Day 11 (part 2)

When it became light, I had drifted over past where I was when I first "got to wellington" at 0130 yesterday morning. I had to get underway again if I wanted to get into port today. First I needed some dry clothes to wear. Clearly the stuff I was using wasn't quite cutting it. I had an assortment of wet weather gear that came with the boat or I had picked up at op shops. Also, and very little dry clothing left. Water had gotten into several of the lockers, so things that should not have been wet, were. I was ecstatic to find I had a plastic bag with dry t-shirts in it. I also had this quite ridiculous looking PVC racing suit - you climbed in the top, and then it zipped up along the top of your arms. It was a little small but it looked like a race car driver. I had gotten it on waiheke island the time that @zach and @angelica came sailing.

I put on two dry t-shirts, a damp merino singlet, a swan dry, a thick woolen jumper - legs through the arms, as trousers, and then another, some-parts-wet jumper on top. Then squeeze into the racing suit, a PVC yellow rain coat with hood, and woolen hat, then finally safety harness. After getting the sea anchor in, and the sails back up, I switched to just pulling up the suit, and tying a belt of inner tube around it. It was slightly small and zipping up the arms restricted my movement too much, as well as taking ages to get into.

I was underway again by 0730 but the wind soon picked up, and I was back down to 3-reefs. By 11ish, I was back near where I been when the northerly wind started yesterday. Inside was chaos. Everything was everywhere and most things were wet. The water which had come in through the deck leaks had accumulated sufficiently in the bilge to be coming above the edge of the floor when heeled over, which was most of the time. What various random stuff had fallen of shelves etc was sitting there either partially or totally covered in bilge water. I had removed the inboard engine a few months back, but there was still a strong diesely greasy vibe going on in the former engine room, now bicycle shed, and this made the bilge water brown and oily.

I used to have a steady but small leak through the stern gland, but I managed to stop that after removing the engine. Something wasn't right about the bilge pump though, probably the pipe was clogged. A few times I bailed the water into a bucket, using a mug I didn't like, 6 buckets at 1158, another 3 buckets more at 1335.

At 1359 I was about to cross my path of where I was at 1900 yesterday. This was encouraging, looked like I had very good chance of making it in before dark.

At 1500 I needed a rest. I had had two days of hard sailing with very little sleep in between. I was wet and cold and hungry. In my log, I wrote:

I shall now put on a priceless -- DRY T-SHIRT -- ONE OF ONLY 3 IN EXISTENCE

I also used some string to add suspenders to my upside-down-jumper trousers.
At 1541 it seemed the wind had eased. One thing I had learned in this whole experience is not to succumb to wishful thinking that the storm is over, but this time it was real. I slowly added sail back, going to two reefs then one.

At 1757 I switched back to the working jib and full mainsail. The storm was over. I still had a ways to go. Trying to improve speed I lifted the floor and bailed 5 and a bit buckets, replacing the floor and wiping it down with soapy water.

At 2105 I declared my self officially inside wellington harbour. Past the Barrett reef. I had forbidden my self any triumphant thoughts until now. I had done it I was here. I had sailed from Auckland to Wellington, engineless, with two gales. I tacked on though the dying wind, heading for Oriental bay. My favorite anchorage from when I learnt to sail here - but only usable in a southerly. The water was nearly flat now, so the last little bit of N would be okay. Also, my first boat was more flat bottomed that Cleo, while it had the advantage that the keel could be raised and get into shallow water, it was uncomfortable to be anchored in anything but flat water. I didn't quite make it that far, I ended up with pretty much zero wind off Point Halswell, at the north end of Miramar peninsular. The water was 20 meters deep, which is deeper than I normally anchor, but I used my smaller secondary anchor.

I logged that as 2249. From anchorage in Auckland, to anchorage in Wellington, in 10 days, 8 hours, 51 minutes.

I found collected the few actually dry cushions and remembered a dry blanket that I had forgotton, and went to sleep up the front of the boat (a area I had used only for storing sails, so generally less chaos there) Later I was awaken from a ferry wake at 0341, and the southerly was here, so I raised anchor and sailed to Oriental Bay and dropped anchor again at 0432.

I had made it. All the way from Auckland to wellington. 650 nautical miles, That's 1000 kilometers. I had sailed further than that because of tacking, I'm not sure how much, but I don't really care that much. The more important thing is that now I have gain entry into the club of those who what it is to sail a small boat through a storm.