31 38.66 S 176 58.37 E

Hello All,
Today was very stressful for me. I got up to the bow pounding in seas. The south wind that was light earlier turned to 25 knots right on the nose. We bucked into seas doing maybe 2 knots then it started to go easterly. I got the sails up and made a coarse for Opua. I realized with in a few hours there was not enough east in the wind and we were going off coarse and were going to miss the Island. We had to tack the boat, meaning I had to go the opposite direction so I didn't lose and hard gained ground. We had to buy some time to let the wind fill in from the east. We were on this tack for 12 hours and at 0000 tonight, this morning, we turned the boat around. The coarse is holding good and I will hold my breath that it stays that way. We are hard on the wind so the boat is healed way over and we are pounding into seas, but we are making 5 knots so all is good for now. I have the engine running just above an idle just to give the boat some steerage.
We are 252 miles from Opua and and am not even going to take a guess as to when we will get there.
I am a much happier man at this moment than I was a few hours ago. The feeling of moving away from your goal is gut wrenching but it is a sailboat and that tactic is done every day but I still don't like it. I guess I need to think of it as a means to an end.
All of that being said, everyone is doing good and they haven't thrown me off the boat yet because of my bitching and moaning lol.
That's all for now and I will talk to you soon.

PEACE