The flight from San Francisco to Nadi, Fiji, is certainly very convenient.  You leave at 22:30 and arrive at 05:00 local time in Fiji two days later, which is 10:00 in SFO the day before.  So there’s every opportunity to get a good night’s sleep if you can sleep on airplanes.  I typically cannot but no matter, there was work to do when I arrived.  Kincsem was scheduled for launch at 14:00 the same day and when I arrived at the boat by taxi at 06:30, Iain was already there, inspecting the work Mofiz and his team from Yacht Help had done on the bottom paint.  The rest of the Kincsem team, Jim and Jimmer, arrived very soon thereafter.  Iain Wright and Jim Clarke, both Brits, have sailed on Kincsem before but Jim Immer from the Bay Area, a/k/a Jimmer, although an experienced offshore sailor, is a newbie on the boat.   We set to work immediately to get her ready for launch.  First big surprise:  engine battery was dead but Mofiz came quickly with a strong battery charger to get us ready for launch.  Second big surprise, the espresso machine wasn’t working – it seemed full of dead ants.  But otherwise, Kincsem was in excellent shape and we had her ready for launch in time for the scheduled launch time.  Alas, 14:00 came and went and Kincsem wasn’t launched until after 18:00 and we had to stay at a mooring in the center of the inner harbor as the docking team had gone home already.  No problem as the marina has a night staff who picked us up from the boat, dropped us at the Boat Shed restaurant and drove us back to the boat after a lovely dinner!

Kincsem getting launched at dusk

 

View from the mooring buoy on our first evening on Kincsem

 

The next few days were filled with provisioning (including the purchase of a new espresso machine) and various boat jobs as well as detailed introductions to Kincsem’s complicated systems.    Just four days after my arrival in Fiji we were ready to go.  The weather seemed ok and Expedition weather routing software predicted a quick sail of 6 ½ days for the 1070 nautical miles to Opua, New Zealand.  I had hired a weather router, John from NZ, who pointed out a risk of two fronts with heavy winds but after I spoke with him, said that we would arrive before the second one.  Of course, one can never predict the weather for an entire week and the grib files showed plenty of impending lows coming after the one that John was concerned about.  So the team decided that we would go as planned.

Kincsem in full sun dress, waiting for departure

 

Our French neighbors (sailing an older Amel) receiving their musical farewell from the marina staff while I’m in the mast inspecting Kincsem’s rig

Shopping trip

Lamb chops prepared by Jimmer – excellent!!

 

Fish delivery for the Boat Shed restaurant.  Kincsem practice is to separate old batteries, oil cans and trash bags from food provisions ……

Farewell with all trimmings, music & even flower bouquet!  

 

The light westerly breeze outside the marina gave us a nice sail to the reef and once outside, strong easterlies propelled Kincsem at an excellent clip South.  After a sporty evening with 30 knots of wind and spray enveloping the boat at times, things calmed down overnight.  The team settled in very nicely and the Code Zero went up the next morning.  It seemed that the time was flying by and Bergfest, the traditional summit (1/2 time) celebration, was upon us after only 3 days.  We were wondering whether we’d have an easy passage all the way but in the afternoon of the fourth day, we were approaching a dark cloud front, the wind died and the rain started.  We had reached the forecast front and the wind picked up on the South side of it with 30 knots plus for a few hours.  While we were going upwind initially, this was no problem for team Kincsem, and the winds backed soon enough to the East and continue our quick progress to NZ.    For the rest of the trip, the winds were again moderate, the seas calmed down and all was good onboard – although long pants were now in evidence and even sweaters were seen at night.  Temps in the low 20s rather than the high 20s as in Fiji – a welcome change!  

Iain enjoying the lovely sail

 

Jim preparing the Code Zero for hoisting

 

We arrived at the quarantine dock here in the marina yesterday afternoon and the customs officer came on board within a few minutes.  He introduced himself as “Maaack” but in fact his name was Mark.  He seemed to be a stand up comedian in his primary job but explained that he was on loan from the drug squad!  When asked, he said initially he would love a beer but then found it more appropriate to study the forms we had completed!  The entry procedures for New Zealand are quite burdensome but Mark made it seem easy and even somewhat fun.  He was done within 20 minutes but informed us that the biosecurity team would need to come before we would be cleared in and that team was already finished for the day.  So we could not go ashore and had to stay moored to the fancy quarantine dock.  The dock is in fact an island and there’s no way to go ashore without a dinghy ride and we don’t have dinghy.  Well, an evening on the dock gave us the opportunity to celebrate our speedy sail from Fiji appropriately and for Jimmer to cook another fabulous meal for us!  Jimmer had volunteered at the beginning of our trip to handle all provisioning and cooking, an offer that was enthusiastically accepted by the rest of the crew.  In the past, we have always shared cooking duties but having an expert at work in the galley has made a huge difference to crew health and morale!  

 

Approaching Tikitiki Rock at the entrance to the Bay of Islands

Jimmer on watch for the last few miles to the marina

Kincsem at the quarantine dock in Opua

 

The next morning 9 am brought us indeed a biosecurity officer, a young lady who appeared to be in training.  Before arrival, we had had to complete a form on which we had to circle all the dangerous substances on Kincsem that were subject to inspection and possible confiscation. Things like pork, eggs and fresh vegetables are a no-no to bring into New Zealand, if you have honey on board things get get crazy but luckily we did not.  We had talked to other cruisers before arriving and they had suggested we keep all we have and leave it up to biosecurity to tell us what items would be confiscated.  There was a rumor that leniency might be applied by the attending officer.  Well, none of that in our case.  The entire freezer was emptied and transferred to the biosecurity trash bag – well she actually left the ice cubes.  Of course, my salami was a goner, so were the lentils.  She was on her knees inspecting things in our fridge and no leniency was in sight.  For some items, there seemed to be a degree of doubt but that was always resolved by putting them in the trash!  

 

Then the discussion turned to the status of Kincsem’s bottom paint which is required to be free of critters and moluses.  I produced a certificate that showed that the boat had been antifouled and then launched a mere 10 days before arrival in New Zealand but the question was still asked when the bottom was last cleaned!  Explaning that you cannot apply bottom paint without first cleaning and sanding seemed to have no effect and out came the GoPro camera on a stick.  Our officer seemed to have never used one as another officer needed to show here how to do it.  When the footage came back she seemed surprised that the bottom was indeed squeaky clean and we were relieved when she issued our clearance certificate in due course!