Two Left Hands

John wrote the last post and at the time it was perfectly right but things change so much here so quickly that what I am about to say almost sounds like a contradiction - as if the right hand does not know what the left is doing. Actually, we are both left handed and we do sing off the same hymn-sheet, most of the time anyway.
We have decided that maybe the yacht "Blue Heron" is not what we want to live on after all. It is just not big enough with enough storage room. Pity, we have lots have good memories of the time we were on it from Tauranga to Whangarei via Mayor Island, the Mercuries, Great Barrier, and then back down via other side of Gt. Barrier and White Island as far Napier where we had to get off because of bad weather for yachts and rush home for Christmas with the family via the inter island ferry.
We are still looking for a yacht we can live on and have some affection for because I am sure we won't last long on the water if we don't and deep down we don't want to be quitters.
I have to record here that that the person who owns "Blue Heron" has that feeling for her, although not as a live-aboard yacht but does not really want to part with her.
After a lot of research, John's/our experiences on delivery trips ( me the guest more really) and good advice from our long term yacht-living friends we are pretty narrowed down to what we really want and there is not a lot of it out there on the market. In fact there is only one that looks like it.
In the meantime we still own "Wild Thyme" and there is an offer on it subject to the marina management being able to rearrange the boats around them because of the wide beam ( always a Warren/Magee problem) and wondering if ours would fit in their privately owned narrow berth.
What do you do??
Well, maybe you don't have to be a "Southpaw" to work it out the way we have but seeing we are going to Brisbane anyway from end of May for about 6 weeks we have decided to get the household storage people in to take our chattels away and into storage and rent the house of our dreams out to some other people that will hopefully look after it well, and move on to "Wild Thyme" until we fly to Brisbane on 27th May. We are hoping that while we are in Brisbane that the berthing thing will be solved and that we have a new yacht to come home to on the 18th July.
So we are busy getting the house ready - need to paint that wall that took ages to build and plaster and put in some bathroom fan/heater/light units. Apart from the final clean-thru thats all really.
In between that we are looking for our dream yacht.
I hope everyone is well.

Doreen

Easter Cruise

We're back home again after a very enjoyable 10 day cruise round to Nelson with a detour on the way there and back to Pelorus Sound. It started out as a four day Easter Weekend trip to Pelorus but grew as time went on and none of us wanted to come home. We sailed in tandem with our friends Graham and Sandra on Nutcase which was the first time we've gone away like that and it proved to be a very successful formula.


We left mid afernoon on Good Friday and tied up to a club mooring in a bay towards the end of Queen Charlotte Sound that night. Fishing was good with three nice sized cod going into the fridge. The weather was just beautiful, clear blue sky but not much wind which meant a lot of motoring. The next morning we left about 9am and motor sailed up into Cook Strait, round Cape Jackson and across to Pelorus Sound where we arrived and anchored in a nice little bay about 3pm. Fishing was good again with more fish in the fridge. Sunday morning we moved to another bay across the sound and went ashore for a short walk through the bush before moving on to another bay to anchor up for the night. This one had a one man pub in it so we went ashore and watched the Chiefs v Highlanders Super 14 rugby.



By now we were getting low on diesel as I had neglected to fill the tanks before leaving and were faced with the option of going back to Picton to get some or carrying on to Nelson. We all consulted our social secretaries and confirmed none of us had any pressing engagements so elected to go to Nelson.

To get there we had to go through French Pass, a scary narrow bit of water between D'urville Island and the mainland. Unless you go through at slack tide the current races through at up to 7 knots and can send you backwards so it's important to get the timing right. As you may guess, we didn't and ended up going through sideways but made it through in one piece nevertheless. That night we ancored up just round from Okiwi Bay.


Left early next morning and motored in flat, glassy sea to Nelson where we arrived around midday. We tied up in the marina there for a couple of hours to refuel and restock the cupboards then went round to the waterfront where we anchored about 50 meters off the waterfront drive right in front of the Boatshed Restaurant for those of you who know Nelson. Fabulous views and great weather although cooling down considerably at night time. Tuesday morning we set off for the return journey but by now the weather was starting to deteriorate with gale force winds forecast for most of the country. We got back as far as our previous night's anchorage near Okiwi Bay where we decided to take shelter for the night as the wind was getting up around 30kts. It was a pretty uncomfortable night with the boat bouncing around and quite noisy and at 5am we all had had enough so up anchored and set off back towards French Pass.

The ride up there was quite lumpy and it was a relief to finally get in the shelter of D'urville Island and calm water again with the added bonus of striking French Pass right on slack water. The pass is really quite spectacular, only about 50m wide with big swirling eddies both sides but quite ok to go through provided the weather and tides are good. Once through, we motored back to Pelorus Sound arriving around midday just in the nick of time as the wind suddenly got up to about 45kts and it all got very exciting very quickly. Just before we got to the safety of the bay we intended sheltering in there was one gust of about 50kts which picked Nutcase's dinghy up and flipped it several times throwing the oars into the sea. Both of us spent the next half hour doing man overboard drills trying to recover them. For those of you who know Doreen well, picture this. 45kts of wind, rough sea, spray eveywhere and Doreen out the back on the landing platform hanging on for grim death with one arm, leaning out trying to recover an oar with the other. Madness I say. Anyway, we all survived (even the oars) and eventually anchored up for the night waiting for the front to pass. And pass it did and the next morning we made a 10 mile dash to the other side of the Sound to shelter from the next front which was due that night.



The next morning dawned fine and calm and after a short excursion ashore to check out the beach we set off for what we thought was the final stretch home. Our travelling companions had different ideas though and being in no hurry to get back we ended up staying on a mooring at Furneaux Lodge at the end of Endeavour Inlet near the outer end of Queen Charlotte Sound. We went ashore to the lodge that night and had a meal, a few drinks and watched the Crusaders thrash the Highlanders, all in all a great way to finish the cruise.
Sunday morning we left Furneaux at 9am and motored back to Picton where we arrived shortly before lunch.

Which brings us up to the present moment, back in the house, looking at the lawns that need mowing and all the other work that needs doing and wondering why.

I think it's common knowledge but in case anyone reading this doesn't know (and assuming you're even remotely interested) ,our boat is up for sale and we're buying a bigger one , packing the furniture up, renting the house out and going cruising for a few years. We hope to have all this done and ready to go by the time we get back from Australia in July. At the moment it looks likely that we will buy Phil Vining's boat (Blue Heron 2000) (see photosite). He's willing to trade our boat as part payment and is flexible with the timing so it's all looking good at the moment.

Home again

Another trip over and a few more sea miles under the belt.

This one was one of the harder trips I've done with the wind and sea "on the nose" most of the way which meant lots of tacking and quite a bit of motoring. We did get a couple of days of favourable winds though and enjoyed some good sailing, especially round East Cape and from Whakatane to Tauranga.

The fishing was great all the way. We caught a couple of good sized Kingfish (see photo) half a dozen Tuna, three snapper and a Terakihi. The Kingfish and Tuna we caught on a line with a lure trailing behind the boat as we sailed and the snapper and Terakihi on a handline when we were at anchor.

While the winds weren't great, the weather was mostly fine and sunny and we only had rain (and heaps of it) for the last day coming into Tauranga. We made it just in time as the remnants of a tropical storm swept the North Island just as we were arriving with many Northland roads washed away.

Photo is the sunrise as we were coming up to Portland Island at the end of the Mahia Peninsula at the top of Hawke Bay.

After we arrived in Tauranga the new owners of the boat met us and took us back to their house where we stayed for a couple of nights before getting a rental car and driving down to Wellington and catching the ferry across to Picton last night.

There aren't any more trips immediately on the go so I guess I'll have to get used to living at home for a while and doing mundane things like mowing the lawn. I see the grass has had a growing spurt while I've been away.

Good to see you've joined the Bloggers Leigh. Sounds as though the girls are doing really well at school and with all their other activities. It fair wore me out just reading about them!

That's all for today.