Heading down the coast to the Bay of Islands
At just the right moment, I took the engines out of gear and Begonia coasted to a stop half a boat length away. The opposing wind and current then allowed us to have a nice, long catch up and congratulations on being back afloat, requiring me to walk back for a few seconds of forward or reverse only every few minutes. Eventually, we made our farewells with promises to meet up properly later, and then we took begonia fifteen boat lengths upstream to drop anchor.
We were heading into Bay of Islands Marina the next day to collect some packages - most notably our new radar dish, which had been replaced under warranty.
Once we were tied up, a check of the weather revealed that our next expected bout of high winds and rain now had a name: Tropical Storm Vaianu, soon to be upgraded to Cyclone Vaianu. Also, the new track was supposed to be right over the Bay of Islands. We decided our most prudent action was to suck up the cost and extend our marina stay until it passed.
Before that, though, we had a much more beautiful day than expected. It was so beautiful, in fact, that Maryanne and I agreed to rearrange our schedules so that I could install the new radar now. I had been hoping to delay that task for a few days, but it really looked like this would be the best window to do the job for the foreseeable future, so up I went.
The problem with this kind of job is that there is no real way of safely testing it until it's completely done. The thing had to be properly connected, firmly bolted down, and I needed to be away from the transmitter before turning it on. Grimacing, I sat at the helm and went through the various menus to fire it up, crossing my fingers that my two hours up the mast would not be in vain.
We were both elated when it came on and worked like a champ. Better than that, the chartplotter had transferred my preferences to the new unit so that no further setup was required. Whew!
Kyle installs our replacement radar in the calm before the storm
Since cyclone Vaianu wasn't here yet, and since we haven't been off the boat for a while, Maryanne and I both agreed that a good, long walk was in order. The coastal trail from Opua to Paihia was just the thing. It was a bit late in the day to expect to do a round trip, so I planned to get as far as we could before a set turnaround time. Maryanne had a better idea: We could walk all the way to Paihia, reward ourselves with a visit to a Mexican restaurant there (she knows how to motivate me), and then we could take a cab back to Opua in the dark. That sounded much better to me.
Coastal walk to Paihia
The restaurant (Holy Guaca-Moly) was surprisingly good. It's not that Mexican food is that hard to do. It's just that sufficiently authentic ingredients to get the flavors right are hard to come by way out here. The best restaurants have to go around the wholesalers and pay the premium to back-channel their ingredients from another source. This place seems to have done so for the most part (although they surved store-bought processed corn chips - Ugh!). Also, they were having a special on Margaritas.
We paid our cab fare and arrived back at Begonia with the warm glow of a long walk and a good meal. We dumped our stuff on the floor by the door, plopped ourselves down on the settee, and three seconds later the skies opened and everything more than three slips away vanished in the deluge. That was fortunate timing!
The next day, in only slightly less heavy rain, Rick and Nina drove up for a visit. The official reason for their visit was to collect their CO2 cylinder, which we had filled for them in Whangārei, but we were all looking forward to making a long weekend of the task.
Alas, that was not to happen. With Vaianu's rain bands slashing us and its eye almost overhead, Rick and Nina's most prudent course of action was to start the four-hour drive home to get away from the center before it wrecks the roads. Most of the local businesses had also closed for the day as a precaution, so we couldn't even have the consolation prize of a shared meal in one of the area's nice waterfront restaurants. Their whole round-trip drive ended up being to share cups of tea for a couple hours around Begonia's salon table – and the CO2, of course.
Begonia's slip, the closest one to the shore on our finger pier, ended up being very protected from Vaianu's winds. We had high buildings on one side and the universally higher rigs of the boats on our outside. The rain fell like we had anchored under a waterfall, but we never saw any gusts of more than thirty-five knots. Mostly, our wind was in the low twenties. We were feeling like we had maybe been too cautious when Ben messaged us saying he was getting steady winds in the low fifties where he was, plus some rough chop. We could have handled that, of course, but there would have been no thinking of darting out in the dinghy between showers. At the marina, at least, we could get out and stretch our legs. We decided what was done was done and to just enjoy it. No post-shopping, as my mother used to say. Unfortunately, the gloomy skies and the turbulent wind down low kept our wind turbine from making use of the wind's power to keep our batteries anywhere near full. Mostly, it spun around and around on its axis, trying to find the source of each gust.
During one of our evening strolls along the adjacent pier, which generally housed a series of giant, luxury catamarans or giant, luxury power cruisers, we came across a very low-profile trimaran that was spread out over the entire area of two adjacent docks, where it seemed to be touching the water only lightly enough to just get wet. The cockpit, which looks like half formula one race car and half space ship, looked very familiar. Then I was able to make out the name in the darkness: Oceans Tribute. No kidding! It's Guy Chester's boat! We had last seen Oceans Tribute just before we left Cocos Keeling for the Chagos Archipelago more than three years and three-quarters of the way around the world ago.
We knocked on the hull (loudly, because the sound had to telegraph all the way from the outer float to the central hull). A few seconds later, Guy popped out. After we told him who the dark silhouettes before him were, he did a pretty good job of diving into his memory to recall who we were. He even added the tidbit that he had been talking about us to someone a week or so earlier. We all agreed that it was too late and rainy for a reunion today, but made a date to meet at the Opua Cruising Club tomorrow night.
Guy sails a LOT. His modus operandi is to race Oceans Tribute during the season in one region or another. When that season ends, instead of putting the boat on the deck of a ship like the big race teams do for the trip across the ocean to the other hemisphere, Guy sails there. Since Oceans Tribute is so fast, Guy says he can take it easy on passages and still average nine knots the whole way. Although we had left Cocos Keeling a week before he did, he was already in his third week in the Caribbean by the time we got to our first port in South Africa.
That's the difference between racing and cruising. We were stopping to go snorkeling and see the sights. Guy was zipping across his second ocean for the year. We assumed he must have circumnavigated again while Maryanne and I were goofing around in Canada, but he told us he had in fact decided to spend two years in the Caribbean. He allowed that he hadn't quite managed to finish his second circumnavigation yet (he started in Australia). For that last leg, he is organizing and competing in the Trans-Tasmanian Race at the end of the month. Oceans Tribute happens to be the record holder for that race.
Wait a minute... that means that since Begonia's slip is farther up the river than Oceans Tribute's, Begonia's net speed since leaving Cocos Keeling from that moment to this is just ever so infinitesimally higher than Oceans Tribute's. Ooh, I liked that very much!
You may recall that Guy was one of the people who advocated for us (and other cruisers) during our three years in Australia during Covid. This is partly because Guy is not one of those people who likes to be busy twenty-four hours a day and waste the other six. This is why if you listen to him talk about his history and start adding up the numbers in your head, you end up coming to the conclusion that he can't be less than 120 years old. The rookie mistake here is assuming he did all of that stuff in series. He did most of it in parallel, apparently while also designing funny watches.
Guy asked us about our plans going forward. When we told him we were planning on skipping Australia this time and going through southeast Asia instead, he lit up. It turns out he has worked for the Ministry of Tourism in Indonesia. Well, of course he has. He also speaks fluent Indonesian, which he calls Bahasa, because that's what they call it there. Well, of course he does.
Since he knew Maryanne and I were "sailors who don't mind putting in extra miles to get somewhere really special", he made a good case for why we should go the long, pretty, remote way to the Indian Ocean, instead of the well-trodden rally routes. He went through a whole long list of unrecognizable names for places he insisted were all just wonderful. Since the map I was trying to make with my pub fries was rapidly shrinking, he promised to meet up with us later with actual nautical charts and give us time to jot everything down on a pad. Maryanne and I have been retracing a lot of our old steps lately and we both noticed a little spring in our steps on the way home at the exciting prospect of going somewhere truly new to us.
The calm after the storm
Viainu Passed. The weather was nice for half a day, and then resumed its normal pattern of being mostly annoying. The most frustrating thing was a series of beautiful weather windows for our passage out of New Zealand that would inevitably dry up to nothing before they actually arrived. Not in the mood to extend our expensive marina stay any longer, we decided instead to wait out our time with some cruising around the Bay of Islands.
We spent two-thirds of the time hunkered down in our heated cabin, but we did make use of every good photon of direct sunlight with lots of kayaking. It at least felt good to be swinging at anchor again where our wind turbine could make use of a clean breeze.
Kerikeri Inlet
Finally dolphins join us in New Zealand
More kayaking about, this time at TangituPoint, Orokawa Bay
At Hauai Bay, we were even able to make a day of tramping some of the DOC's trails. The one from there to Cape Brett is sixteen kilometers each way. That was almost certainly too far for a day hike, so we instead cobbled together a 16k loop using some other trails for the return.
Walking the trails around Hauai Bay
After getting up early and loading our bags with supplies for a full day ashore, we entered the trailhead from the road and almost immediately encountered a paywall. Oh, it's the New York Times all over again! Except this was an actual paywall – a big fence with a locked gate and a sign with detailed instructions on how to get the combination for the lock. What the hell?
DOC trails are supposed to be free to the public. It's hard to know exactly what is going on because we were clearly being given only one side of the story. The landowner claims that there has been a public right of way through his property for the DOC trail for years (for which he was paid). Then, for some reason (maybe a dispute with this landowner or another somewhere else), the DOC decided to re-route the trail around his land on what was described as a clearly longer, more dangerous route. Maryanne couldn't get any signal to work to register, but I caught a snatch of one. After electing not to "Donate!" or "Sign the Petition!" on the basis of so little information, we found that we could get the combination to the lock if we just "Register!" Look, I don't mind signing a paper guest book, or even paying a reasonable fee for day use of the trail, but I draw the line at opening myself up to a lifetime of unwanted internet marketing and data collection, just to spend a day on a public trail. After going through the gate, I reminded Maryanne that if we encountered anyone, she would be Ren and I would be Stimpy.
The trail was actually very nice, apart from being a little overgrown at the end of the season. Also, Vaianu had given us more than a few fallen trees to traverse. After a whole day with a good combination of both rough and easy going, we arrived footsore at the beach just above the dingy.
Just then, Paywall Guy, who was cleaning the drive to his house next to a sign that said, "Secure Trail Parking - $20", invited us through the gate to see the gardens within. We had approached along the road, so I didn't get the impression from him that he thought we had been on his trail earlier. Perhaps if he had been really nosy, he would have recognized us from the security camera footage at the gate that morning, but his tone seemed to indicate he thought we were now showing up for the first time – maybe deciding to do the walk tomorrow. At any rate, Maryanne had long since forgotten the whole Ren and Stimpy thing.
After he made reference to the DOC, we asked him to expand upon the story. His story is that they used to pay him $3 per hiker. They decided they didn't want to do that anymore, so they spent an absolute fortune building an alternative trail, but that trail was only safe at low tide and in calm conditions. Matey was just asking people to register for his much better trail so he could show the DOC it would be more economical to go back to paying the $3 each for that. Well, maybe, but I do recall the wording of the aforementioned petition being a little more on the inflammatory side and another part of the site hinting that the problem might be reverse racism.
Regardless, he invited us to enjoy the garden views as long as we like and to also please partake in eating as many mandarin oranges as we could find on his laden trees. Both were just the thing after a long, grubby walk.
Unexpected hidden garden (in Hauai) we were invited to relax in and enjoy its fruits
Unfortunately, we lingered just a little too long. As we were later launching our kayak for the paddle home, some rain could be seen approaching. Begonia wasn't far, so proceeding seemed like it would be a better deal than waiting out the shower under a tree or something. It half worked, but also, notably, half did not. Just past the hallway point, everything in front of us disappeared and the drenching started.
During the very slightest lulls in the deluge, we could just make out the gray silhouette of Begonia ahead and started paddling like crazy. That's when Begonia started receding into the distance, like in that stretching hallway scene from Poltergeist. Maryanne did especially well. Usually, she has the luxury of resting forty percent of the time or so, while the rear engine keeps operating to move us forward. This time, we both paddled as hard as we could. Maryanne didn't stop until she needed a hand to grab Begonia. If conditions hadn't been so urgent, it would have been fun to measure what surely must have been a record speed run over such a distance. By the time we made it, we had already had the full shower and laundry treatment, so our haste was to keep more water from filling the kayak and slowing us down even further. So, I guess we only got three quarters of a nice day this week.
Heading back towards Opua, we anchored just outside the mooring field near the historic town of Russell. We both really like Russell and were excited to finally be back. We had more time on this visit, which allowed us to walk almost all of the area's trails and also to visit a nice selection of pubs and restaurants.
Most notable of these last was a delicious Thai restaurant. We had finished our trail early and so had presented ourselves as the only patrons for seating right at opening time. One of the owners seated us. We expected he was also going to serve us as well, as he was the only employee in evidence, apart from some cooking noises coming from the kitchen. When our food arrived, the music seemed to get louder. Then we saw that it was coming out of the robot that was bringing our dishes to the table. The owner was right behind to pass our plates from the robot to our table, so the only apparent purpose for the thing seemed to be to give us all a good, long chuckle at the whole experience. The robot's second visit was just as fun, but did not seem to be lowering the personnel cost in any way. The food was good enough that the gimmick of the robot was completely unnecessary, but it was a nice bit of mirth.
Russell (briefly the capital of New Zealand) is a beautifully charming small waterfront village; a lovely place to visit with the right amount of trails and dining options
Trails & Beaches around Russell
Maryanne still enjoys spotting quirky mail boxes on her travels - here were some around Russell (and if you've followed the blog for any time and have a great memory - you may even recognize one of them. I assume the red Post Office box is still in use to drop your mail in and expect to have it delivered!
After Russell, we again returned to the anchorage near Hornpipe, where we were able to spend more time with Ben, both aboard Begonia and on Hornpipe.
Ben is a very techy engineering type. Hornpipe was designed and built by the same. It has some very clever and interesting systems and Ben has a long list of cool modifications he is planning to do to most of them to make them even better. He even has a 3D printer on board to make parts. We are very curious to see how the whole project goes.
As Maryanne's visa neared running out (hers was the first, mine was 16 days later) and the next weather window looked like it might actually turn into a real thing, we headed back to the marina for yet another stay, in order to be ready to clear out of New Zealand.
Visiting with Ben aboard Hornpipe
This is technically not necessary for Begonia, as there is no inspection involved for the boat. Maryanne and I just need to present ourselves to the Customs office so they can verify that we are the actual people on our passports. It would be perfectly acceptable for us to dinghy in (from the customs dock) and check out that way. A lot of boats do that, but they have fast inflatables. We like our Pudgy, but it is undeniably slow. Also, the nearest anchorage is a long way away from the marina. Then, before going offshore, the thing has to be put into lifeboat mode, which is a bit of a kerfuffle. This means we could conceivably still be at anchor three hours after clearing out, which is something that tends to make New Zealand Customs a little edgy. Clearing out is supposed to be the very last thing we do in the country, and although it is not specified, the general expectation is that the boat will be underway in no more than about thirty minutes.
They would probably let us slide on that, given our circumstance. To me, it seemed worth the cost of a night at the marina to be able to convert the dinghy at my leisure during good weather than having to do it under duress in whatever conditions we get on the day.
Of course, the problem with that math comes when the weather window gets delayed a day, and then another, and then another, as kept happening to us. Soon our Marina bill was bigger than the rest of our monthly budget. Again, we just tried to take it as a done deal already, and decided to at least enjoy the convenience of being able to step on and off the boat whenever we liked.
Kindly Guy offered us the use of his car for a day to do chores and last minute provisions and bit of sightseeing in the town of Kerikeri (that we were shamed to say we'd missed - so this was a great chance).
Roadtrip: Visiting Hiraku falls and Rainbow falls (near Kerikeri)
Roadtrip:Enjoying teashops, restaurants, and a dose of museums and history (in the old part of Kerikeri)
As our time grew, Guy contacted us and asked if we would like to help him out with a couple of things on Oceans Tribute. This would, of course, be during a sail around the bay. He needed to rig a couple of his spinnakers for the upcoming race, which he said would be a lot easier if he could use us as crew. Having never been underway on a crazy-fast race boat, we jumped at the chance.
On the day, Guy picked us up, along with another couple, Megan and Craig. Craig is working as an apprentice rigger and has also apparently done a few races on Oceans Tribute. He clearly knew his way around way better than we did, so Maryanne's and my roles became even easier ones of cranking a winch every now and then, or laying on a dropped sail to keep the wind from catching it.
Even so, Oceans Tribute has a big rig with big sails. Even simple tasks seemed like I was right at my limit for them, with each operation feeling like it might be just about to get away from me. I would be very nervous to take this boat offshore by myself. Guy has done most of his miles that way.
Upon checking one of his spinnakers, we found a hole that needed to be repaired, we wrestled it down to the deck (barely, it seemed), and then managed to find one more hole after another. Most of our allotted time ended up being while drifting around while sticking on patches.
As we were raising the second spinnaker, my job was to hold onto the bottom as Craig hoists it, so that it doesn't end up in the water in front of the boat. Oceans Tribute is a busy boat, rigging-wise. Guy probably has three times as many control lines as we do on Begonia and they are everywhere that I don't seem to expect. As the sail went up, I went forward with it, starting at the stern, and then walking forward on the nets between the hulls as it goes up, all while trying to avoid getting tangled up in the rigging. As I got to the front of the net, miraculously untangled, I stepped over the forward crossarm onto the net in front of it. Then I took another step, except there was no net there. That net doesn't cover the whole space between hulls like the one behind, only a triangle that goes to the bow of the center hull. I couldn't see it through the sail in front of me and I hadn't taken note of the configuration when we climbed aboard.
Messing around on other peoples boats - in this case the trimarain Oceans Tribute - great fun and super fast
Suddenly, I was in the water. It happened so fast that I realized I was underwater before I had even registered a sense of falling. I popped quickly to the surface between the main hull and the starboard float with the net zinging over me.
"Uh...Man overboard!" I yelled (terribly embarrassed).
No one heard me.
Megan saw me go in, though, so she was able to get the message to Guy about the whole situation.
Since the sail hadn't been unfurled and was not pulling, all Guy had to do was back up a bit with the engine until I was a few swimming strokes from the swim step. Since we had anticipated a cold rainy day, I was wearing my full foul weather gear when it happened. That kept the cold from getting to me and the trapped air made me surprisingly buoyant. I was not injured. I wasn't freaking out. I wasn't struggling to keep my head above the surface. I wasn't even cold. Given the circumstances, that was about the most pleasant falling overboard experience I could imagine.
Everyone else didn't seem to be doing as well. Guy got me a towel and some dry fleece clothing to change into, which I managed to do before even developing a shiver. Still, everyone was really watching me for signs of shock. Despite my assurances that I was already back to 100% fine, thank you, the consensus seemed to be that you can't trust the word of a guy with hypothermia. It took an hour or so before the worried looks tapered off. Still, it made for some good banter at the cruising club later and Guy even bought my drink as an apology, like he did anything wrong.
After all the sail repair and my little swim, and with dark clouds approaching, we all agreed that we were going to skip doing all the work to raise the full sail wardrobe and let Oceans Tribute kick up her heels. Alas, Maryanne and I never got to experience gently cruising around at a steady eighteen knots. Still, when Guy put up his smallest jib to catch the ten-knot breeze, we were instantly going speeds that would have started making us nervous on Begonia and heading on deck to reduce sail. It gave us a good sense of why it takes Guy only half the time to cross an ocean as we do. He thinks a ten-day passage is "a long one".
We kept ourselves busy with checking the weather, and the odd trail. The world can sometimes feel like a small place, aside from meeting up with Guy and Ben, we were quite suprised to be greeted at the fuel dock by a couple we hadn't seen since Freemantle back in Dec 2020 (Jenni and Chris, from the boat Upstart)
Our weather window kept receding forward at a rate of about three-quarters of a day per day. When it evaporated completely, Maryanne and I decided we just couldn't take paying for the marina anymore and checked out to go back to Ben's anchorage to wait for the next one. In the meantime, Maryanne's visa was about to expire, so we also had to add in the cost of an extension.
Sure enough, on the next update, our window un-evaporated. I triple-checked everything to make sure it was real and, yep, it was. Fine, back to the marina again to top off our water and clear out for real this time. Guy kindly took Maryanne for one final (for real this time) provisioning run to the local Woolworths supermarket.
[Maryanne]Our "last days" turned into a whole month, and our departure still wasn't with the perfect weather window we'd hoped for... Some of those who stayed to wait, were still there nearly several weeks later (gulp); it's been a frustrating season all around.
Anchorage location Kerikeri Inlet >> On google maps
Anchorage location Orokawa Bay >> On google maps
Anchorage location Hauai Bay >> On google maps
Anchorage location Russell >> On google maps
Anchorage location Te Wahapu Inlet (Ben's anchorage) >> On google maps
Bay of Islands Marina (Opua) >> On google maps
