Dad and I completed a fantastic four day cruise last week with stops at Mahurangi Harbour, Kawau Island and Motutapu Island. I had hoped to be able to report on our trip as we went, but as it turned out, and to my great frustration, none of the places we anchored had mobile broadband coverage. Here is a description of what we got up to. Photos will follow shortly.
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Last night I unexpectedly got to go racing on the Harbour with the Royal NZ Yacht Squadron. My cousin Geoff, who I don’t think I had seen in over 10 years, also has a boat on the marina here and had invited me to come over and say hi before he and his crew went out for their Wednesday night race. I knew they had a full boat so wasn’t expecting to go sailing, but when I got there they were able to get me a place on another boat, a Stewart 34 which happens to be owned by Roy Dickson, one of NZ’s most well known sailors and father of the US America’s Cup skipper Chris Dickson.
Great experience – very educational! They boat was skippered by a guy who runs the youth coaching program at the Squadron, so they were a pretty hot team. They put me on the headsail winch in the cockpit (also the spinnaker pole brace) and gave me plenty of advice about what I needed to do. I made a few mistakes at some critical moments but they were very patient with me. The most interesting part of the race was when a large ship passed us on the spinnaker leg and we needed to cross its path to get to the mark we were headng for. We ended up sailing right alongside the huge wall of steel as the ship passed us and then cut in under its stern, starting the turn even before the ship had got completely past us. Pretty interesting! It was a fun time sailing and also great to be able to catch up with Geoff later over dinner.
FInally got the photos organized from last week. Click below to see the pictures from our two nights away on Waiheke Is. Use the thumbnails and arrow buttons on these pages to navigate.
Putiki Bay
Huse Bay
The pictures have a resolution of 1024×768. If they look bigger than your monitor and are difficult to look at, you might want to try increasing your screen resolution to make them smaller, if your video card supports it. Right click on your desktop wallpaper, then select Properties followed by the Settings tab, then adjust the Screen Resolution slider towards the right and hit OK.
I notice a couple of caption errors – will fix them later.
Yesterday was quite a day! What follows is a fairly detailed description of our journey back to Westhaven, during which we encountered a wide range of sailing conditions and faced a few interesting challenges.
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Well here we are in Huse Bay at the far eastern end of Waiheke after a four hour sail this afternoon. We took our time getting going today, going ashore in the morning to use the facilities and then walked to Surfdale for an icecream and drink. The little outboard died half way to the beach (lack of fuel apparently), so it was as well that we had oars. We got back to the boat and had a swim over the side before getting the boat ready to leave. We sailed off the mooring, running downwind out of the bay and then took an easterly course along the southern coast of Waiheke. It was a beautiful day. We started in about 5 knots of breeze from the NE, but the wind died for a while before filling in to a reliable 10 knots that built to be close to 15 for part of the afternoon. The boat went really well and we made about 4 knots boatspeed for most of the afternoon. I enjoyed continuing to get to know the way the boat behaves. We tried to sail inside Passage Rock south of Te Matuku Bay but the wind headed us and forced us to go around to the south taking us as far as Kauri Point on the western side of Ponui Island. We tacked up the Waiheke Channel, passing Ponui, Rotoroa and Pakatoa Islands and made Huse Bay at the northern end of the Channel about 5pm. It’s quite isolated here. We saw a few beach homes coming up the eastern coast of Waiheke, but where we are now there is just bush with farmland beyond. We are in quite deep water though not far from the shore and have a couple of other yachts and a launch in the bay with us. We are well sheltered from the NE wind, but there is a little bit of a swell coming around the northern end of the bay and rocking the boat.
I’m writing this sitting in my bunk while Crikey Dick sits at anchor in Putiki Bay on the southern side of Waiheke Island and my brother Jonathan is out in the cockpit fishing. After being stuck in the marina all yesterday with truly awful weather, today the weather cleared about mid-morning. First order of business was to replace the dinghy we lost on Monday, which was straightforward, if a little painful financially. We got out of the marina a little after 1pm, with a forecast of 15 knots from the north, easing to 10 knots and showers. Well, we had no rain but lots of wind, definitely above 15 knots for most of the afternoon. We hoisted the #2 headsail for the first time and had a great sail of maybe three and a half hours with Jonathan on the helm. I had forgotten to throw the appropriate switch in the cabin so the speedo wasn’t working, but I suspect we were doing about 5 knots for much of the way.
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Last Friday the weather was nice and the breeze gentle so I got up the nerve to take the boat out by myself. Photos below. Also, yesterday, my brother Jonathan and I had planned to take the boat down to Waiheke. We set off about 1pm, but just after getting the mainsail up we realized that the dinghy we have been towing had disappeared. Doh! We took the sail down and motored back, did a walk around alonf the foreshore, spoke to a bunch of people, including the coastguard and the marina office, but no sign of it. That put paid to our plans to go to Waiheke, but we did head back out for a good sail in about 20 knots. We got around north head and a little way east and then turned for home. I’ve included a few photos below of Jonathan on the helm. A good late afternoon sail, and then dinner at Sawadees Thai restaurant in the evening.
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After Christmas, Dad drove me back to Auckland and spent a couple of days helping me with the boat. We were fortunate to have the previous owner come out with us on Wednesday to show us the ropes and on Thursday Dad and I went out together. Both days the wind was fairly strong at times, and I was thrilled with the way the boat handled the conditions. Very easy motion in some reasonably big waves. Dad was a great help, both on the boat and running me around to get supplies. And we proved that the boat easily accommodates two people, as he stayed on board with me for a few nights. Very cosy.
And nice camera work Dad!
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Jonathan and I drove to Tauranga on the Saturday before Christmas and stayed at Mum and Dad’s. We had Christmas Dinner at Lynette and Grants along with Michelle and Jeremy and their kids.
This was the first time I had been to Mum and Dad’s new house. The house itself is beautiful, but what really required photos were the views of Tauranga Harbour from the upstairs bedrooms. These shots were taken looking between north and east.
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Westhaven is the marina where my boat Crikey Dick is located. Living here has been a lot of fun. There is not room to swing a cat!
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