2005 was to be our very first year cruising. Having completed the purchase of Raven on Christmas Eve, 2004, Mike and I were anxious to return to New Zealand and enjoy an introductory “shake-down” cruise through the Hauraki Gulf. Rod and Anouk were waiting aboard to teach us the ropes and livestyle of the liveaboard cruiser.

In March we spent six idyllic weeks in New Zealand on our beautiful new Raven, cruising from island to island, exploring, swimming, diving. It was hard to leave and come home. However Raven had plans to migrate to the South Pacific for the upcoming New Zealand winter…so Rod and Anouk headed to Opua and monitored the weather, looking for the perfect meteorological window to sail to Tonga. They had a great voyage, with some R&R on Minerva Reef where they were challenged to a race by another cruiser (Raven won). They arrived safely in Nuku’alofa, the capital city of the Kingdom of Tonga, where Mike and I joined up with them again for our second cruise.

After another six weeks exploring Tonga, capped off by a 440 mile passage from Tonga to Fiji, Mike and I caught a jet in Nadi and flew back to Tucson, happy knowing that we had already scheduled our return to this warm and inviting island country. True enough, we flew back to Nadi in October and enjoyed wondeerful cruising and diving throughout the islands, then opted to join Rod and Anouk on the 1,000 mile bluewater passage back to New Zealand. It was the end of the cruising season in the islands with cyclone season in the offing, while spring weather in New Zealand was well underway.