Tied up on Thursday at the Napier Sailing Club marina at Ahuriri which is on the western side of Napier. After our 33 hour passage from the Bay of Plenty we were feeling pretty tired and cooking was not an exciting prospect so we reeled our way round to a fish and chip shop for a quick meal before lurching home for an early night. The reeling and lurching all to do with the fact that solid ground had changed in the 33 hours that we had been at sea and now seemed to move as much as the deck of the boat!
Next day things were better and being Christmas Eve we headed into town for a bit of retail therapy. To get from Ahuriri to Napier town it is about a 40 minute walk around the hill or over the hill. We chose the latter which took us up a steep road with some lovely quaint old houses. These are a few that survived the large 1931 earthquake (there’s one for you to google Meg).
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| Smelling the roses.. |
The city of Napier is lovely with all its Art Deco buildings and as we walked down through the gardens the bells from the cathedral were playing Christmas carols. The town centre was packed with people doing last minute shopping.
After a bit of lunch and some Christmas shopping we hit the supermarket to buy something for our Christmas dinner.Friday night we had a meal at the Napier sailing club and chatted to Canadian cruisers, Jackie and Gary from the yacht Inspiration Lady. They have been cruising for the last couple of years, leaving Canada and cruising the Carribean before transiting the Panama Canal and crossing the Pacific to Tonga and then heading to New Zealand.
Christmas Day started with the weird Luck tradition of having pork pies for breakfast – skipped the champagne and oj’s this year though. Not sure that my brothers have continued this tradition (Richard says the Americans have never heard of them). By the time we had finished that and had a chat with Alistair from the Cav32 next door it was time to get the leg of lamb into the oven. Enjoyed having a chat on skype with Richard and Maggie in Colorado and Peter in South Africa, and Peter caught up with Justine and Jason in Wellington (apologies to them for not being there!).
After tucking into our roast lamb (new oven does a great job) and Christmas pud we felt the need for a walk along the bay. Beautiful day and good weather.
Boxing Day saw us taking another walk into town – this time around the hill by the port. Another big cruise ship was in. Town was packed with people and we enjoyed sitting at a street café watching the myriad of styles, types, shapes and sizes go by.
The area called Ahuriri where the marina is situated is a popular area of restaurants and bars in the converted wharf sheds. Very picturesque with fishing boats alongside the wharf outside the restaurants.
28/12/2010
The last two days seem to have been totally taken up in listening to weather forecasts and trying to plan the trip from here to Wellington. For those who don’t know New Zealand, the coast between Napier and Wellington has no decent anchorages for shelter if the wind increases or changes suddenly and it can do anything around here. From Napier to Castlepoint on the Wairarapa coast is approximately 15 hours (at 7 knots - that’s our average boat speed for you landlubbers). There is an area that would afford some shelter in a Southerly wind but no shelter from strong Northerly winds. From Castlepoint we round Cape Palliser, cross Palliser Bay and into Wellington Harbour making a total of about 30 hours.
Today has been blowing hard – here in Napier we have had northerly winds up to 50 knots which has been exciting, even in the marina. (I guess if we weren’t in a marina it wouldn’t be so exciting).Reports from friends in Wellington were that it hit 70 knots at the Brothers (islands on the other side of Cook Strait) and at Plimmerton it was blowing so hard it blew the new lettuces out of the ground!
2200 -The wind has stopped – its weird it is so quiet.. keep waiting for it to start howling again after a day and night of 40-50 knots.
Have just been over to the fuel wharf to fill up with diesel. We are leaving early in the morning for Wellington so I am going to post this and get some sleep so will probably have to add photos later.
If I don’t get to add anything before the New Year, best wishes to all for a Happy New Year.
A few photos from Napier
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| How to cool off in Napier |
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| Huge amounts of small fish (anchovies??) in the marina - plenty of bird life too |
4 comments:
Glad to hear you are on your way again. Wishing you a safe trip to Wellywood.
WE ARE REALLY ENJOYING YOUR TRIP NOW THAT WE ARE LANDLUBBERS INSTEAD OF SAILORS AT THE MOMENT
JOHN AND HELEN
You are teasing the google'holic in me... but I did just read up on the 1931 earthquake - very interesting. Apparently it sparked a review of New Zealand building standards which were found to be lacking. Also an interesting fact... it took 4 days for news about the earthquake to appear in cinemas in Auckland. It's slightly amusing to think that it took that long now that we live in an age where global news is instantly available... how accustomed we have become to instant gratification and results.
Good luck with the next leg of the trip!
Rather you than me for the Napier to Wellinton leg! I dont do sea sickness very well!
What with facebook, txting, emails and blogging and chart plotting etc, you can't have much time for anything else.
Keep the posts comming and in between the above a few foties would be great!
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