We had to motor most of the night as the wind was light and directly behind us, and we're definitely keen to be in now! However, as dawn broke, I got us sailing. The wind moved more NW and we unrolled full main and screecher and have been flying along since then. The day has been beautiful with winds about 10-12 knots from aft of the beam, smooth seas, sunny. Champagne sailing really.

As we head into the evening, the wind has picked up, and we've just reefed the main. I think it will drop again as we get into night (not until 8pm now!) and its possible we will end up motorsailing at the end of the night, but we'll see. Not yet sure what effect the land will have, and we're rapidly closing on the land. In fact, at this moment we have about 86nm to go to the marina where we clear in. So we will definitely be there tomorrow. At our current speed, we'll be there around dawn, and 5knots sees us in at 10am.

So we have one more night, and this one will be busier with more traffic I suspect. We've just seen our first ship since leaving Fiji - a 300m container ship drifting whilst it waits for its time to go into Auckland. As we get closer to the land, and slip between the North Island and the Poor Knight islands, we'll probably see more fishing traffic. I think the bigger ships are forced a bit more offshore, so we may yet see more of them too. So it'll be eyes-on-stalks tonight and on the radar and AIS.

All being well, the next position report will be from us on the clearance dock :)