Once home again we got busy hosts – Dad and some friends from the US flew in to visit us over Christmas and New Years which was very nice 🙂 (By the way, the masts on Dads boat are not mounted yet – as was inquired about in the guestbook. They’re ready to stand up and will hopefully do so in the coming summer)
Shortly after he left, Mum and Kim arrive to keep us occupied with family adventures.
Mum stays with us on board Guppy for the first week and we do our best to quench her thirst for adrenalin 😀 We drag her through the tightest holes in caves, let her dangle on a rope between the Whangarei falls, make her walk up the highest peak at the heads and then cool her off in NZ’s chilly ocean… but nothing stops her from still cleaning away on Guppy and planing more adventures with friends of old! 🙂
In the meantime we use our spare time to pack all of our things into sturdy banana boxes and store them on shore at our friends basement.
Then we take a week off to explore Great Barrier island with Kim – to make Kim’s time in NZ worth spending plus we’ve never been there for more than a night either. So here’s our chance! We leave without a breakfast early in the morning with lots of zeal to get there in a day, but get only as far as the bridge till we find out that they don’t open during morning rush hours. Haha typical us sometimes! So we breakfast there tied up in front of the bridge 🙂
Wind’s alright today and we decide to anchor at one of the Hen and Chickens islands and put our wetsuits on to scrub some of the hull. Just as we’re about to jump into the water, someone calls out: “Uh, what’s that over there?” … “A shark. Bugger! That’s it!” the girls agree and turn back towards the cockpit. “It’s just a small one!” I convince them “…and the prop really needs some attention.” I jump in first as try-out-bait and Kim gets pushed in second. As she pops up again, she laughs nervously, trying to conceal her fear, but it is obviously not for pure joy, hahaha… Helped us all for a good laugh. Laura joined too and a few minutes later she tries to get our attention. We turn around and see a school of big fins passing through the bay. Pointy, dark fins make our alarm lights come on for a split second, but we realise quickly that they’re dolphins. Alarm off, relax on 🙂
The wind has got a day off the following morning which means that we move slow – but it gives us the chance to observe what’s all going on around us for breakfast at sea – sharks and dolphins stirring up schools of fish, birds diving like arrows for their share of the breakfast, and the girls find something illuminated in the water?! Dots of blue, green and yellow spark inside of a jellyfish-like creature. Early morning, sun’s up and this ‘something’ has still got its light on… World of mysteries! Here we sail once more, after many hours at sea before, and find something unknown to us, right in our neighbourhood!
Once the wind picked up a little, the lights disappeared and we sail into Great Barrier island to anchor in Kaiaraara bay in the late afternoon. The wind was forecasted to blow SW which would’ve kept us sheltered, but so far westerlies blow right into the bay.
The wind started to pick up a lot a while ago and Laura is anxiously watching wether we move in this floating neighbourhood. We decide to keep watches and just as I get on deck, the anchor starts dragging. Laura races out to start up the engine and averts a collision that was about to happen. So here we are in the middle of a pitch black night, with wind and rain flying over the boat in an unknown harbour.. Laura isn’t very exited about it! The bay on the opposite side is sheltered but to deep so we proceed to Smokehouse bay, which is sheltered too but apparently doesn’t hold good. … Still our best option. A spot at 13m depth is the best that’s available for us, because lil’ Miss Captain doesn’t want to get to close to other boats, as it’s hard to make out where they are exactly in the dark.
Laura wakes up frequently during the night as we drag very slowly – just not enough to do something about it. She waits until the morning, letting Kim and me rest and then we re-anchor for the 5th time in 2days… I end up with the exercise 😀 For some reason our heavy CQR anchor did not hold good even though we dropped it properly in slight reverse and had more than enough of heavy 10mm chain out.