THIS BOAT ROCKS

Oh yes, I forgot it’s supposed to..

12/12/2010
 Finally, we are on our way – a year later than planned but who’s counting.

After Pete put in a hard weeks work painting the hull and antifouling; a busy week cleaning up the boat and packing up the house and then deciding to buy a new laptop and going mad loading everything on to it and getting it to work, we have left home and are now boat bums. Wonderful.

By about 8.30 on Sunday night we were ready to head over to the boat a


nd our neighbour Helen offered to deliver us and bring the car back. As none of us had eaten we stopped at the Love a Duck for a meal. It was now 9pm –closing time but we managed to order a Chinese feast and grab a bottle of wine only to be told we had to be out by 9.30. Scoffed it all down and headed to Gunner for a cuppa.

A very grey overcast morning greeted us at 630am but we were up and away by 7. Motoring down the Waitemata harbour the Auckland landmark of the Sky Tower had its head in the clouds.

All across the Firth of Thames the land stayed shrouded in cloud but on rounding Cape Colville the sky began to clear and the sun appeared. Turned into a stunner of a day. The eastern side of the Colville peninsula is a beautiful coastline and at this time of year patches of red dot the shore with the Pohutakawa’s starting to blossom. Accompanied by a single dolphin for a short time we passed the Mercury Islands to port and at the Hole in the Wall passage had a stop at Red Bay because we spotted a beautiful beach with clear water that said “Swim time”. After the initial shock the water was beautiful. An hour later we were on our way again, past Mercury Bay and Hahei and Hot Water Beach to the small idyllic Boat Harbour. (Tapuaetahi Bay- just north of Tairua)

We were the only boat in site (a welcome change from Auckland) when we dropped anchor in 4 metres of clear water. Dinghy thrown in the water and off to check out the shoreline.

Signs on the shore indicated the area is a Kiwi zone and the beach is a Dotterel and Variable Oyster Catcher nesting area. Sure enough both were strident in their attempts to get us off their beach and we were divebombed by a kamikaze oyster catcher. No sign of any Kiwis though. We could see Rays cruising in the shallows.

Came back to the boat about 8pm and had a wonderful quick meal of refried Love a Duck fried rice and scotch fillet – boat now smells like a fast fry house and now off to bed.

End of Day One.