Life in the Bay

Paul and I have been mooching around the Bay of Islands, exploring all the historical sights. It is amazing how you can live in a country and never get to see its history/historical sights. You tend to leave all of that to the tourists.
We visited Marsden Cross, the sight of the first Christian Missionary in New Zealand. Then we went up to KeriKeri and explored Kemp House and the Stone Store, the sight of the next Christian Mission. Then on our return to Russell we visited Pompallier Mission the first Catholic Mission. The stories of these Missionaries and the hardships they endured are pretty amazing. The Maori were a formidable race, but they also were after as much as they could get out of the Missionaries ( by the sounds of it mainly guns so they could kill each other). The Bay is definitely the birthplace of our nation, but unfortunately now it is the tourist mecca.
We have now moved over to Opunga Bay to wait out a SE blow, only 20-25 knots but it is nice to find a bit of shelter.

Tall Ships Race, Russell Bay of Islands

On January the 9th we took part in the Tall Ships Race around the Bay of Islands. We did not officially enter the race, but we sailed the course and ogled all the yachts. We managed to sail around with "Melody" another Westsail, we had a lovely sail and it was a glorious day.
Paul is keen on anything with a sail, and He loved seeing all the Tall Ships, Spirit of New Zealand, Soren Larsen etc. I managed to get some reasonable photo's of them for him. Kabuki sailed beautifully, even though we did have a slow spell in the channel between Roberton Island and Moturua Island. We completed the 15 mile course in about 4 hours, and that was with lots of yacht watching involved.

Since then we have been up to Opua and the Waikare Inlet, done some washing at the Opua Laundromat, shopped in Paihia for supplies. Then wandered over to the Te Puna Inlet for some quiet and recoperation after all that activity. Today we are in the Keri Keri Inlet, and after lunch we are going to visit the ruins of the house of the man who helped build the Stone Store in Kerikeri. Tomorrow we are going to dinghy up to Kerikeri and do some shopping at the markets. Ahhh civilization again.

Russell at Last

We have arrived in Russell........ hello cellphone reception. We Left Whangarei on the 27th of December, after catching up with Hollie, Jaxon, Tash, and Jason. They had come up to Whangarei for a visit so we managed to get to see them. It was really nice to catch up with them and see how they are going.
We sailed out to Taurikura and visited Pauls Dad, and Brother. Then on Monday 28th at 10.30 pm we decided to do a night sail up to Whangaruru. It was a lovely sail, the moon was full the stars were numerous, we had reasonable wind until about 3am. So we motored into Whangaruru making it in at about 7am on Tuesday. We spent New Years quietly in Whangaruru, getting pipi's, swimming all the usual stuff.
We sailed from Whangaruru on the 1st January for the Bay. We arrived at Urupukapuka in the arvo, very busy , noisy, rolly place. While we were there a pod of Dolphins came into the bay, I bet they regretted that move about 10 minutes later, when they had about 5 fizz boats chasing them around.
We sailed over to The Tepuna Inlet on Saturday 2nd and spent the night at Rangihoua Bay. The next day we went in and had a look at Marsden Cross, the sight of the first Christian Christmas service in NewZealand. The whole area is littered with history, and happenings.

Spent the next couple of nights in Crowles Bay in the Tepuna Inlet, very lovely little hideaway......not. It was a few years ago, but not now.

Today we sailed over to Russell, lovely quiet sail, lunch on the way... and then cellphone and Vodemstick reception......yeee Haaaaa.