The day had come to leave Tairua, I'd really come to like this little town in the Coromandel and I was sad to leave. But our holiday was coming to a close and we had to make a move further south to get ready to head home. We had a couple options, head for
Tauranga for a day or two or make the jump and head all the way to
Napier. We figured we would go for the passage through to Napier, so it would be a couple of days around East Cape, it was about 300 nautical miles. I like Napier so it was a good option for us to head there for a couple days and keep and eye on the weather to head for Cook Strait. Now I can hear you saying here, hang on the title of this blog says Gisborne not Napier what are you going on about, well hold your horses we will get there!
 |
| Heading off from Tairua, Alderman Islands in the distance |
We tootled over to the fuel dock at Tairua filled the tank, went and deposited the marina key in the drop box and set off, we had to leave fairly early (around 6.30am) in order to get high tide to get round the silly little channel on the beach! It was a lovely morning, very clear and pretty colour in the sky. Owen and I were in good spirits and just enjoying motoring off quietly. Before long we had the sails up and the motor off and making good speed, even better.
 |
| Leaving Tairua |
We settled in for passage... we decided to call ahead to Napier early that first day to sort out our berth as we didn't want to get there and be turned away like Whitianga (although that had worked out for the best with us getting to go to Tairua). We finally got someone on the phone and got told yet again they were full at the marina.. oh oh... but the yacht club may have some room. We got the numbers for them and gave them a bell. Eventually we got hold of someone there and they said they would see what the could shuffle for us and let us know. Later in the day we got told they had made something work and we could have the visitor berth, but we would be locked in and we needed to call their son for him to bring us keys when we arrived. Oh well didn't seem like to big a deal.
With that sorted we relaxed into out trip again, the wind had dropped and we had turned the volvo back on. As we passed White Island we heard our fishing rod whirrrr and jumped up to see what we had snagged. I slowed the boat down and Owen started winding the fish in, as he brought it closer to the boat we caught a glimpse, it was a tuna...... we had caught a tuna. We couldn't be more excited at that moment, we never catch awesome fish, we just break lines and catch barracuda! Woop!! We got the tuna on board and quickly dealt with it and filleted it up. We powered the boat back up and cleaned up the murder scene in the cockpit.
 |
| Albacore Tuna! |
Not long after that the wind picked up again and we put the sails out and turned the motor off again, we were rewarded with a show from some local dolphins. I don't think I will ever tire of these amazing creatures.
 |
| Dolphin! |
Mum had found a trick online for me to try to deal with my seasickness, I was to plug my non dominant side ear (so I'm right handed so I block my left ear) and apparently that would trick my body into not being sea sick. While at Tairua I had bought some ear plugs to give this a whirl. Since leaving Tairua I had had a silicon earplug jammed in my left ear and I was feeling pretty good, not good enough to be downstairs reading books, but good enough to be actually a useful member of the crew. Bonus!
 |
| Sunset on passage |
Anyway the day quickly slid away and it was set to be a beautiful night. Owen went down to prepare us some fresh tuna for dinner and I kept watch. Turns out our tuna was an Albacore Tuna and they have white flesh. I had always thought tuna was red fleshed. Red or white, the meat was amazing and we enjoyed our meal and had hardly taken a chunk out of the amount of tuna meat we had! For some reason we decided to grab our sleeping bags and bivvy bags and stay outside and before we knew it we had decided to sleep up top, I guess it made watch easier as you didn't really have to move!
 |
| Sleepy Captain Owen |
One chilly night later we had a look at the charts and weather and decided we weren't really gaining anything by rushing for Napier. We were closeish to Gisborne and we could probably make it there by early evening. With that again we were on the phone calling the marina there to see if there was space. Owen had been to Gizzy before, (
when Owen and his dad had to call in for some running repairs while trying to bring Dulcinea home from importing) but I hadn't and was quite keen to check it out. We have a couple of good mates that hail from there so it would be cool to go. One quick call later we had a spot and we had adjusted our course for Gizzy. We grabbed some breakfast a cup of tea and sat back and watched the dolphins that had come back for a visit.
Bit of a show this morning with our breakfast!
Posted by S/V Dulcinea on Sunday, January 18, 2015
I rang Amy to tell her we were now planning on visiting here home town and to ask for her mum and dads number to call them to see if we could come say hi while there. Unfortunately Jude was heading for Wellington but Pete would love to see us. Amy told us to get our lines back in the water and catch a kingy for her as she never gets any of size. So the lines went back in the water and within 10 minutes they were going. We had caught a kingfish, we hauled it in and measured it up, little undersize so we released it back to the water. We put the lines in again and before long caught another undersize kingfish. We figured Amy must had jinxed us and we had just turned into Poverty Bay so we pulled the lines in and headed for the marina.
 |
| Hello Gisborne |
It was about 5pm as we pulled into the mairna so we had made pretty good time. We pulled up to our dock with the marina managers help and had a quick clean up. About an hour later Amys dad Pete had turned up to see us and to have a quick sneaky look at the boat. He brought us a HUGE box full of tangelos to rid us of our sailors scurvy (thanks Pete), and we gave him some tuna. We sat about and had a quick chat and decided to try and meet up the next day. Owen and I headed over to the Fishing Club for a shower and a meal to call it a night.
 |
| Tangelos! |
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon