Day 2

I am finally out of sight of land! today started slowly, just drifting north of curvier island (I went to the north of so that it would be included in my circumnavigation of Te Ika a Maui, when I return to Auckland up the west coast). I caught a fish. I don't have a freezer, so I took the line in, don't need more than I can eat. One job I left was replacing the self steering pivot. This had broken on the last trip, and I made a new one on the go. It had been bending disconcertingly and finally it broke. I made a new one from an old chopping board. I'm already 80 pages into my reading material, Cape Horn: the Logical Route (by Bernard Moitessier) I better not read too hard or I'll finish everything before I arrive.

There isn't much to do. Get the boat going in the right direction and keep it under control. Check that it's going in the right direction and that ships arn't coming. Then relax. I've switched off the depth sounder because it can't see the bottom. It's over 1km deep here! I should be passing east cape tomorrow night at this rate. I'm gonna give it a wide berth, stay in the deep water, away from hazards so I can relax. If the weather gets rough it will be less rough further out. Also, shipping here hugs the coast (I did some research before leaving - found some website with a live map of AIS data) so I can avoid that being further out. Shipping goes close in to save fuel, but for me, the scarce resource is how much rest I can have. So stay well away from hazards is the best plan.