I sailed like that all day, until 1650, because the wind had gotten stronger and veered so it was on the quarter now, which pushes the boat around a lot, too much for the self steering. I set the medium jib, because it would be dark soon enough, and I'd rather not do another sail change in the dark. (ye olde traditional sailing ships reefed at night, unless they were outrunning pirates, or they were pirates)

I had decided to head for Mangonui instead of Bay of Islands. It added another 55 miles to my trip, so I'd definitely not arrive until the next afternoon, making this easily my longest trip. There were less hazards now. I just had to sail around things, not between anything. My plan was just to give everything a really wind berth, at least 10 miles. (the fastest my boat might reasonably go is 6 knots, more likely 5, so in the absolute worse case that I slept through my alarms, and the wind changed, i'd still have at least 2 hours before I hit anything. (I was setting alarms every 1 hour, so this was double the margin)

At midnight, I marked my position on the chart, and was shocked to see I was way off course, and heading straight for an island! I reset the sails, and self-steering, hopefully well away from the hazard this time, staying awake to monitor things. Then, when the next hour rolled around and I marked my position - I was shocked again! I couldn't possibly have travelled that far! or at that angle! as I was checking my notes, I realized that I had marked the previous position wrong. I'd taken 35 degrees 53 minutes south, and put that notches below the line marked 55 minutes on the chart... but i'm in the southern hemisphere, and zero is the equator. It's -35:53! when I corrected this, I had been travelling in a straightish line the whole time and didn't actually need to change anything. I had just made a simple mistake while sleep deprived. This is exactly the sort of thing I was doing this trip to find out - how would I handle sailing consecutive nights in a row? Is this something you can get better at?

Later, shortly after 0200, I was below decks reading, and a sound of lots of small waves breaking (sort of a smaller wooshing sound, not a big crashing) alerted me, I jumped up, and saw the depth sounder read 0.1 meters! I was about to run aground! I quickly disabled the self steering, and tried to steer away from the reef that I seemed to be on (funny, I didn't notice anything in this area on the chart) when I didn't hit anything, but the depth sounder still said weird things, flipping rapidly to different readings, mostly 0.1 or 757, which is what it says when the water is too deep for it, it seems. I realized, the depth sounder was just a bit haunted (all the electronics are). And that sound was just a weird wave thing.

The weird thing about the sleep thing, and making the mistake, is that by the morning, I had a coffee and felt relatively sharp again. I later had a hour nap during the day, and woke up feeling groggy... maybe a hour is just the wrong length? you get into REM sleep but it gets interrupted. A half hour nap is refreshing, or a longer sleep? I should also keep a log of the amount of sleep I get while doing this.

Early morning I came out and saw the moon again. It didn't photograph well. That's one thing I really like about sailing at night - it's something you just have to see with your own eyes.

Once the sun had risen, I just had to sail to doubtless bay, then into mangonui harbour. I estimated another 8 hours. The wind was very light. Was only going about 3 point something knots, but getting closer and closer. When I was quite close, I realized I had a quite heavy fish on my line (I take the line in at night). When I get it aboard, it's huge. Easily the biggest fish I've ever caught.

This photo is not very good at making it look big. But that green rectangle (a sponge) next to it's head, is actually 11 cm long - this fish is over 2 feet long!

I was getting pretty close to the massive cliffs that surround doubtless bay, and the wind was very light, but the waves were quite big, left over from before. This makes it quite hard to sail, because the waves moving the boat shake the sails, and they loose their shape, and then they don't create lift well. I figured I'd made it this far, I could just motor in... (I had managed to get the motor running again in coromandel) but then it wouldn't start. Starter solenoid just clicks, then nothing. It occurred to me that this swell could be a problem. If the wind is this light, I'm not moving very fast, theirfore the rudder doesn't work very well, if there is swell at the harbour entrance, that might be quite dangerous... I might have to anchor out side of that, which would be somewhat uncomfortable, or keep sailing. It seems there isn't enough power in the batteries... but there has been heaps of sun on the panels all day. Once I manage to sail slowly far enough away from the cliffs I try switching to the other old battery... it works! I'm motoring in! I start putting the sails away... and then the wind picks again! anyway I motor in, and find a nice spot to anchor.

I buy some ice to give me a chance to get through all this fish before it goes bad, and write this.