We are sailing!

Sat 28 March Warm and sunny 22C Drove nowhere

Time for another day on the water and this time hopefully with sail power. Being in the Bay of Islands, the main things to do are all associated with the sea. It is possible to practice almost any water associated sports that you can think of here, and several you might never have considered. Since para-sailing, jet-boating and banana boats didn't appeal to us, going out for a day on a sailing yacht sounded good to us.

We met Mike and his boat Gungha II at the pier on Paihai just before 10, we also met Will, a Bristol backpacker who was also coming out on the boat. We then set off across the bay to Russell to pick up two German passengers, Martin and Johanna. In addition to our captain Mike, we had Jean-Luc on board as crew.

As the brief was very light, we set out using the motor to head out in the bay. We did manage to get the sails up briefly as we headed further out, but we had to use the motor a fair bit. We anchored in a small bay on one of the islands and climbed into the tender to land on the island. Martin and Johanna, took the two kayaks we had with us onto the island too. Jean-Luc then took us for a walk on the island explaining that there was a programme of planting going on to provide more native plants so that the wildlife can return. The view from the hill at the top was spectacular, and all of the bay was laid out in front of us..

After scrambling back down to the bay, we explored the pretty beach for a while. Eventually, everyone swam back to the yacht except Martin, me and Jean-Luc. I paddled back to the yacht on one of the kayaks, catching up with swimmers en route. Back on the yacht, we were handed wet-suits, masks, fins and snorkels and rapidly jumped back into the water. Almost under the boat was a large Ray whiles closer to shore there were several smaller fish and a small cave to explore. After all this exercise, lunch was provided by the captain and crew whilst we dried out in the sun.

Up with the anchor, up with sails and we set out into the bay again to try and sail again, this time with more success. We then spent a very pleasant and relaxing afternoon sailing on the bay. There was plenty of bird life to see too, and for the first time we saw lots of blue penguins and shearwaters.

Finally back at Paihai, we watched as two boats came in and landed large Marlin, of weighing 107kg and the other 93kg. They were an impressive sight, but it is a bit sad to see such magnificent fish laid on the wharf.

Dinner was 'al fresco' at a pub before returning to our motel room at the Abel Tasman.