RAIN AGAIN – BAY OF ISLANDS

16 January 2023

After a quiet night at Whangamumu Harbour and after a leisurely breakfast we weighed anchor and headed out into a decent swell and confused sea.  Once clear of the harbour things sorted themselves out and we sailed on a brisk S’Wly breeze up to and around Cape Brett.  From there it was plain sailing all the way down into the Bay of Islands, the sun came out, it started to feel like summer had arrived.

There were a lot of boats around, big and small all sorts.  Don’t know where they all come from but there are a large number of foreign cruising boats in the mix.  No doubt the foreign boats have been waiting for the boarders opening and coming down to avoid the Pacific cyclone season.

After a couple of tacks we sailed into our chosen anchorage in Te Hue (Assassins Bay) Bay. Here we found good shelter and holding tucked in on the north side of the bay.  Strong winds are forecast so nice to be securely anchored.

The wind picked up, the rest of the day it gusted with rain showers.  We stayed on board and I completed a number of small jobs that had been outstanding. Luckily we also had a phone signal and I was able to communicate with Steve Dales in Australia about a problem I was having getting my laptop to pick up the Yakker wifi signal. After an email exchange the problem was sorted, it was my firewall setting on the computer blocking Yakker. What a great little product Yakker is, it sends GPS and AIS data around the boat by WiFi, great for both Navionics and OpenCPN navigation software.

The following day we had gusty wind again.  Determined to get ashore I pit the pig in the water and flashed up the outboard.  The sun came out and we headed ashore for a walk, no sooner had we left Truce the heavens opened and rain again.  We persevered on our mission until, sodden and cold we had to admit defeat and headed back to Truce.

The Bay of Island is a very pretty place.  During the holiday season it gets very busy.  At night boats with blue underwater lights should be avoided, they play something called drum and bass.  Nasty.

Time to move on.  Tomorrow we plan to head around to Whangaroa Harbour.  The forecast is for a SW’ly winds 20 knots, should be a good sail.