The forecast showed that there wasn't meant to be much wind today but it had been a while since we had ventured out on Double Time and so we thought to heck with it - let's go.  We left the harbour to find a beautiful offshore breeze.  When we put up the sails DT fairly leapt to it.  With no swell on a loose close haul she flew down East reaching speeds of 9 knots at some points.  The weather was absolutely glorious too and we got to Discovery island in no time.  We went well past of the island expecting to be able to then clear it to the East when we tacked but as ever, we were somehow wrong!  In what appeared to be the same conditions we were reduced to less than 4 knots even though all we had done was tack.  As we sailed on the the wind veered from East to North and then died away.  We kept sailing though and after tacking again headed for the danger marker at the entrance to Baynes channel.  As we came down onto the marker we were pushed onto it and forced to tack again no more than 50 yards from it as we were not going to make it.  Heading out again, we gave ourselves what we thought was plenty of room around the marker but again we were pushed down onto it.  All this supposedly only an hour after slack.  To clear the mark we ended up adding the engine (no sailing purists here!.)  and as we went passed realized there was significant current heading south down the outside of the island.  As we came round to the west of Chatham Island the wind totally died so we left the engine on to clear plumper passage and then headed to Trial island.  Clearing the south end of Trial Island with plenty of sea space the wind freshened to probably no more than 3- 4 knots but enough to revert to just sailing.  With barely a breath of wind though coming offshore and no swell DT again showed her true character though on a reach that had us going at 5 knots in almost no wind.  As the sun sank lower we headed back to Victoria harbour in truly perfect conditions.  With about 2 NM to go the wind suddenly really started messing around though.  Within the space of 2 - 3 minutes it switched through 90 degrees and after that there seemed to be a massive wind sheer between the deck and the masthead.  With this disparity not settling down we ended up starting the engine again and motoring in so as not to spoil what had been a truly beautiful bit of sailing getting in at around 18:30