Commodore
December 13, 2024

Saturday 14 December – we trigger a visit from the NZ Navy

We had a very lazy start to the day, Rowan thought he could hear people shouting on the beach but never imagined they might be calling us, so made a second cup of tea and brought it down to bed. About half an hour later we heard someone close by trying to get our attention, Rowan goes upstairs with his kikoi on and finds a guy on a paddle board, he’d come to tell us to move, he is from the NZ Navy monitoring division. We have anchored in the middle of their earthquake monitoring zone! We had wondered what the big zigzag zone was but nothing mentioned we could not anchor there. I had quizzed Rowan about the 4 black dots on the chart in the area, each one I selected on just said it was an obstruction and no other details….. they must have been the monitors! Rowan invited him on board, enticing him with a cup of coffee, he tried but it was so choppy and windy he couldn’t get along side us. So we picked up our anchor and moved on, we went to the other end of the bay, a stunning white beach nearly the entire way, at least 4 miles. There was quite a swell but it looked so inviting beach and it was a glorious day. We got the anchor down, and although we were riding the big swell it was very comfortable.

We dropped JeldiJeldi to try and get to the beach, we discovered a much bigger breaking wave than expected, we tried around the rocky headland to the other beach but it looked equally difficult. We decided to return to PolePole and go in on the trusty kayak, which Han has christened the Mokoro (Botswana canoe!). We found a quiet end to the beach and got in easily and lugged Mokoro up the beach well out of the way of the rising tide, thank goodness she is so light. It was a stunning beach and surprisingly there were a lot of people and loads of surfers, it had a good breaking wave.

We stopped to ask a couple how we could get into town, they were of course visitors too, an English couple who have lived in the States for the last 25 years. We headed up the wooden stairs over the dunes and found a little suburb of batches. We walked along the road and were admiring a spectacular Pohutukawa tree when we spotted a Kaka (parrot) in it which was very exciting. The bees were going crazy in the flowers and the parrot was having a wonderful time stuffing itself with nectar too. We saw a very quaint little church and when I popped my head around for a closer look I discovered they were having an Op Shop sale, so I couldn’t resist. I walked away with a gorgeous vintage Hermes Red crocodile skin clutch bag for NZ$20 (less than £10). So sparkly it looks a bit like the ruby shoes Dorothy (Judy Garland) wore in the Wizard of Oz that have just sold for $28 million!!

Rowan had read about a brewery, we found a sign and followed it into a field where we found the brewery open and bustling. We had the most delicious beers, I had an IPA which was so flavourful, I am an absolute fan of a good IPA. Rowan had a very good Pilsner. To crown it all there was a food truck run by an Argentinian couple, their 3rd day of operating, who served the most delicious treats, in particular a Portobello mushroom and chicken empanada and delicious beef picanha. The English couple we met on the beach turned up in their car and came and joined us. They have just retired and travelling the world. Loads of stories were shared…… turns out he is a Nakedwines angel at their home in Florida.

We finally headed back to the beach and did a good long walk to the far end of the bay. On the way back Rowan went in for a swim and managed to body surf in on a couple of waves. Thankfully Mokoro hadn’t budged by the time we got back at the end of the afternoon. We had a blissful evening, it was the longest sunny evening we have had so far. We had twilight fish boil ups going on around the boat in the evening, which was quite exciting, there must have been a big predator somewhere!

Red circle around the Naval monitoring station

The area within the zigzag lines is no anchoring for boats, the chart doesn’t say a thing. The four black small circles just say ‘obstruction’ if you select on them. You can see our pink line going straight through the middle of it, we anchored overnight in the middle of it, very upsetting for the naval monitoring station!

The blue dot on our new anchorage, we came from the other end of the bay

Great white beach with dunes

Crazy little islands everywhere

The rock split in two

Our anchorage

Gorgeous beach

Little breaking wave to keep us on our toes

Rowan’s artistic shot

Behind the dunes are rows of Batches (holiday homes) – Rowan finds a Kaka in the Pohutukawa tree

Kaka (parrot)

The cute little church, functions as a community centre with an Op shop, selling a Hermes bag which I bought and a Gucci top that was way too small for me!