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We have arrived in the fiords and so far have sailed through George, Charles, Nancy, Milford, Thompson, Bradshaw and are currently anchored in Doubtful Sound. Unfortunately we cannot post any blog updates while in the fiords as SSB does not seem to work while we are surrounded by he magestic heights of the fiords. We are currently in Teanau getting some supplies and have found some free Wifi. We are heading back to the boat shortly and will be off the grid for quite some time again. We will post our adventures when we have some reliable Wifi. We will say that we are having an amazing time and have many stories and pictures to share with you when we can. The only price to pay for our cruising through some unbelievable scenery is the hoardes of sandflies. Unfortunately for Denny they seem to like him more than me. But we have learned to adapt and now keep ourselves covered from head to toe, even while sleeping. So it’s all good.

Our next cruising plan will be Dusky Sound and onward to Stuart Island.

We will post our locations and stories when we can.

Sunday March 5th 44 02.493 S 168 03.791 E http://maps.google.com/?z=7&t=k&q=loc:44%2002.493S%20168%2003.791E We are 30 miles from the opening of Milford Sound. So we are excited about exploring the fiord early in the morning. As usual we are motoring the last few miles under oily, flat seas. We may not be able to send updates while in the fiord but we will try. We are very excited!!

Friday March 4,2017 Posting by Barb: 43 03.712S 168 42.748E http://maps.google.com/?z=7&t=k&q=loc:43%2003.712S%20168%2042.748E Well we have broken the 100 mile mark. It has been slow going but we expected the wind direction to be on the nose. And based on our weather watching we expected the lack of wind so we got what we asked for. The wind picked up the last 2 days and we got the usual South Land wind of 25 knots on the nose!! It was a little more of a challenging sail and it made Denny much happier. He came alive and stepped up to the challenge of maneuvering through wind, rain, bigger seas. We felt very cozy and safe in our little snail shell but not really warm. I guess that is to be expected. Temperatures dropped from 80s to 60s. Sorry Canada you will have to do the Celsius translation. Everything on this lovely American boat is in Fahrenheit. Suffice it to say a 20 degree drop takes a little getting used to. When we have less boat heel we will move our shorts to the back of the closet and pull out our long underwear!! Today we are back to the 10 to 15 knot calm wind sail and Denny is sleeping more!! We are now aiming at arriving in the wee hours of March 6th so we are ok with a 2.5 knot snail pace. Any faster and we will be arriving in the night and that’s not what we would prefer. We are excited to see Landfall. We will message you tomorrow night as once we are in the Fiords SSB email may not work. We are however visiting Milford first which is the popular tourist place so there may be cell phone or internet coverage. Barb and Denny SV Landfall

Thursday March 2,2017 Posting by Dennis: 40 17.880S 170 09.256E http://maps.google.com/?z=7&t=k&q=loc:40%2017.880S%20170%2009.256E Hi It is really slow going. We have almost no winds at all,5-10 most of the time and what we do get is exactly on the nose so neither tack is good at all. We have started to motor sail, mainly because it at least than it seems as though we are moving in the right direction. We have a albatross that is kind of hanging around it is amazing to watch them with there huge wingspan gliding along so easily just off the water. We also have a half a dozen petrels following us in hopes we may drop something in the water. I saw one of them caught a fish earlier this morning, it was a little big and he had a hard time getting it down but he managed just fine. maybe we should change the boat name to “The Snail” Later Dennis & Barb S/V Landfall

Tuesday Feb. 28, 2017 Posting by Dennis: 37 50.655S 171 07.574E http://maps.google.com/?z=7&t=k&q=loc:37%2050.655S%20171%2007.574E Hi to all, We are doing well just not going anywhere fast. We are averaging about a hundred miles per day, so pretty slow but all that is expected for 5 to 10 knot winds. Right now we have the spinnaker up and just drifting along at 2-3 knots. We have 430 miles to go, so it will be about four more days until we arrive at Milford sound. Rounding Cape Reinga was the hardest part so far. We had no wind and a good 2-3 meter swell and then a 2 plus knot currant against us so it was slow going. We had two visitors, small birds with webbed feet, that flew right into the salon in the middle of the night. Probably attracted to the light. This happened during Barb’s watch although she woke me for the first bird encounter. Yesterday we had tuna steaks on the grill that were great. As we still have Tuna in the freezer we have not been fishing. Other than that we have been reading and watching the miles go by. Later Dennis & Barb S/V Landfall

I guess we should have posted that we arrived in New Zealand!! Some people are still wondering whether we are still out there. We do have a slow boat and we do love sailing but we have made Landfall!!

Denny is now with his family in Minneapolis and I am with my parents in Ontario. I did get a visit from my son before Christmas and I will see Ally in the New year. We will be back together in New Zealand sometime mid January.

We would like to wish all our family and friends a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year.

We had estimated a 10 day sail to New Zealand. WE are now on the 14th day of our passage to New Zealand and we still have another 288 miles to go. We did spend a couple of days drifting at 25 degrees south, avoiding any south until the 2 lows that had been forecasted passed New Zealand. Once we re-started our passage it has been a struggle with wind direction. It has persistently been blowing straight from our planned waypoint destination accompanied with waves and large swells from the last low. It can be a little discouraging when either sail tack takes you away from the waypoint (ie negative velocity made good) and motoring is not an option because of the large seas on the nose. But we learned to accept and just started to enjoy the journey. So we continue to read, watch movies, experiment with sail tweaking, cooked and ate most of the foods customs will take and took turns being the ‘pest’, having fun. We have experienced all kinds of wind challenges from no wind to lots of to deluge of wind which was a 10 minute squall of 45 plus knots which slammed the boat. The squall made me appreciate our decision to avoid he NZ lows!! WE have had a few minor problems like bilge pump not working (filter clogged with crap from healing too much during the squall), breaking of the topping lift and a little scare when our engine would not start but a new gas filter fixed that. All problems that Denny fixed pretty quickly. We are nearing the end of our passage and expect to arrive in NZ on Thursday November 24th, just in time for American Thanksgiving. Maybe I will fill Marsden Cove with the smell of a cooked turkey dinner (good memories with Becky) but Denny said not a price for the NZ turkey,$35.00 for a 5 pound turkey. We may have to settle for chicken!! Next post will be from NZ. PS. No fish this time. We didn’t try. There is still too much fish in the freezer!!

Sunday 11/13/2016 Position 25 21.262s 176 11.198e Hello Well we are on a holding pattern. We will not make it to New Zealand before a big low pressure system hits so we are going to just stay were we are. We will get a grib file, (a weather map that shows the wind speed, direction, wave height, and air pressure) tonight to help us determine how far south we can go and still stay out of the heavy winds. Then the mad dash will be on again. It is 450 miles to New Caledonia, with the winds coming out of the north and the northwest, so that is not a good option and heading back to Fiji does not make sense with those winds. So that does not leave much other then just hang out here in the middle of nowhere. It looks like the only thing that will be not so great is the 14 foot seas we will be in. So it looks like hanging out here for the next five days. I think I will watch a movie or two. Will keep you posted on our progress or lack there of. Love to you all Dennis & Barb S/V Landfall ————————————————- Do not push the “reply” button to respond to this message if that includes the text of this original message in your response. Messages are sent over a very low-speed radio link. The most concise way to reply is to send a NEW message If you DO use your reply button, be sure to delete the original message text and these instructions from your reply. Replies should not contain attachments and should be less than 5 kBytes (2 text pages) in length. This email was delivered by an HF private coast station in the Maritime Mobile Radio Service, operated by the SailMail Association, a non-profit association of yacht owners. For more information on this service or on the SailMail Association, please see the web site at: http://www.sailmail.com

Friday 11/11/2016 Position 23 31.126s 175 38.712e coarse of 185 True, Speed of around 3 knots Hello to everyone. Just letting you know we are moving along slowly in light air. The first couple of days were kind of rough but the winds have gone really light. That is good because we what to wait for a low to pass to the south of us and then we will pick up the pace again. We are only doing 80 to 90 miles per day while we wait. It makes for a very nice and easy passage with the boat sailing almost flat. Well that is all that we have to report for now, will send out another in a couple of days Love to all Dennis & Barb S/V Landfall

October 17 – 18

16 28.139 S – 179 01.749 E

Link to Google Maps

Posting by Barb:

Our return anchorage to Nukubati was to visit the village Nasea. We waited for the school boat to pass by and then we followed them into the village. A little girl asked if she could ride with us and she proudly stood at the front of the dinghy as we arrived idled into the village. Nasea was a little disappointing. We handed the Kava and they quickly did a mock Sevu Sevu and then went straight to pounding the Kava. We did understand that it was ‘freehold’ so Sevu Sevu was not necessary. They progressed to preparing and drinking the Kava and invited Denny to participate. But they continued to talk in their native tongue making Denny feel a little unwelcome. We understand that it’s probably because they could not speak very good English. Tino, who works at the resort, was probably the only one that made a genuine effort to make us feel comfortable but he was on the way to work.

I was given a little better welcome. I was introduced to the oldest lady of the village who was 109 years old. She had a little trouble waking up from her nap and felt a  little shy with me being there. The ladies who gave me a tour of the village. They had much better English Language skills so were much chattier than the men. One of the young boys scampered up the Papaya tree and they loaded me up with papayas! They showed me the Kava that they had harvested but from what I could understand very little was sold, it was mostly consumed.

Tino dropped by the boat early next morning to say good-bye. He was returning from the resort after a Kava night with the wedding guests. He was tired from the late night affair but he made the special effort to drop by and say he appreciated our visit and was sad to see us go. When we asked if we could take his picture he quickly pulled out his Bulah shirt and got dressed up for the occasion. I guess Denny should have done the same!! He was actually teary eyed when he left.