Whangarei | Errantries

Author: Pete

Location: Northeast coast of New Zealand

Before shoving off north, Miranda and I took our favorite mooring for a few days to get some work done on the boat. We ended up blowing off our to-do list to spend time with our Kiwi friends Bruce, Linda, Mel, and Nico, locals of Beach Haven. Bruce and Linda have an amazing house overlooking the water, complete with a boathouse and dock. We met them in our last couple of months around Auckland and have gotten together here and there when we’re in the neighborhood (read: moored out in front of their house). They took us out to a burgeoning taproom with local beer, we met up at a weekend farmers market, and went out to lunch. One night they even had us stay in their gorgeous house when we miscalculated the tides and Dinghy was stuck in the mud. It’s been fun to be around long enough to connect with interesting people. The flip side is that it’s sad to start saying goodbye to said interesting friends. On our last eventing in Beach Haven, we took Dinghy over to their boat shed for “an afternoon glass of wine and some snacks on the wharf,” turned into many glasses of wine, turned into delivery pizza, turned into trading our sailboat for Bruce’s country home in north New Zealand. Yup, these are those kind of good buddies and a perfect day was had by all. In the early morning we rode the tide one last time under the Harbor Bride and out of Auckland with heavy hearts and and slightly aching heads.

The winds were light as we left the city astern. We motorsailed to Omaha Bay our first day, then made for Whangarei the next. Miranda and I anchored Tayrona off Marsden Cove and went out to dinner with our friends on Georgia. We were all so involved in catching up from the last couple of months’ activity that we didn’t realize that we’d likely not be seeing them again after that evening. Back aboard Tayrona later in the evening I stood on the transom and watched the birds play in the flood lights of the shipyard. Their feathers lit up in orange under the sodium lamps as they caught insects, but they disappeared from view as they flew outside the light’s beam. The birds disappearing and quickly reappearing was an oddly comforting sight after saying goodbye to good friends.

The next morning we rounded Whangarei Heads and continued on our journey north, this time with much more favorable winds. It was a long sail up to Whangamumu Harbor, but in twenty knots of wind with full canvas up we scooted right along. It felt great to be stretching our sails after several weeks in Auckland.

When the sun was high overhead, a pod of dolphins swooped in to ride Tayrona’s bow wake. They ended up staying around the boat for two hours, jumping, cavorting, and carrying on. They’d take off for a few minutes, then chase the boat down, surfing along in the following seas. When they’d approach from the starboard, their spray caught the sunlight and lit up in rainbows. It was like an eight year old girl’s dream- dolphins and rainbows. I kept looking around for a boy band to show up riding unicorns.

Over the past two years I’ve developed a special technique to capture underwater images.

Sometimes the dolphins would zoom by the boat in a silver streak. They’re blowing bubbles out of the top of their head as they swim, leaving a trail like smoke off a stunt plane. I thought it might be dolphin flatulence.

After a night in secluded Whangamumu, we ran again under accommodating winds up to Cape Brett. We squeezed between the headlands and Motukokaku Island, the seas tumultuous from waves reflecting off the sheer bluffs. It can be difficult to see the sides of the pass with the sails eased out on a run. Sort of like driving your car with newspapers stuck to the windshield. We came around the point and jibed the mainsail, fighting some current to make it through the pass and feeling like real sailors with our fancy maneuvering. Then we were back in the sheltered waters of the Bay of Islands. The wind was still ripping at twenty knots as we raced into Opua- the place where our whole New Zealand adventure started and will soon come to an end.

Author: Pete

Location: Whangaruru to Whangarei, New Zealand

With friends to see and holiday festivities to rev up, we decided to leave the Bay of Islands and get a few more miles under our keels, working our way south towards Auckland through the comical sounding ports of Whangaruru, Whangamumu, and Whangarei. Rounded Cape Brett under the lighthouse and inside Motukokako Island with its iconic arch. Apparently some yahoo sailed though it once, but we though it unwise and opted against it.

Cruising the coast has been a pleasant change of pace from big open water passages. There’s more free time to play guitar, learn to splice line, and make new friends. Our finny mate below is likely a Bronze Whaler interested in the chum slicks off of the fishing boats no doubt. Sky-blackening flocks of gulls and turns show up for the slurry banquet as well.

Craggy coastline makes for an impressive sail heading south. A narrow channel leads out of the tumultuous sea to the protected harbor of Whangamumu where the ruins of an old whaling station lay waiting to be explored. The old rusting boiler and cement vats where they processed the blubber are slowly being consumed by the brush. The station was used on and off right up into the 1940’s. Strange to think at that rendered whale fat was still being burned in lamps at the same time that Oppenheimer was splitting atoms for nuclear energy in Los Alamos. Miranda and I also have been taking advantage of the well marked hiking trails abound in the area much to the chagrin of our atrophied legs.

Whangaruru is the next big protected bay south. Lots of campers enjoying the calm bay. There’s a rain of plunging gannets. Gannets and boobies are very similar, making up the Sulidae family. So in a strange way, it rains boobies here.