Fiji to NZ Day 1

lat 20.28 S
long 176. 46 E
course 188T
speed -6 kts
wind 15-18 E
seas 1 meter

Happy Halloween - Get up, Get ready and leave - a day early! Is that a trick or a treat? Not sure, but we are underway to NZ - a day earlier than we thought we would be. Gotta love weather - or not.
So Yesterday (Thursday) at 0500 I was awake and stressing about things. I finally went back to bed around 0630. At 0715, Dennis wakes me up with "guess what honey...". And the mad dash began. First get the part for the stantion that they were welding (yes, number 2). Got that. Then check with the office that its okay to checkout -yes. Okay. All hands on deck. The tarp came down, the stantion replaced, boards tied on, decks washed, windvane rudder and vane on, chilli started, meat loaf put together, customs papers filled out, last emails (hopefully) for my nursing license sent, garbage out, tools put away, fan, tarp and chairs back into the anchor locker, contraband plant and last 4 bottles of beer to Moondance, cabin partially stowed. At 1030 - go to customs and wait in line, check out (easy, my papers were filled out in duplicate), pay, final showers, hugs goodbye to Moondance and undersail at 1230. Shit I think we qualify for the marines. Lord knows we smelled like marines - 89% humidity does that. Actually managed to leave Fiji with no fijian money. We spent some at the store, and the rest went to customs and the marina bill. Nice change.
After we got the sails up and settled, we had chilli for lunch (yum). Then I spent another hour finishing up on the inside of the boat. Whew! But all the crew is happy to be underway.

Around 1700 we passed through our final Fijian channel and into open ocean waters. Was quite bouncy for awhile, but finally after dinner we reefed to my favorite 3rd reef and it settled down some. The wind moved more northeast as the evening progressed and by the time I came on watch at 0300 (Dennis forgot to change his watch) we were running downwind. Sure was nice of Dennis to give me an extra hour of sleep! Paul came up with me for the 0300 - 0600 watch. The first day was kinda tough on him, but he seems to be getting over it now. Better living through applied pharmaceuticals as I like to say.

Today has been okay. We motor sailed until 1430 as winds were light from behind us. They have come back up and are more from the east now, so we are cooking right along. Looks like rain in front of us, hopefully we won't get too wet.

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