That's the 4th lighthouse bagged

We decided on a quick road trip, south and east, for a few days before we get into the final rush of preparations for sailing back to Fiji. An overnight stay with Shona and Malcolm in Tauranga en route allowed us to join them for a 'National Theatre Live' screening of the Steinbeck play 'Of Mice and Men' in their local arts cinema. We'd never seen these screenings, which are filmed in a normal theatre performance (in this case on Broadway) but we were blown away by this one!

From Tauranga we drove further south and then East to follow the coast road to East Cape, a wild and sparsely-populated corner of the country. It's not on the way to anywhere so many people bypass it and the small communities are almost completely Maori.

We stayed in a wonderfully ramshackle Backpackers' hostel, the Maraehako Bay Retreat run by Pihi and his family. It looks a little as though it has been constructed from some of the huge amounts of driftwood to be found on this coast and has its own beach just yards in front of the building. When we arrived a brisk NW wind was driving a pretty impressive surf into the bay and it sounded as though the sea would burst into our ground floor room during the night!

Part of the hostel - our room is the one with the open door

The surf exploding on the rocks just in front of our room

The drive further east the following morning was in perfect, bright sunshine and we enjoyed some spectacular views, both natural and man-made.

On a wild and rocky promontory we spied a brilliant white wooden church

Raukokore Anglican Church is just beautifully located. A notice inside apologised for the 'fishy smell' near the font caused by penguins nesting under the church!

In the immaculately-tended graveyard, Maori first names have some very Scottish-sounding surnames. This trio of graves only hints at a tragedy for one family. Three brothers, aged 19, 22 and 27 'accidentally killed' on the same day. A car accident or a fishing disaster perhaps?

 Our quest was the most easterly lighthouse on mainland New Zealand (we've already walked to the most northerly, westerly and southerly), at East Cape.

The tower stands 14m high and was built in 1900

Unusually, it's built of cast iron

It originally stood on East Island, behind Dianne' right shoulder, but earthquakes saw the cliffs slipping away below it and, in 1922, it was dismantled and moved to its current site. How?!! The lighthouse keepers must have been pleased, anyway. 

After a second night in the hostel we drove back towards civilisation. En route we passed a beach where the sea appeared to be steaming:

It was a cold morning (the wind has swung around to the SW so is arriving from Antarctica)

The warm water creating fog

You can see why NZ was used for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films!

So it's been a lovely few days of exploration and we'd like to come back and spend more time here. Tomorrow we call in at the town of Whangarei (the Dentist beckons!) on the way back to Maunie in Opua.

They take their sailing seriously here

Our mooring in Opua lies at the entrance of a long river estuary which is often used by the Opua Cruising Club for its hard-fought Wednesday evening races.

Last week the fleet sailed past us in a beautiful evening light so Graham jumped into the dinghy to take photos of the the action. Here is a small selection:

The keelboats beating against the wind 

A mixed fleet of boats! This is a Tornado cat 

Sailing downwind with spinnakers

'Californian Kiwi' looking good as she approaches the finish

Sailing towards the finish (and the sunset)

A big crew on Mr Wolf, but the boat was going well

We've donated the photos to the club so they'll appear in their next monthly newsletter. The plan is also for the club to offer copies of the individual boat photos to their owners in return for a donation to the its fundraising activities.

Our timing was great as this was the last race of the season. Autumn approaches here!

A new look to the blog

We thought it was about time to give the blog a little makeover, ready for our return to the Tropics in a month or so. The main change, apart from the new photo at the top, is to put the archive list (of previous posts) at the bottom of the page so as to allow the main text to occupy a wider section of the screen - which, in turn, allows us to have the photos bigger.

Hope you like the new look - any comments please let us know!

Oh, and by the way, there's also an option (if you scroll right to the bottom of the page) to sign up for automatic updates of the blog via email. Don't worry, you won't get anything else unwanted arriving in your inbox but it allows you to see updates as and when we publish them, without having to revisit the blog page to see if there's anything new.

Happy Easter!

We've had the loveliest Easter weekend with Shona and Malcolm Thomas aboard. The weather has been superb, we had some lovely sailing in the Bay of Islands, climbed a couple of (smallish) hills, swum in clear waters and seen dolphins. Plenty of good food and drink in great company, what could be better?

Dawn on Good Friday as the fog burns off

Dianne's wonderful Simnel Cake, baked on board

The view from Motuarohia Island

The anchorage in Urapukapuka Bay

Looking east from the top of Urapukapuka Island

Happy Hikers (sorry, Trampers, as they are known here) 

Close reaching with the Parasailor - Shona enjoyed the challenging steering as the wind increased

Malcolm and Shona in charge

"Look no hands" - Shona's first time climbing a mast

Dolphins, as requested

We'd like you to meet the neighbours

Just as in any harbour, there are boats here in Opua straining at their moorings, just aching to go out to sea, out into their proper environment rather than sitting, tethered, waiting for their owners to pay them a visit. 

An ever, though, there’s a fairly large proportion of boats that get out maybe only once or twice a season and, unfortunately, a few that look as though they’ll never sail again.

We thought you might like to meet some of our neighbours. First the not-so-fortunate boats:

This is 'Lindy', a once-lovey little wooden cutter

..her cockpit gives just a hint of what she must be like below. A forgotten and abandoned project it seems.

Another boat in similar straights. So sad.

Even the relatively modern, racy trimaran looks unloved when close up..

The 'Titi Nui' now seems to be just a roost for seabirds

One boat has certainly gone beyond the point of saving. This old sailing ship is beached at a deserted boat shed and it seems miraculous that her foremast is still standing:

From a distance it's hard to see what she was

Closer up and the remains of the deckhouse can be seen, slowly drooping into the water

What tales could this ship's wheel tell if it could speak?

Happily, the deserted vessels are in the minority here and there are some very interesting boats around us:

An old day-sailer, probably a traditional fishing boat for the Bay of Islands,has a very distinctive bow...

...which also features on this pretty wooden yacht.

She may have a startling paint job but 'Blazing Shadz' shares the same bow shape

...and a funky modern version of a schooner's rig (the rear mast being taller than the foremast).

Some boats are less attractive than others, it must be said...

The 82ft superyacht Houbara

We loved the token greenwash of the two tiny wind generators! which probably just abut power the bar fridge.

But others are very pretty..

The beautiful American yacht Nirvana

 and a smaller, New Zealand boat

Opua’s place as a main port of entry and exit for boats travelling to and from the Topics means that there are a lot of ‘live-aboard’ Blue Water cruising yachts here and people are getting ready for the annual migration north; it typically starts around the end of April. These world-girdling boats are usually fairly easy to differentiate from local, coastal-cruising yachts.

'Beez Neez' from Plymouth sports all the 'must-haves' of a Blue water boat - solar panels, wind generator, water generator and cockpit cover. The dinghy hoisted out of the water is a trick we all use to reduce weed growth and, unfortunately in many places, to reduce the risk of theft.

Not quite sure why this boat needs so much power! 

The South African 'Sheer Tenacity' built by its owners Rod and Mary and looking sparkling after a repaint and new sail covers. Note the cockpit tent to give shelter from wind and sun and the extra fuel tanks lasted to the rail.

We’re pleased that Maunie’s internal storage space and her pilothouse main cabin mean that she doesn't carry many of these cruising ‘extras’ to spoil her lines, though the solar panels and the Windpilot self-steering gear at her stern clearly show she’s a Blue Water thoroughbred.

Now we may be biased, but we love Maunie's lines!

Anyway, we hope your enjoyed our little tour of the anchorage there! It was really an excuse for Graham to play with his birthday present, a new lens for the big Canon camera; he's very pleased with it!

Meanwhile, a few thousand miles away from this tranquil place, the very different Volvo Ocean Race boats (65 footers built of carbon fibre and using the very latest in boat technology) have just rounded Cape Horn. Well, four of them have made it so far. Dongfen Racing have broken their mast just a day before reaching the Horn and have limped into the Beagle Channel to dock in a Chilean port whilst the girls on SCA lost power to all their instruments and had to slow down substantially until they eventually found the cause of the problem and repaired it. There is some fantastic on-board and helicopter video footage of the boats at Cape Horn HERE - it's very different from our kind of sailing!!