Wednesday 4 December – What a day!

We departed from Waihike early, Rowan had woken up for a 6:30am call only to find it is tomorrow morning. So we picked up anchor and departed anyway, as our plan was to sail around the top of Coromandel and join Tim and Carol (Rowan’s cousin), who have just retired and are spending a few months in a camper van while their new house is being built. It was a slow motor initially but as we neared the top of the Coromandel peninsular, the wind picked up and we had a lovely sail . We passed some amazingly weathered coastline, with dramatic hole in the wall islands, and steep cliffs. We saw a few mansions perched on cliff edges miles from anywhere, I wondered if it was the foreign uber rich buying remote safe havens in NZ that we have read about. The wind was very fickle, but in the end successfully blew us all the way to Whitianga.

It was about 4:30pm when we finally put the anchor down in a bay near to town, the area is considerably built up compared to the coastline we have been going past. As we were dropping the anchor we noticed an inflatable ring bouncing away from the beach. We checked that nobody was on it and once settled, Rowan went in the dinghy to retrieve it, which by this stage was tumbling miles off the beach. He returned it to the beach where a little girl was thrilled to get it back, the parents didn’t even get off their backsides from the beach. They waved in thanks, which seemed a little unappreciative.

We had just settled down to a cup of tea when a jetski came buzzing around. We can’t stand the noisy things so ignored it, about 20 minutes later we saw this jet ski screaming towards us, not the kind you sit on but one you hold in front of you and steer while lying in the water. We thought the guy was trying to engage us so we studiously ignored him, only to hear him shouting help, help. He told us there was someone in the water in distress and a boat out of fuel that was being swept quickly out to sea with the offshore wind. Once again Rowan dropped the dinghy, the guy in his highly distressed state told us the boat was the other side of the bay, so we put the spare fuel tank into the dinghy, gave Rowan a VHF portable radio and off he set, following this guy on his jet ski. I in the meantime was to alert the local coast guard. I googled who to phone and being after 5pm I had to call the nationwide 111 helpline. On my UK phone this is pretty difficult, so I decided to call Tim and Carol who were nearby in their campervan and get them to alert the relevant people with their local phones. Poor Tim then handled the whole rescue effort with coastguard, police and spotter plane all in touch with him. I had managed to give Tim a dropped pin on my phone where through the binoculars I could see Rowan heading. After a good half hour Rowan was able to send his live location to me and Tim who relaid it onto the coast guard, it was 4.2 miles from me!

Rowan had to stop and refuel before finding the little tinny (small boat), which had 3 youngsters (late teens) and a dog on it. They had gone to help a different guy on a jetski whose engine had packed in, they tried to tow it but it was too much strain and the tinny soon ran out of petrol. The jet skier then decided to swim for land towing the jetski, but found that too difficult and had landed up on a very steep rocky little island while the tinny was being swept out to sea at an incredibly fast rate. Rowan decided to go and get the stranded jet skier, who was now about a mile away from the tinny. The guy was fine and wanted Rowan to tow the jetski but Rowan was having none of that. They headed back to the tinny and saw a big motor launch coming their way, so he was able to contact them and they came immediately to the rescue. They took everyone on board, by this stage the coast guard were in touch with Rowan and on their way out. Poor Rowan was freezing by this stage, it was getting late and he wanted to get home before dark so left eveyone in safe hands. Safely home he was then answering calls on the emergency channel with the rescue plane to give them the latest update on the situation. It seemed like there was not really a good line of communication between the coastguard, police and plane spotter, but at least everyone was safe. Finally in response to Rowan’s update on the emergency channel the plane was told to stand down. We could finally have our supper! That was more than enough excitement for one day.

We left Waihike Island (just below the letter D of Auckland on the map), going up and around the Coromandel Peninsular all the way to Whitianga

Interesting eroded landscapes the whole way

Remote living at the tip of the peninsular, high mountains and only dirt roads to camping sites

The other side of the tip of Coromandel

Many different shaped islands

Jagged coastline needing careful navigation

White cliffs of Mercury island

The well known holes in the walls

Holes in many places

Rowan’s live location of the boat in trouble and my green dot, on PolePole at the beach. It seems strange the guy on the jetski came 4 miles over to call us, but said we were the only boat he could see

A great scene to send us to bed