We lifted the hook and we were off by 9am, around the same time as another yacht from the same anchorage. We both squeezed through the narrow passage between the islands and out into open water where we were close hauled in 15 odd knots of wind and some of the best sailing on the trip so far. The race was on, we were ahead of what looked like a Beneteau but he soon left us in his wake even though we were stoking along at 6-7.5kn, maybe he was motor sailing, I have no idea! But anyhow I was in heaven, this was what it was all about, sailing fast and the motion of the sea was nice. With a passage length of only 21nm it was reasonably quick.
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| Enjoying the beautiful sailing conditions into the Bay of Islands |
We could see a squall rolling in and watched a yacht heading north which was further out to sea getting 'swallowed' up in the massive black cloud chasing us down. We got most of the way into the Bay of Islands and nearly to the huge cruise ship anchored off Russell before it caught us, the wind didn't really change but it poured with rain and I was stuck outside keeping watch. Emma poked her head out the companionway, grabbed a photo of me looking miserable and retired to the dry below. Thankfully though the rain didn't last long and before we knew it we had dropped anchor off Paihia in some rather choppy weather so we could go ashore to a decent supermarket. While we were here earlier in the year we bought a few things from the large Countdown here and what better place to restock.
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| Here is that squall coming through, thankfully short lived |
We locked the boat for the first time in a couple of weeks and headed for shore, completely soaked we left the dinghy tied to a wharf, walked around and around in town being completely indecisive about what we want for lunch and settled on a pizza which took an eternity to arrive. After some lunch and feeling a lot dryer now we got back in the dinghy, headed back to the boat to get changed however went bugger it and jumped right back in, pulling the dinghy up the beach and padlocking it to a tree before making the short walk up the road we were greeted with a fenced off and abandoned looking supermarket...bugger! back aboard and headed for Russell across the other side of the bay and a much much calmer anchorage. We went ashore and a 30m walk from the dinghy parking is a supermarket, how convenient! we loaded up with groceries and dropped them back at the boat. For the adventures around Russell and the amazing Bay of Islands check out the next blog post.
Read about our stay in the Bay of Islands
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| Anchored off the town of Russell, a busy anchorage but still amazing! |
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