Sunrises are spectacular out at sea! This one was gifted to us after a 4am farewell to the Bay of Islands bound for the industrial town of Whangarei on the east coast…
To enter the town basin at Whangarei, you simply call bridge control on the vhf and they stop the traffic and raise the bridge for you! pretty cool…
It is a little stressful hauling your boat and home out of the water. We have lifted Tika once before in Grenada using a large travel lift but here in Whangarei our only option was a boatyard with a hydraulic trailer. The yard was running late and we were racing off to a little retreat that Russ had booked in for my birthday so, as our retreat transfer arrived, we had to leave Tika sitting on the trailer in the slip. It was a matter of trusting complete strangers to high pressure clean and then transport her safely to her position in the yard. They seemed to be very professional but it was hard and felt wrong leaving her like that!
Tika’s hulls were super dirty after our Pacific crossing and all that time sitting in the Keri Keri river. Most of the antifoul had rubbed off and barnacles and algae growth had taken over! Time for a bottom clean and new anti-foul…
Meanwhile at our retreat we spent 4 days doing yoga, hiking the hills around Whangarei heads and enjoying delicious, fresh, vegetarian food. Without having to cook or do boat work, we relished in some much-needed, relaxed, family chill-time!
We tramped up Mount Manaia, Mt Aubrey and along the rocky headlands around McCleod Bay.
Above right; beautiful butterflies swarmed all over the many swan plants in this area…
This kid was born to climb mountains and no spire was left un-conquered!
Despite tramping around the Bay of Islands at night with a torch trying to spotlight a kiwi, we hadn’t actually eyeballed one yet. When we were invited to meet some kiwis at a ‘kiwi release’ arranged by conservation group ‘Backyard Kiwis’ we jumped at the opportunity. Backyard Kiwi’s have been working hard to trap kiwi predators (stoats and rats), educating dog owners (another kiwi predator) and releasing kiwis of a certain weight into the wild. Thanks to this work, Whangarei Heads has a healthy kiwi population and the community is really invested in protecting these beautiful, flightless birds. At least 150 people turned up to the kiwi release and most of them were locals. I wasn’t expecting the kiwis to be so big…
When we arrived back at Tika, the new antifoul was, like magic, complete! We spent a few days in an air b’n’b doing school while Russ ticked off a big list of boat jobs in the yard. I had my sights set on organising a new boat name but I had to move fast to get it applied before we splashed back in the water.
I originally sketched up Tika’s boat-name during the long Galapagos to Marquesas passage….it was literally a pencil sketch on a coffee stained scrap of paper. We found a designer in Malaysia to computerise it and, after much late night tic tacking, I finally had complete artwork to take to a sign-writer. It was a rush to get the vinyl printed and applied but it happened just the day before we splashed!
Going back in the water…we prefer the travel lift over the trailer as we felt the lifting points were not wide enough for our 7m beam.
Clean bottoms and new signage! yay!
Click below for 40, raw, crazy seconds of us going through the town basin bridge, hauling out and splashing Tika back in the water…
We spent some time at the Whangarei marina where we met up with 2 other kid boats (SV Jade who we first met in Galapagos and SV Enough who we met in Opua) Jaiya took off with her buddy Ferne and attended the local school as Ferne’s guest for 4 days. The Marina was located conveniently opposite a park and playground so the kids enjoyed a week of free-ranging with their friends.
We were invited to a campout by a lovely couple who run the marina….a perfect time to share an early 13th birthday cake for Kai who was to be sans-friends on his actual birthday.
Next post; Tika heads down the west coast of the north island…..to the gorgeous surf town of Raglan, the Abel Tasman National Park and the WOMAD music festival…
This entry was posted in The Sail.
Sounds like paradise in NZ!