Round North Island - Gisborne to Havelock

Dolphins everywhere as we sail through Poverty Bay away from Gisborne.

Sadly it was time to leave Gisborne, sad because its actually a cool little town and sad because it marks the last leg of our trip and a return to some sort of normality and back to the 'real world'. It was a good hike and was something like 335nm in total. We headed off in the morning and soon out of the harbour entrance we threw a couple of new lures in (thanks to Hunting and Fishing Gisborne for the great advice and making up some serious looking lures!). After half an hour or so we had managed to hook 3 Kahawai and one good size Kingfish so great start to the trip home.

Once again it looked like a murder scene in the cockpit, and with the fish all butchered up, packaged into small bags and vacuum sealed we kept trucking towards Mahia Peninsula and rounded with very smooth seas (quite the contrast to the last time I was here in Dulcinea mid September 2011). The wind soon picked up a little and we were able to throw up some canvas and make headway without the drone of an engine.

Sunset off Hawke Bay as we head south and back home

The sun dropped over the hills and we were left with yellow skies to send us off into the first night. We were ticking along really well making several knots in really comfortable seas and even managed to watch some tv below between looking out around us. I do have to say passages are pretty boring though, its a weird state of feeling too lethargic to do anything and at the same time felling really lazy, its odd! as soon as you get to a destination all the energy and motivation comes right back and you carry on as if nothing has happened. Anyhow the night was pretty uneventful and the sun rose as it always does, we had made great headway overnight and by late morning we were on similar latitude to Masterton, we estimated we would be rounding the infamous Cape Palliser around midnight but turns out we made even better time and were rounding hours before that.

Beautiful sailing conditions, constant winds and calm seas

The waters were really calm and very little wind as we rounded the Cape, then again as if someone flicked a switch we had building seas which soon came to a good 3m high from our stern and the wind picked up to 30kn in an instant and we had near full sail up so we were surfing down waves at 9kn. I was harnessed into the cockpit working the mainsail as we became too overpowered but it was the most exciting sailing we had done in 5 weeks. Then as fast as it came it died to 5kn or less, so on with the engine and then 10min later we were back to surfing in 25-30kn again! But this was short lived and after another 20-30min we were back to nothing and ended up having to motor through the night to get across Cook Strait which was pretty damn calm for a change.

As the sun rose we were passing to the east of The Brothers rocks and could start to see the Chetwode Islands and knew a calm anchorage and a good nights rest was getting closer. We were able to sail a bit more and sailed into Annie's Bay and picked up a club mooring for a bite to eat and potentially to stay the night for some rest but the slight rocking of the boat seemed to get on our nerves and we carried on. We motored onward a bit further and picked up a mooring at Ketu Bay which was dead flat, not even a ripple so no issues sleeping here.

The following day we pottered out of the bay, picked up another mooring at Stafford where I decided to quickly check the rudder anode before we took her back into the marina. The anode was damn near gone so a quick scuba dive later I had it swapped out and we carried on moving towards the marina and back to reality. The rest of the trip in was very uneventful other than the fact that we came to our berth only to find some twat had taken it and all our mooring lines, who does that!? We took the next berth and tied up and informed the marina manager of the dilemma which was going to be sorted when the man came in next time.

Dulcinea tied up safely all be it the wrong berth

We washed the boat down really well, cleaned her up and packed all our gear up ready to leave the following day. It felt sad to leave again, we had really enjoyed our trip and learnt a lot about ourselves, our capabilities and how amazing our 'backyard' is. Overall we spent 38 days away, sailed/motored 1388.5nm (2573km). What an unforgettable experience and I can't wait for the next epic adventure...