Round North Island - Urquharts Bay - Great Barrier Island

Great sailing across to Great Barrier Island

Today was probably the longest distance covered on our trip since we dropped anchor in Karikari Bay all those weeks ago with a distance of 49nm. We left Urquharts Bay just after 10am and motored into 10kn or so and it wasn't long before the wind died altogether leaving a glassy water broken only by the fins of the dolphins who played in the bow wave. We passed the first of the Hen & Chicken Islands before diverting to one of the larger ones to see if it was worth anchoring and going for a dive but I don't think either of us could really be bothered and was there going to be a lot to see? We carried on motoring and saw a huge boil up of fish on the surface and birds everywhere so figured it was a good time to get some rods out and do some trolling.

Dolphins playing beside the boat in the calm waters

Little Barrier Island off to starboard

Not long after putting the lines in we managed to snap the small line and loose another lure (thankfully only a hex wobbler), then before we knew it the big rod was whizzing off and next minute we had snapped another 100lb tracer and $40 of Rapala lure gone forever. Well bugger this I have had enough of giving my lures away!
Thankfully the wind started to pick up and we unfurled the main and genoa and we were ticking along nicely, we watched as Little Barrier went past on our starboard side, the wind kept building and we were humming along at over 7kn and once again there was another yacht ahead of us sailing so the race was on! Could I catch him before we got into Great Barrier Island...

Emma at the helm

The wind was 20-25kn and Dulcinea was a bit of a handful at times (should have reefed up a bit but the wind would come and go we we just went with it). Emma had a go hand steering for a while before getting too tired in the arms. We never caught the other yacht as the wind died to virtually nothing as we entered Port Ambercrombie so it was time to furl up and start the trusty Volvo. We pottered into Rarohara Bay, had a look around the first bay then squeezed Quion Island and found ourselves an nice little anchorage in about 14m of water. The bay was quite busy but nice and quiet and the sunset was pretty amazing. This was probably one of the best anchorages to date, it was quiet and extremely calm.

Beautiful calm anchorage, Port Fitzroy

Beautiful sunset

The next morning we headed out of the bay, towards Man of War passage. As we were about to go through the passage we spotted a barge with what looked like bins on it and doubled back to take a look. It was indeed the rubbish barge and after quickly assessing the depth we pulled up, offloaded rubbish and recycling and went about our way. What a fantastic service, better than people throwing things they shouldn't into the ocean!

Man of War passage, Great Barrier Island

We passed through Man of War passage and back out into open water, today was a stunning day. The sea was as blue as blue and the sky clear with the sun beating down. We passed a couple of small islands with nice beaches and little bach's on the waterfront, talk about a nice little spot! Through one other small passage and we were heading right for Tryphena Harbour, and even some sailing in the mix. We passed through the wide open heads and into the harbour, headed straight for an anchorage spot right outside Mulberry Grove (small store). We dropped the anchor and went ashore for a quick look, talk about a cute little store! We picked up a few items including a nice cold drink and headed back to the boat. We shifted into Shoal Bay as it was much calmer and went for a dinghy ride around the bay before going for a snorkel around but it was pretty murky but still refreshing.

Incredible sunset. Shoal Bay, Great Barrier Island

We spent the night here and were given an even more impressive sunset than the night before! The colours were so vibrant, it was one of the most colourful skies I have ever seen.
The next day we went back to Mulberry Grove store, took a few photos, got a drink and a bite to eat before heading back to the boat. We had been reading the dive book and there was supposed to be a wreck of a sailing boat in the harbour so we figured why not, we motored to where the book said the wreck was an dropped anchor but it didn't seem to make sense with details we were reading about the history of the boat so ended up ringing a local dive operator and getting a bit of inside knowledge. Turns out that the writers of the book purposefully put the co-ordinates wrong to make it hard for people to find to try protect the business of local dive operators...how rude! Why bother publishing a book with the wrong info in it?

Some of the amazing colours on the mast of the Taniwha wreck

Taniwha Wreck covered in marine growth

Emma beside the Taniwha wreck, Tryphena Harbour

Anyhow with the correct co-ordinates we dropped the anchor, and dropped it so accurately on the coordinates we managed to miss the wreck my a matter of metres. The chop was coming in a bit so we jumped right in and descended the anchor chain to the bottom and there it was, the old ferro cement ketch (Taniwha) sitting unceremoniously on her side covered in weed, crustaceans and all matter of colourful sea life. We had a good look around, the masts were in tact and lay parallel to the sea floor, the fish life was pretty good and large snapper cruised around. Not being a large boat we covered it pretty quickly and were soon ready to head up, we followed the anchor chain up again and held on and 5m for our safety stop (bad idea!), the swell above was tugging us up and down making the computers go crazy as we were suddenly at 3m then back to 6m, time to float on our own. After what seemed like the longest 3 minutes ever we climbed back aboard and packed all our gear away ready for the short crossing to the Coromandel Peninsula.

Read about the next leg of our journey