To our surprise we woke up to find another boat in the anchorage. It must have arrived overnight or very early in the morning. Rowan checked all the weather forecasts and discovered that if we don’t leave today we are going to have to motor into the wind and have a very uncomfortable day tomorrow to get to Whangarei. Some big gusts were forecast for the afternoon, so we needed to get going as soon as possible. Sadly this meant we couldn’t do our walk, but I have subsequently seen the path is closed for the wet season until 1 December to try and stop the spread of the disease killing the Kauri trees.
The VHF has been rather depressing with regular May Day alerts, a skiff is missing in the Bay of Islands area with two people on board. The messages started yesterday and has still not been found.
Rowan got the sails up in the bay, it was so calm as we were leaving, we had a lovely morning sailing with the wind hovering anywhere from high teens to about 4 knots. So variable, but we enjoyed the pootle down. We had thought we might stop off half way down but on closer inspection it was not going to be a comfortable night with the wind angle. Just after 1pm the wind started gusting, nothing untoward as it was in the mid twenties, a couple of times it edged into 30 knots. Then suddenly it started increasing and not going down. We had our full main sail out and jib, the wind was going well over 35 knots, we were going scarily fast, nearly 17 knots. We dashed for our life jackets, Rowan turned the boat downwind to take the speed off, we did a spectacular turn, churning up an impressive wake, that got my heart really thumping! After a few minutes the wind died down after a max of 36.3 knots. The forecast had warned us of gusts into mid 30s but only after 2 pm, so it had caught us a bit by surprise. We had two sail bags on the trampoline which thankfully stayed on board, at one point one lifted right off the trampoline.
The sea got really churned up so we headed into Tutukaka which has a very protected bay. What a relief to get in and be anchored safely in the calmer water of the bay, the wind still came whistling through, but it was perfectly comfortable. We discovered that Thetis the German boat was there, they invited us to join them for dinner, but we declined as Rowan has an early morning board meeting zoom call.
Early to bed for us after a great birthday call to Han who had just woken up.I had left a little bag of goodies for her which of course I could not remember what I had put in it. Great hilarity as the first thing she opened was a dish cloth with a picture of an old phone, with the message – Call Your Mother!
Leaving Whangamumu, leaving the little boat that snuck in last night
Amazing caves everywhere
The cave I was not so keen to kayak into
The narrow entrance into the bay, this is where they put the nets across to trap the whales, heart wrenching
Just as well we didn’t go for our walk, the weather certainly changed
Dark stormy clouds causing the big gusts
Love my reflection! Our max wind speed and speed over ground
Looking back at the narrow entrance to Tutukaka, back to sunshine!
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