much expected before we would get there.
We set off the next morning in light winds and slowly drifted our way south. We along with the probably 50 or so boats currently on passage to NZ were flown over by the NZ air force jet Orion. It appears to fly the route from Minerva to NZ checking on boats en route. They ask for your details and estimated date of arrival in NZ and we must look very funny from the air as we are all in a line over the 800 miles. It was pretty cool as they fly low over you—they pick up your boat name and call you individually. What they do for exercises the other 10 months of the year I am not sure. It is a strange feeling to know that they cover the distance in a matter of hours and we are taking days—are we crazy or what!!!
We had an uneventful sail the first two days and then prepared for a small low pressure area which was going to create winds from the SW for a few hours—no big deal!!
Hmm--- around the forecast time of 8pm—why this always needs to be in the dark I am not sure—we spotted some squally patches on the radar. The wind was behind us which means it is not as bad as ahead of us so we had one reef in the sail when it hit. We got blasted for an hour and had speeds up to 11 knots and winds up to 30 knots. After that had gone through we thought we should reef some more to be safe as they were saying the centre would be at 1am. Precisely at 1am the wind started to build again but this time in our face. I had been on watch so Ken came up to help and we were buffeted again and were once again flying along at 7 or 8 knots with very little sail up. We had another boat buddy boating with us who had brought in all of their sails so it required a lot of focus to watch for them so we wouldn’t run into them.
We were being driven more and more SE—our course is SW so after a couple of hours of flying off in big winds and seas decided to “heave to”. This involves back winding your front sail so you just sit into the wind and do not go anywhere and can take a break. It was something we had never done before in these conditions but many boats do. It was immediately calmer (relatively) and we rocked around stalled in the water—we were also conscious of the other boat and now were afraid they would hit us.
After an hour of this with neither of us able to sleep and the winds not abating we decided to reduce the front sail even more and go where the wind would take us at a slower speed and perhaps be able to sail through the weather.
Finally at 6am and 10 miles off our course it calmed enough to turn and sail back towards where we had wanted to be. By 8am we were then able to turn on the engines and motor straight along our course line for NZ. We knew that the winds would be in our face all day at about 10 knots and it would be impossible to sail, tomorrow the winds are forecast to drop even more so were prepared to motor for 2 days. The seas had built up so we rocked and rolled as we motored into the wind and sea at 5 knots.
By night the seas had calmed a lot and the winds dropped and we continued to motor with both of us taking easy watches as the other one got some much needed sleep. As we are motoring in relatively , calm conditions we each were able to watch a movie on our DVD during our watch as we have excess power—when we sail our power is stretched just to be able to run the electronics and automatic steering.
We have a radio schedule on single sideband each day with a lot of the other boats on passage and record each others positions and exchange information. At this time there appeared to be some concern about new weather fronts and we all pooled information and our best guesses—nice to not be all alone out here. We understood winds would come up in the next day and are all waiting eagerly, if not a little apprehensively to get sailing.
After motoring for 2 days with a knot or more current against us we felt we were going nowhere very fast and were feeling frustrated .We were also concerned how long our fuel would last as we still have hundreds of miles to go.
Well on this NZ passage what a difference a day makes!!!
The winds started to come up in the morning and we sailed slowly till 4pm when the wind started to come up and up and up!! Pretty soon it was constantly 25-30knots and we started doing 8 knots. It was steady not squally and so the sails are at less risk.
The winds blew all night at 30 knots gusting to 35 and our speeds were steadily in around 8 to 9 knots reaching over 10 knots at times. The seas also built and it was a very rolly rocky ride. The noise is something that cannot be imagined—the sound of the sea swishing past and the wind howling makes everything tense and uncomfortable. Waves periodically washed over the boat flooding the cockpit. Sleeping became almost impossible and we are so happy our autohelm holds so well and we are able to do most of our watches from within the salon. We are more stable than the monohulls with us and do not heel over so can sail faster than those of our size. They need to reduce sail to be more comfortable so we pulled ahead considerably from the other boats we had been with previously. We did 200 miles one 24 hour period which is a record for us but have decided we would prefer to go slower in quieter conditions.
Finally 30 hours later the wind abated to 20 knots and the seas calmed somewhat which seemed so smooth and quiet and we both got some much needed sleep.
By morning we were only 50 miles from Opua--what a great feeling.
We came in later in the afternoon and it was an emotional moment for me to finally have our boat in my “other home”.
We are now safely tied up alongside and will write again about our experiences in NZ—we are in for a very social week as the local businesses all put on free dinners every night to welcome the cruisers so we will enjoy trading passage stories with the other boats who have arrived here.