Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand
12/15/2007 - 12/26/2007
Goodbye Auckland! We kept the city in our sights on the first night at anchor.
Motuihe & Waiheke
The clouds broke as we left Bayswater. The wind filled in form the northeast and off we sailed leaving Auckland in the rear view mirror. We tacked and tacked and tacked our way down the Waitemata Harbor - destination unknown.
An awesome sail took us out the Waitemata Harbor and up the Rangitoto Channel before decided to sail back down the channel and spend the night at Motuihe Island which is a whopping five miles east of Auckland. We do not want to rush our departure from Auckland.
Our first sail since April was perfect - both Robin and Whisper are happy.
Whisper got in the way of this "go fast" boat on almost every tack. We politely moved out the way. Notice the chase boat? We figured this could be someone testing out a new boat. Nope. The chase boat stopped by to let us know this single-hander's next stop is Cape Town, South Africa - going the hard way - east. Good on ya, mate.
Once settled in near Motuihe, the new toys came out. Duncan purchased this anchor light at Downwind Marine in San Diego. With solar-switched LED lights, the hope is to use less power and automate the turn-on/off of the anchor light.
However, it looks like we only paid for 2/3 of the LED lights to work. Probably should have tested it before leaving Downwind.
Duncan inflates the new kayak.
Oooo, let's go for a paddle. The high-visibility orange should help prevent us from being run over.
We stayed at Motuihe for a couple of days watching the charter boats bring people out for Christmas do's. This boat visited Motuihe three times in one day with three different parties.
Must be time for us to decorate our tree.
Steve and Louise from Wasted Away Again stopped by because Steve had once followed our website. We enjoyed getting to know them up with them over coffee. They gave us lots of ideas on where to cruise in the northern parts of NZ.
The satellite phone is a much less painful way to get email on board Whisper. Of course, it costs a bit more - but we think it is worth it. Check on the fancy new mount we acquired in the U.S..
Robin caught a couple of undersized snapper on this fishing event. Must need bigger bait.
Having left the dock, important tasks such as reorganizing the DVDs can now occur.
Even cows like to go to the beach. After Motuihe, we had a great sail down to our favorite spot at the east end of Waiheke.
Jim and Tori on Elenya ended up in the same area. They shared freshly caught scallops and pizzas. Actually, Tori made the pizzas rather than caught them.
The forecast motivated us to move across to the Coromandel on Christmas Eve. Gentle breezes and the gennaker made for a very mellow and relaxing (albeit long) 10 mile sail over to the Coromandel peninsula.
The Coromandel peninsula sticks up to form the eastern border of the Hauraki Gulf. The west coast of the Coromandel is still in the Hauraki Gulf, and the east coast is on the South Pacific Ocean. First stop, the inside (west) coast of the Coromandel.
The Coromandel is known for its beaches. This is a tiny example of a beautiful in our anchorage at Te Kouma.
Coromandel
In 2006, we did a very quick day-drive of the Coromandel from Auckland. Finally, we returned via boat for a better view. We decided to spend Christmas in this area. Most Kiwis do not come out on their boats until Boxing Day (the 26th). We were surprised to see around 20 boats in the Te Kouma anchorages on Christmas Eve.
After a couple of days at Te Kouma, we moved over to Coromandel Harbour - a huge harbour. The town of Coromandel is accessible from the harbour. We enjoyed a bit of civilization by grabbing a fancy pizza and "flat white" coffee at a local cafe.
We made sure we posted an up-to-date position report on this website so Santa could find us.
Santa left us a couple new surf/dive watches under the tree.
This crimson flowered tree, a pohutakawa, is nicknamed "Christmas tree" because they flower in December. Oh, and they are red and green.
We enjoyed a nice beef tenderloin and a tasty bottle of Craggy Range red for Christmas dinner.
We set off on a ridge walk with the permission of this cow.
You taking a picture of me?
The new BBQ is getting quite a workout. The new BBQ and re-fillable aluminum propane bottle set-up is much better than the little green disposable steel (rusty) LPG bottles we used before.
From the Coromandel town anchorage, we dinghyed up the river in to town. The river entrance dries up at low tide, so our visit to town must fit in a very specific time slot. By the time we left, the river entrance only had a few inches of water in many places. One hour later, the river entrance/exit was dry.
Everything you could want can be found in this hardware store.
On the move again....
We intended to spend more time on the Coromandel, but the spectacular forecast was perfect for getting out the Mercury Islands. The Mercs are known as fair weather anchorages and a big dose of fair weather is coming. Time to move on.