Journal Entry October 28, 2005 New Zealand Crossing Day 3 – Murky Day Trapped Inside Tournesol

Author: Scott

Today started out looking like a sink full of dirty sink water with thick gray clouds covering the entire sky. Where was our beautiful blue sky from yesterday? It almost looked like we were in for a snow storm but the air was nasty, muggy, and in the mid 80s. Pam was still feeling the effects of the wild roller coaster ride we are on and was never too far from her cozy nest on the leeward settee. We continued to munch down our baked goods from Ifo Bakery. I had another mouth-watering cinnamon bun and Pam had her usual chocolate muffin. We spent the morning reading the awe inspiring New Zealand arrival information packet and watching the battery voltage languish with the lack of sun to pump up the solar panels. If the gray sky was enough to depress us then the information packet that blathered on about what you can’t bring to New Zealand could have killed us from boredom. For lunch we had tomato soup. In the afternoon Pam read aloud but we decided to put Sir Edmund Hillary on hold and moved on to another Mt. Everest tale that was a little closer to home. We started reading “Touch the Top of the World”, by Erik Weihenmayer a fellow blind person who was the first blind person to climb Mt. Everest. I have had a few opportunities to meet Erik but had not had the chance to read his book yet. We found the book to be quite interesting and entertaining. After reading we broke out the Five Crowns card game and I won bringing our current match total to one game each.

Late in the afternoon the wind eased from 25 to 30 knots to a much more enjoyable 15 knots and more importantly the seas calmed a bit and Tournesol no longer felt like she was landing on her belly after jumping over parked cars, and the sky even began to brighten. When we did our daily position report we had 996 miles to go before reaching Whangarei, New Zealand. We finished off this thrilling day with a beautiful sunset, the cloud cover turned lovely shades of lavender and pinks. Dinner was soup again! Pam was still feeling funky so we just whipped up some cup a soups and polished off the day listening to a new nighttime radio net, the “Fat Nose” net coming from the acronym FATNZ for Fiji and Tonga to New Zealand.