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Kawau to Great Barrier Island Life at sea Janet *** Written from Smokehouse Bay at Great Barrier Island. I will catch up my posts soon, promise.
*** Monday 7 January, Domesticity.
Cleaned the oven today. I'm not very domestic and had managed to ignore it for quite some time. Yesterday David invited Obsession for breakfast and made pancakes and bacon. "This oven's not very clean," he declared as he peered into the metal cavity to light the flame.
"David!" admonished Lisa, "you never comment on the state of a women's oven, or the size of her bum." A bit sexist but I have to concur, and there would definitely be trouble at sea if he did the latter. It has to be said that this was not actually a directive for me to clean the oven.
We have Richard coming to visit tomorrow so I'm going to lift my usual slovenly standards and give Navire's interior a bit of a lick and polish. *** Tuesday 6 January, Navigation.
We were on our way to collect Richard Moss, an old friend of David's from Wellington. I stared at the landscape. We were off the coast of Sandspit, north of Mahurangi. The scenery wasn't moving. I looked at the log. Point two of a knot. David gunned the engine. Looked at the land again. Nope, we were definitely not moving. We'd run aground. In my minds eye I could see Richard standing at the wharf, bags at his feet, looking at his watch, wondering where the hell Navire was, then disconsolately starting to walk back to Warkworth. Navire does a little slide, sort of a lurch each time the engine revs. And again. We were moving again. In fact we weren't in any danger, the bottom was and and the tide was rising. We were focused on the harbour masters instructions for getting up the river, on depth in the river not the depth in the bay where we should have been watching the depth sounder and chart.
Somewhat relieved, we navigated up the river and tied up to a mooring. David rowed in to the wharf and collected Richard and we headed east back to Kawau. Fortunately we didn't run aground again given that I'd managed to set a course right over a rock! Not a good day on the navigation front.
*** Kawau Island, Friday 9, Water.
We are on a mission to find water to replenish our ship. We filled up 10 days ago in Auckland and yesterday we changed to the second of our two water tanks. Navire carries about 240 litres. We'd been told we could get water at the yacht club here, but when I called them up this morning they gave me a tale of woe. Their bore had run out and they couldn't even open the bar. I called the Mansion House and DOC but no water available there. Later we got our hands smacked for pilfering water from the toilet sink at Mansionhouse Bay.
Great Barrier Island is our next destination so now I'm tracking down the harbour wardens for each area and finding out what the water situation is there. Rain is forecast on Wednesday next week but that is a long way off. No showers today for this smelly crew.
Lovely couple of days with Richard. An indolent time, much eating and drinking. A new found opportunity in which we are reveling is that now that we have fewer deadlines we can wait for the right weather to sail, and not motor so much. There is just a whiff of wind predicted for Sunday so we wait.
*** Sunday 11 January, Travelling.
"Maritime Radio, Maritime Radio, this is Navire, Navire." "This is Maritime Radio, what is your call sign?" "Zulu Mike Victor 5709, ZMV5709" "Navire, Navire, go ahead please" "This is a trip report. We are leaving Kawau Island and heading for Tryphena Harbour on Great Barrier Island. Two people on board. ETA 1500." "All copied Navire, this is Maritime radio on channel 16." "Many thanks Maritime Radio, Navire out" *** Fishing. "19 miles to go," calls David from the nav table. In yachtie lingo we talk in nautical miles.
"Four or five hours till landfall," I calculate. We are sailing at four to five knots in a fine southwest breeze. A knot is equivalent to a nautical mile.
Its perfect sailing out here. We left early on our six hour journey. A local friend advised to get to anchorages early in this region before every Auckland yachtie arrives and takes up all the good spaces. "How many fish today?" I ask David as he pays out the fishing line.
"Mmmmm, three I think." We laugh. We've dragged our lure hundreds of miles on this trip and not caught a thing.

Mahurangi January 2 Janet Posted from Great Barrier Island Mahurangi Weather: Variable 10, fine, huge slow moving high over us, barometer 1023, sea state: calm - day after day after day At last we stop for a while. No wind, no travel. We are at Otarawao Bay, Lower Mahurangi Harbour, near Warkworth. It is early morning and nothing is moving, no gusts, no swell, no traffic.
Anchored nearby is Obsession, sailing vessel of Lisa and Lester. We borrowed their car in Auckland, and spent some time with them at Coppermine Bay at Kawau last week. We first met them in Tonga in 2010. They'd sailed from Whangarei around about the time we did, but with a cruising rally. We met them briefly at Vavau in northern Tonga and liked them immediately, but didn't get to know them till we reached Samoa.
Arriving in Apia, after two nights at sea, feeling hot and tired, and we experienced the usual stress from entering a reef-bound harbour peppered with coral bombies and debatable markers. Coming into a marina we didn't know is always an anxious moment, (especially this one, we later saw a berth near ours filled with a bombie that came right to the surface), then having to find customs and immigration and fill in all the forms, and jump through the inevitable hoops of officialdom to enter a country with a boat.
As we inched our way into the marina a cry went up: "It's Navire!" We looked up. There were Distracted, the only other Wellington boat up here, and Obsession. As soon as we ticked all the boxes and signed our lives away in triplicate, a beer on Obsession was in order, despite it not yet being midday. This set the tone for our next three weeks in the country, and cemented what is now a lifetime friendship with Obsession.
"I feel like David Livingstone," I yelled to be heard above the drone of the outboard motor. We were zooming up the Mahurangi River in Obsession's bright yellow inflatable dinghy powered with a 15 hp engine. (ours is a mere 3hp). I looked around, not a sign of civilization, no power wires, roads, or fences. The edges of the river were lined with banks of mangrove roots, and several meters back, forests of mangrove trees.
Early that morning we'd upped anchor and followed Obsession up the river to catch the right tide to make an excursion upriver to Warkworth for an outing. As we sailed around each corner I thought surely this must be where we anchor and leave the yachts, but then we'd come around a bed and there would be another bay full of yachts moored and anchored. We motored on and on till there were no more anchored boats and the depth sounder was reading three metres. We draw two.
Obsession dropped their pick and we followed suit. We sat in the cockpit and supped coffee while we waited to see if the anchor had taken. When you leave the boat for a day there is always the worry it will drag while you aren't looking.
Navire had settled and Lisa and Lester buzzed over to pick us up. I felt excited, like a kid going to town.
The river estuary took on a different perspective down in the dingy, it looked vast, its banks miles apart. We settled in with our shopping bags, rubbish bags ready to stuff in city sidewalk bins, and spare fuel can. We headed up with the ingoing tide, calculated to arrive at before high tide so we could shop and leave on an outgoing tide to get the flow, and get out of the river before it became too shallow.
What would take about 10 minutes by car took us an hour. We all looked out for markers to prevent us running aground. The river was surprising well marked.
We were soon to see why.
The first yacht we saw was well up river, a forty footer, moored against its own small jetty. Must have a lifting keel we thought. Around the next corner we saw two launches tucked into their own channels, completely high and dry. All the way to town the sides of the river were littered with stranded boats.
Forty five minutes after we'd entered the river I looked up and saw a sea of masts. What could this be? As we rounded the next bend we saw a full on boat yard, travel lift and all, with maybe a dozen yachts up on the hard in various stages of repair. We'd never even considered bringing Navire up a river like this, but obviously it is a navigable river for keel boats.
The river narrowed, now occasionally invaded by little private jetties, but still no sign of any houses. We saw another stand of masts over the mangroves and came round the corner into a town with a wharf and boats tied up to it. All quite unexpected. We quickly tied up and clambered over another boat to reach shore and went separate ways to do our errands, ours to get fuel for the dinghy, and fuel for us from the supermarket.
"Its going to be difficult to consider living back in Wellington after this," David pondered idly, as we strolled along the main street.
"That's easy," I said, "we're not." This last year or two we'd spent many a night huddled in Navire, Wellington storms raging outside, discussing where we might fetch up after all these travels. We don't know the location yet but the abode will be a small cottage with a sleep-out for all of you to stay when you visit. The grounds will have an established orchard, a vege garden, and a long outside table for endless feasts. It will be warm. Warm at night too. So that counts out Wellington.
We checked out a fishing shop, got a small bag of fresh crunchy stuff, and met the others in a garden bar for an ice-cold beer and hot salty chips with aoli.
Finishing off the day out with an icecream we headed back to the wharf. Lester untied the dinghy kicked the outboard into life, and headed back to the sea. We could have been on an entirely different river. The tide was in and the mangrove root banks had disappeared and all the dried out gaps in the trees we'd passed on the way up had become tributaries. The high and dry boats of the morning were now bobbing contentedly on their moorings.
As we came out into the estuary an afternoon breeze had settled in and stirred up what would have been inconsequential wavelets for Navire but for the dinghy they were more significant. The inflatable plowed through them, its tired crew getting soaked with spray and invading waves. Fortunately the water was bathwater temperature.
We climbed aboard Navire, soaked and salty, tired and grateful for another adventure.

A Couple of Characters David

Great Barrier Island is known for its characters, past and present. There'€™s a novel and at least three other publications devoted to Barrier characters and their stories. While on the island we were regaled with stories of others yet to make it into print. Life on the island often turns ordinary people into characters.

Not all are made on the island, however. Some arrive fully formed. Here are a couple we encountered.

George and Yevgeny

Our food arrived at the same time as Yevgeny, large and sweaty, clutching his scrawny toddler, trying to introduce him to Jonesy. Under the pressure Jonesy withdrew but then had a change of mind and advanced with the friendly confidence for which Golden Retrievers are so well known.

'I met one of your local characters yesterday,'€™ said Yevgeny, crouching for the boy and dog to eye one another. '€˜I was spear-fishing in the bay just around from the ferry wharf. Really shallow. You could stand up. I had a Red Moki on the spear, looked up and saw a 250 pound Bronze Whaler coming right at me, his mouth wide open. I jabbed at him with the spear and he turned away but came straight back, mouth like a cave with teeth, so I jabbed him again. The third time panic finally registered on me. My heart pounded, sweating to bust, even under water. I hurled the spear at the fish along with my catch bag and splashed and scrabbled my way out of the water. Over my shoulder I saw the shark rear up in a cauldron of foam, tearing my bag to shreds.

"What'€™s with that shark?"€ I spluttered at a man pulling his dinghy to the water. '"œIt tried to take a piece out of me."

'€œAh, that'€™ll be George. He lives here. We feed him. Don'€™t recommend swimmin'," '€ €˜

By now Yevgeny'€™s wife, petite, black hair and anxiously stern, had settled at our table, regarding Jonesy suspiciously.

When he heard we were sailing for Fiji Yevgeny launched into his own recent dramas with a sail boat. '€˜I bought this beautiful fifty six foot, all wood yacht that I got cheap because it was part of a complicated legal dispute. Used to be owned by that guy from Perth who won the America'€™s Cup. Famous boat called Valenta but I renamed her Sofia after my daughter. I set out for Auckland from Picton but too many things broke and we had to be towed into Wellington by the Police Launch.'

'€˜We know all about being towed into Wellington on a maiden voyage.'€™ Janet and I said in unison.

'€˜I'm an off-shore tax minimisation consultant,'€™ Yevgeny continued. '€˜I'm relocating my business to Vanuatu. Soon as I find a boat builder to repair her I'€™ll sail up to Vila with a hired skipper. I'm not a sailor.' He shrugged.

A few days later, over a beer, we asked Peter, Tryphena's Harbour Warden, about George.

'€˜Aw that'€™s just bullshit. There'™s no shark attacks anybody in this bay.'€™ Peter took another swig of his beer. '€˜There's locals talk about one, might be called George, but there'€™s nothing in it.'

€™The Dutchman

We are moored at Smokehouse Bay where we'll stay for another week or so. I have a large boat painting project to complete. Great place for it. Very sheltered and breathtakingly beautiful. Ruined somewhat this morning by very loud electronica issuing from a launch anchored nearby. The owner, an ageing barrel of a Dutchman, in shorts and singlet and very drunk, vacillated between boorish argument and reluctant compliance when I rowed over to ask that his stereo be turned down.

Remarkably the stereo stayed down all day but the drinking continued. He had three young men aboard -“ a son and his friends perhaps. These three took the dinghy ashore around midday. Not long after there was a prolonged series of horn blasts from the launch. A few minutes later our Dutchman was standing at the stern of his boat bellowing to the anchorage. '€˜Fuck you.
Fuck you and your family. Fuck you and your country.'™ He said this maybe a half dozen times, addressing invisible audiences on both sides of his boat.

A neighbouring boatie rowed over. '€˜Keep this up mate and I'€™ll call the police.'€™

'€˜Call the police then. Call the fucking police.'€™ He was holding a white cloth to his arm, blood oozing around it. '€˜I just sent a fucking SOS and no one'€™s fucking answered. No one'€™s coming to help me.'

One of the young men left the beach in the launch'€™s dinghy. He stopped to talk to the retreating boatie and then carried on to where the Dutchman was still letting the anchorage know what they could do with their families and country. He quietened as the young man approached. The two conversed apparently amicably although the young man kept his dinghy at a distance.

When I next looked across the Dutchman was teetering on the boarding platform, clutching the stern rail and attempting to get into the inflatable which the young man was holding for him. This is a drowning waiting to happen, I thought. The Dutchman dropped one leg into the dinghy and, in one fluid motion, his body, pivoting on that leg, rolled across the dinghy into the sea and disappeared. The young man looked on, helpless.

Amazingly the Dutchman bobbed to the surface and dog paddled to the back of the boat. More remarkably, after some time, he hauled himself onto the boarding platform.

His second attempt was more successful. Perhaps the dunking had sobered him a little. He could be heard joking with his companion, beer in hand, as they motored to the beach. No more was seen or heard until late in the afternoon when the two men returned to the launch, hoisted anchor and left the bay.

The anchorage breathed a collective sigh of relief, not least I suspect, because we had been spared all the inconvenience of a drowning inquest.

12 Kawau Island January 1 Janet One of the things I love about cruising is the low level ecstasy, to cite Bill Bryson, that we experience about the basics of life. High on the list is water. We get excited about filling our water-tanks, capacity 240 litres, occasional long showers at marinas, and solar showers in the cockpit. These are a less than frequent occurrence when supplies are low, rendering us not entirely fragrant. Even clean undies are up there on this list. Laundry days are limited to infrequent visits to marinas. Our water limitations ration hand-washing to smalls only. So we gently descend into a mild squalor at times. Bill Bryson (listening to A Walk in The Woods at moment) describes it thus; The first day you feel mildly self-conscious of being grubby, the second day disgustingly so, by the third you are beyond caring, and by the fourth you have forgotten what it is like to not be like this.
Much treasured also is fresh crunchy stuff. I have limited fridge space so after about 10 days we are usually down to half a wilted cabbage and a few limp carrots. The excitement mounts when we are in range of crisp lettuce, a juicy cucumber, and succulent red peppers. A full night's sleep is always a treat. Frequently I wake and wander out to the cockpit, hoping the scenery hasn't changed on us. Also having the use of a car is a novelty and intensely appreciated. Even having access to shops, although that novelty wears thin very quickly.
North Cove, Kawau Island Last day of the year. This was certainly a year that improved very late in the piece. I struggled with the trip being delayed, with trying to find employment, and keeping motivated about preparing for this trip that always seemed to be so far off. People kept me going. Our writers group, my cooking club, the Mad Women group, friends on the marina, those fabulous women in my life who accept and love me with all my faults and frailties.
But now we are on our way, the ever distant dream a reality.
We had no New Years celebration planned but our friend serendipity had it all in hand. For many years when we were land-bound in our house, or tied firmly to a marina berth, we'd read the work of Lin and Larry Pardy, an American couple who'd crossed the oceans all their lives in beautiful old boats with no engines. Larry wrote of dealing with storms, and Lin wrote a book on provisioning for a 49 day passage across the North Pacific Ocean. She gave a menu for each day of the trip and wove tips on keeping food fresh into her narrative. It's on my shelf.
This couple, sailing royalty in our eyes, had fetched up at Kawau. We called them up. Love to see you, they said. Wow. We treated ourselves to a shower in preparation.
We sailed into their bay, hooked up the mooring they'd arranged, and rowed on in. Their bach occupies a prime spot in the bay, no neighbours, a huge jetty, a guest-house, and verandahs out over the water. Lin greeted us. She exuded energy and vitality. She had a mane of long black hair, her blue eyes sparkled, her enthusiasm for life bubbling out. She signed my book! I got my first taste of the joy of an author signing just this last November when our writers group published a book of short stories called "Sweet As". David and I each got a story in print and I was utterly thrilled when people asked me to sign it. Larry has Parkinsons and was present but struggling I think.
Lin gave us a tour of their last yacht, Taleisin, just sold and waiting to be collected. She was all wood, varnish gleaming, and brass polished. David said he'd like to have Navire looking like that but there are so many other jobs on the list vying for urgent attention, that this will have to wait. The yacht had no technology, no chart table ringed with screens and banks of switches. And no engine, now that's true sailing. Back on the deck I met neighbours gathered for a New Year's BBQ. I find it extraordinary how you quickly identify who you have connections with. I met Judith, a former sailor, and a foodie. With great delight we immediately talked recipes and ingredients. Within half an hour this complete stranger had offered to pick me up from the marina in Auckland next time we go in, and drive me to all the specialist food places and Asian markets in the city, then take me to the Food Truck Café for lunch. I am a fan of Michael Van de Elzen so this is indeed a treat. I only have two hard copy cookbooks on the boat, and his Molten Cookbook is one of them. How's that for good fortune.
We were to stay for dinner. Yes please. We retired early and greeted the new year at a civilized hour the next day, dropping the mooring and sailing to Mahurangi for our next adventure.