Whew...

Other than the start of ulcers from the stress of waiting...all is good aboard Astarte after Cyclone Cook passed.

We kept listening to radio warnings, "All ships. All ships. Cyclone Cook will approach the southern end of Great Barrier around 1300 hours Thursday. Make sure you are in a safe place and let someone know where you are because there will be no rescue quickly. 90 knots of wind are expected near the center of the cyclone." That's enough to get you scared to death.

We were well prepared. We found what we thought was the best anchorage – protected from three sides for the clocking winds. We put out lots of rode on our main anchor and then put our second anchor out and had a third ready to drop. There were six boats in this anchorage – three sailboats and three motor launches. All were pretty spread apart so we had safe room between each other.

Then we waited...and waited. We saw some squalls as the morning wore on – perhaps mid 20 knot winds and rain. Noon came...1300, 1400. We tracked the barometer and it dropped as expected, but not dramatically. We went from facing east to southest to south to south west and then west – but quite slowly. We saw blue sky to the north and figured that was the eye. Then the blue sky was south. Around 1600 the barometer started to slowly rise. It was passed. We believe from listening to reports from other boaters that perhaps the center stayed further offshore and away from Great Barrier. A later report said it was to go ashore in the center of the the Bay of Plenty which would have it put it further east.

Needless to say, we finally got our appetite back and had our first meal of the day around 1800 and felt we were both lucky and prepared and we picked our spot well. We could see more wind above the tree line.

Today we now get try to get the anchors up and stored again and the boat back in order. Thanks to all who sent us phone texts and e-mail and provided us some extra weather info especially David and Patricia from Gulf Harbor Radio via Tony's Maritime Net.

All good aboard Astarte. Hope the rest of NZ fares as well.
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At 4/7/2017 10:01 PM (utc) S/V Astarte was located at 36°11.04'S 175°21.59'E

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