Gisborne to Tauranga

Janet

We keep looking at each other in wonder and saying, “"We are doing it!”."

We'’ve had this dream for so long, and now it is actually happening. Most of you know that our trip was delayed a year, for me a long uncomfortable year of being largely unemployed despite endless, and somewhat soul-destroying, job hunting. But now after only one week away I’'m totally immersed in this journey of ours, and the last 12 months of angst has fallen away. After months, nay years, of trip planning, the very nature of sailing is forcing me into being present. When I am at sea that’s all there is. My natural compulsion to plan (OCD some may call it)– What’s next? Where are we going? What do we need to do – largely evaporates. Our new life is starting to emerge.

Two nights previously we’'d left Gisborne, after more wonderful hospitality and delicious BBQ food, this time from Doug, a former VUW colleague of David’'s. We cast off at the crack of dawn with the prospect of a fairly windy day. As almost always the weather dictates our movements. If we’'d left leaving till the next day, a calmer one, we would have encountered headwinds all the way across the Bay of Plenty on day two. We tacked up the East Coast, the boisterous wind making the sea lumpy and uncomfortable. Tiredness, wetness, and my nemesis, sea-sickness, set in by the end of the day.

On David’s watch he turned the corner taking us around East Cape and into Bay of Plenty. To my delight I woke for my watch at 3am feeling normal. After having lost the will to live on my last watch, I felt revitalised. The full moon lit up the sea, casting its shimmering path northward. I remembered again the joys of night watch under the stars, the solitude, the connection with my environment, the privilege of getting to experience this rare moment, and the adventure of it all.

As the moon set a golden dawn filled the sky behind us and a gentle northerly breeze came up. I set the sails and turned off the engine which had pushed us through the night after the wind died out. I love a night watch when I'’m feeling well, none else is up, no other boats around, nothing to do except keep lookout and keep on course. On the way across the Bay of Plenty we were treated to the spectacular site of White Island in full flow, billowing out tons of steam.

Wearily after two days at sea we encountered the narrow channel at the entrance to Tauranga Harbour that has a tidal flow of four knots. Given our wee vessel only does about six knots, that didn't give us much manoeuvrability. So our second night at sea saw us hoved-to outside the harbour entrance (reefed mainsail and tiller set in opposite directions, the boat drifting at 1.5 knots). We had to do this because the marina, just inside the harbour, due to the speed of the tide in there, only allows boats to enter at slack tide, an hour at either high or low tide, and that also has to coincide with their office hours. They send out a man in a red inflatable dinghy to guide you to your berth

At 6am on arrival day, having barely slept, I rolled out of bed for my watch. I stared bleary-eyed at the chart and calculated how much we had drifted throughout the night while hoved-to. Bugger, more miles than I’d calculated, and I hadn’t allowed any contingency time. Engine on, untie the tiller, sails up, get her on course and up to speed, engine off and let the sails pull us into Tauranga in order to get into our berth at slack tide. The man in the red dinghy was there.

"“Welcome to Tauranga”," he called, and motored on ahead to our berth.