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This photo was taken by our friends John and Alita from Holding Pattern.  We had just been dropped back in the water and were waiting for the Customs guy to arrive and give us our final clearance to leave.  An hour later we sailed down the Whangarei River to the ocean and turned north towards Fiji.  After three days of progressively worse weather, our meteorologist emailed us that a severe low was forming right over Fiji and we could get winds up to 50 knots (58 mph).  We made the painful decision to turn around and sail three days all the way back to NZ and wait for better weather.  Six days and nights of hard work and we were back where we started.  Our nephew didn't have time to wait so he had to go back to the States.  Four days later we set out again and had our worst passage to date.  Gale-force winds blowing straight north and the worst lightning storm we've ever seen, plus adverse currents, made this passage no fun at all.  Except that when we finally got to Suva, Fiji, after 8.5 days we felt great.  I think it must be like pregnancy - if the memory of the bad stuff really stayed with you, you would never do it twice.  We had left a little early in the season so we were one of the first boats into Suva, followed by a few friends' boat in the next couple days.