On Motuihe island

Jef and Kien kayaked to the island when we were anchored in Waihaorangatahi Bay. Here are some photos Jef took whilst on the island.

Jef took some videos of Kien running through those birds on the wharf. I did a light edit to string them together. Here's a link to “Motuihe wharf” — Kien running with the birds on the wharf.

We set sail on Auckland Anniversary weekend

We decided to take the yacht out for the remainder of Auckland Anniversary weekend. Jef had taken Tuesday off work to have a extra long weekend. It seems like forever ago that we had taken the boat out. It was good to be out on the water.

We had zig zagged all the way out of the harbour with the sails up, and once we got past Okahu Bay we decided to motor the rest of the way to Motuihe. If we had all the time in the world then, sure, we would have slogged it out for another 3 hours, but since we had set off late in the day it wasn't a good option. We anchored in Waihaorangatahi Bay, which was very full at this hour of the day. Always enjoy seeing the city from this vantage point.

The following morning I had to dive off the back of the boat into the frigid water...actually the water wasn't too bad once I was in. But prior to that we had visitors pop over.

Jef and Kien went off to the island on the kayak to do some exploration. I hung around on the boat and enjoyed the quietness.

That evening Kien and Jef did some fishing with the bait they foraged from the shore...and Kien caught me dinner! But in all the excitement no one took a photo of the snapper on the line. I sizzled the whole thing up in the pan and it was delicious. Then we settled in to another night, with hardly any boats around because for a lot of Aucklanders they had to be at work the following day.

Good bye Auckland city, hello Hauraki Gulf

Finally we set sail. It's been way too long since we were last in the Hauraki Gulf anchored up somewhere. It's been one very busy year indeed and finding the time to use the boat has been difficult. But once we have set sail it feels so wonderful and you make all these promises to yourself that you'll try harder to make this happen more often. On Monday 28th we left our Westhaven slip and said good bye to Auckland central as we sailed off.

We haven't been out much this year on the boat, mainly because Kien gets rather sick if it's too bumpy. But now that he's big enough we get to try sea sickness medications for him. I got him some Sea Legs as well as some homeopathic lollipops. They seem to have done the trick!



We anchored at Motuihe for the night. This island is always a nice stop that's relatively close and easy to get to.





Ducks almost always come to visit us when we are anchored here. I came prepared with stale bread at the ready.





He loves feeding the ducks.

Finally we sail away

I wanted to get away on Boxing Day but the boat wasn't ready, and we decided we would get packed and get going first thing yesterday. Well that didn't happen because Lynette texted to tell us to come spend the day/night at the farm and break in the new pizza oven. Well how could we turn that offer down? So we spent yesterday/last night at the farm scoffing wood fired pizzas made from homemade dough and leftover Xmas ham with fresh pineapple. Lots of fun was had in the kitchen singing/dancing/rolling dough/adding toppings/eating - good times! 

We did well to get away from the farm mid morning, finish our last bit of shopping for perishables, get on the boat and stowed 436 million bags away, and finally set sail. Kien was keen to get to a sandy beach, and after promising him he would have plenty of time play when we got to our chosen destination for the night. 

So we got here an hour ago.

Still waiting....

When the kid finally wakes up we will kayak to the beach with bucket and spade, and he can dig and make sand castles to his hearts content. I'm hoping it will be soon!

When the weather makes you happy

Oh how I love the inaccuracies of weather outlooks and it turns out to be everything that wasn't predicted. In the previous week leading up to the weekend (that's 2 weeks ago now) I had been keeping an eye on both the metservice and weatherwatch forecasts, and both said we were in for rain. Come Friday afternoon though it was looking up, with rain hitting in the afternoon. On Saturday morning we woke up to bright sunny skies and southeast 10-15 knots forecasted for Waitemata harbour and Hauraki gulf, so it was a green light for going out on Cariere.

You know how sometimes you get one of those weekends where it was unexpectedly fabulous even though there wasn't anything majority significant about it (even though every time we go sailing it always feels special), well it was kinda like that. Everything just felt happy. There wasn't a lot of wind but we managed to tack all the way out of the harbour, and once we were on course and heading straight to Motoihe we were relaxing in the cool breeze with the glorious sun's rays beaming down on us.







The gulf was full of boats. There were lots of racing going on.



Once again as we sailed past Rangitoto we were becalmed. The water was glassy and our sails were floppy. So we turned on the motor with West Bay in our sights. Kien slept through, as he usually does when we are sailing.



After anchoring Kien was keen to go to the beach, so the boys paddled off in the kayak while I relaxed onboard. But then it was warm, and I was in a beautifully sheltered bay, and my brand new wetsuit was calling for a test drive (or rather test dive), so I impersonated a whale as I flopped around squeezing myself into the thing and dived off the back of the boat. Ah yes, it felt heavenly, although my wetsuit that was supposed to fit me like a glove was letting in a tiny bit of water. (Urgh, the disadvantage of being an in-between sized person i.e. slightly tall, maybe medium build - the charts said I was supposed to fit a 6 whatever-that-means, but I couldn't because it wasn't long enough so I had to get a 7! And who comes up with such ridiculous charting/sizing systems that define you as normal or tall - where tall essentially means bigger.)





That night we had a spectacular sunset, and I love seeing the city from this perspective.





The following day we leisurely gave Kien his breakfast while I sipped multiple cups of coffee and contemplated life, then we kayaked to the rocky beach for a picnic.







We found ourselves a perfect spot down the beach right above the rocks. It was in a shady, flat and elevated position with a tree that formed an arch which made the picnic spot feel like an enchanted fairy garden (yes, I've been watching too much "Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom"). But look! See what I mean?









After coming back to the boat plus a swim we headed home at a comfortable pace. Jef did the majority of the work, including a line out the back to try and catch me some dinner. Nothing caught, except a beautiful rainbow.





I know there's a philosophy about having contrast to make you appreciate the good times, and I agree almost 100% except when it comes to sunshine and the weather. Give me sun with blue skies 365 days of the year and I'll be the happiest person on earth.

We are into a new year of adventure

I went back to work yesterday, and by 2pm it felt like I never even had a break. I don't want to start off my very first post for the year on a negative note, and since I've been laying a little bit low over the last 2-3 weeks as far as updating this blog is concerned it doesn't mean I've not taken photos of our adventures of that time. So to get myself started back into the rhythm I'm going to have to do a bit of catching up on my editing and posting. I've been shooting in RAW image format since May 2013 and I must admit its quite a bit more work than just processing straight JPG files. But the good news is that I have been learning a lot and expanding my editing skills, and that is always a good thing (even if sometimes it feels like a whole lot of effort for not much gain). What I do know is that I want a new camera! I have pretty much outgrown the Nikon I've been using, and I've extended the usage by getting a 50mm prime lens half way through 2012 when I was itching for another camera. But now I'm just frustrated with the camera's capabilities, and I'm ready for an upgrade. Yay, something to be excited about and look forward to. Anyway...

Motoihe Island

We sailed there on 27th December and stayed the night. It was fabulous to get out on the boat for a stretch.

Rakino Island

I love how we have so many options for sailing and anchorage in the Hauraki Gulf. The next day we sailed over to Rakino Island. We anchored at West Bay in the late afternoon to shelter from the wind. I tried my had at fishing too. In the past we have not been successful at all, but not this time. After throwing back a few under sized ones I finally caught a keeper!

The winds picked up and it howled all through the night. In the wee early hours (I think it was around 5:30am) we were awoken by a thud. The wind had come around overnight and the boat that was anchored close by was now hitting us! What was strange was that they had all their crew onboard in their wet weather gear and with their engine running, and the skipper was telling Jef that he couldn't get his anchor up because ours was over it. But they hadn't bothered putting any fenders out, and I reckon they were motoring up close to us to try and get their anchor free and bunted us. It was bucketing down, and here I was trying to clip our fenders to our boat stanchions when it was barely light enough to see anything and the rain was hitting me so heavily it actually hurt. Jef pulled up the anchor line a bit and all of a sudden our boats parted. Luckily no damage was done, but boy oh boy that was a bit scary. Our first "incident" on the boat.

That morning it was still drizzling but the sun started to show itself. It was Kien's birthday.



Jef pumped up the dingy and we went ashore.



We went over to Woody Bay on the other side of the island.













We stayed another night in West Bay. There were people who moved around to Woody Bay thinking it was going to be calmer there, but we had such a peaceful night.

The following day we decided to head back to Auckland. The weather was turning. We could see the dark clouds coming even through we were sitting in beautiful blue skies and sunshine. We sailed straight through them, into the wind doing over 7 knots with the boat leaning like anything. It was exhilarating (and a tad scary for a novice like me). Good thing Jef is a seasoned sailor.