Troll’s Bridge

Lift, roll… Slam! Repeat. It’s time to pay our dues. Considering the fact that we haven’t had very much uncomfortable weather on the entire trip, a couple of days hard against 20-30 knots of wind with 2-3 meter waves doesn’t seem like too steep of a price for finally leaving the tropics to push south to New Zealand.

This stretch of water is known for rapidly changing conditions, and indeed the weather forecasts that I load every twelve hours or so bear little resemblance to each other or the actual conditions. One thing that I knew for sure a couple of days ago as we motored across a flat sea under a big high pressure system was that the calm weather wouldn’t last.

Sure enough, as soon as we crossed 30 degrees south, the wind began to build. It was fitful at first, but soon gained strength. Surface ripples on the ocean became whitecaps, which became waves atop swell. We had a good day of fast reaching before a bank of clouds brought with it a blast of wind that howled in the rigging and laid the lee rail under water. Even with the mainsail deeply reefed and just a scrap of genoa out we had more than enough sail power until dawn.

The following day saw us powering south through confused seas with occasional gusts of wind from all directions. When the breeze returned it came all in one gust and has stayed with us ever since. I expect that it moderate by tomorrow morning, and we may yet have to motor some of the final miles to Opua according to the latest forecast. We will just have to wait and see.

For now, the waves are getting up enough to properly rinse the deck. One just poured in the ventilator, so I will have to go pump out the shower sump after I finish writing. The attached picture is the view looking up the forward deck hatch while it is under water. Only about 150 miles to go before we reach sheltered water…