Over half way to "En-Zed-land" 5:30AM 11/7 (Ginger)

The sun is just coming up and we're over half way on this passage. After the first two days of fast sailing we enjoyed a full day of spinnaker sailing yesterday. As evening approached our wind died and we doused the spinnaker and started up the engine for the first time since leaving Fiji. Many of the boats just ahead of us started this passage by motoring for the first two days so we're feeling lucky to have almost caught up with them (we left a day or two behind them) and to be motoring for
the first time now. It was time to give the batteries a little boost anyway. The nights are still a chilly 75 degrees and the days have been beautiful. Though the temp on the deck was 102F yesterday afternoon there was a chill to the breeze that made us think of spring at home. It feels as if the breeze may be picking up a bit from the north so today may be another fantastic spinnaker day. We've been monitoring a net with a few boats from Fiji just ahead of us and today we'll check into Russell
Radio as they'll notify customs when we're within 48 hours of arriving. It feels close now, just 500 miles to go. Peter had a creamy chicken tarragon dinner to celebrate our half way point last night. This is good news as the chicken was home canned and would have been confiscated in NZ. As we just used 12 hours of fuel we've got about 48 more hours we could motor if needed. Sailing is so much more comfortable hopefully we're through the high pressure area of light winds and can sail again.
(The barometer say's we're steady at 1017 mb just like last night but who's looking at that!) We're practicing our Kiwi and hoping not to say anything considered polite at home and extremely rude here! We've learned a few phrases to avoid but now that they're on our minds maybe we'll blurt them out by accident!