Its Sam's 25th birthday today. We will do what we can for him in the way of festivities but its pretty limited what we can do on the boat. The day was to commence with bacon and eggs until we discovered the eggs had been omitted from the provisioning list so we had to make do with bacon wraps. The sacrifices we make to live on a boat.
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| Happy Birthday Sam |
Prior to leaving the Bay of Islands, we anchored for a night at Urapukapuka Island to acclimatize Sam to the boat life and get ready to sail. Whilst in the marina I had picked up a part for the electric outboard which I had been waiting on since before X-mas. Have never used an electric outboard before but like the idea of it. We assembled the unit which consisted of essentially three parts – a drive shaft , a battery and the control arm. Sam took it out for a test drive and it performed pretty well. Its very disconcerting given it puts out zero noise. Only issue will be the recharging as it will take a fair bit of power and so needs to be carried out when we are under engine or have excess solar power. We now have the electric outboard and a smaller 2HP 2 stroke unit onboard.
Walking track on Urupukapuka
On Saturday (1st March) we left the Bay of Islands and sailed for the Cavalli Islands about 20NM north. This small group of six islands lies about 2NM off the coast. None of the islands are that big and the largest island can be walked across in an hour. The sail was in very light easterly wind with an uncomfortable sea which did not make for either a fast or a pleasant journey but it was good to get the sails out again and it was only a short trip. After about 4hrs we sailed through a very narrow pass and ended up in a beautiful big sheltered bay called Horseshoe Bay in the southern part of the main island of Motukawanui.
Approaching the Cavalli Islands
The Cavalli islands lie about 2NM off the mainland and are uninhabited and a conservation area. Even given the proximity to the mainland they feel pretty remote. The biggest claim to fame I guess is that in the waters around one of the islands lies the Rainbow Warrior. Readers old enough will remember the Greenpeace ship that was bombed by the French secret service in Auckland Harbour in 1987. After the bombing the hull was towed here and sunk as a dive attraction.
The scenery of the
islands is truly stunning and amplified by the fact that we have had near
perfect weather during our stay. The
scenery is a mixture of Jurassic Park rock formations, complete with sea
arches and caves, topped by very green vegetation of small trees and dense
grasses and then a number of secluded mainly pebble beaches dotted around the
periphery.
Horseshoe Bay
There is a walking track running the length of the big island and Sam and I tackled that on the second day. The walk is about a 7km round trip with an elevation of 177m at the highest point. On the far side of the island we spied a secluded cove on one of the other islands called Panaki Island which looked like a nice anchorage and moved Sea Otter around there in the afternoon and decided to stay for Sam's birthday.
View from end of walking track main island to alternative anchorage
Sea Otter at Panaki Island anchorage
Nik and I have been onboard for a month and boat life has formed its routines. When we are anchored we typically get up just after sunrise which is about 7:00am here and spend the first couple of hours having our coffee and catching up on news and emails. We have a Starlink mini onboard which is very convenient and very reliable. For some reason our day does not really start till around 11:00am when we throw ourselves into the days activities be it working on the boat, admin activities or taking in some local attraction. Things start to slow down around late afternoon where we start to think about the highlight of the day – dinner. The sun does not set until around 8:00pm here so we have these very lazy evenings which we typically spend on deck chatting, drinking and generally observing life around us. It is amazing how much time we can spend just taking in the scene around us. Once dark we either read or watch something before turning in. Life is certainly at a slower pace but given the above schedule the days still get away from us.
Sunset at the Cavalli Islands
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