{"id":3239,"date":"2018-03-29T03:56:13","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T03:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svslowflight.com\/?p=3239"},"modified":"2018-04-04T21:00:46","modified_gmt":"2018-04-04T21:00:46","slug":"going-back-to-opua-opua-opua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/29\/going-back-to-opua-opua-opua\/","title":{"rendered":"Going back to Opua, Opua, Opua….."},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s that time…getting ready to hit the ocean again but before we do that we need to do lots of projects so off to see the Bay of Islands…again.<\/p>\n

We left Auckland on the 25th of March.\u00a0 The weather window for us to sail back up to Opua, Bay of Islands, couldn’t of been better.\u00a0 Most of the anchorages on the east side of the North Island are exposed to NE winds and swell, we were concerned that if wind got too big, it would make these anchorages uncomfortable, in which case we would probably make a run all the way up to Opua without stopping.\u00a0 However….we were able to enjoy calm weather (not great for good sailing) and peaceful anchorages all the way back.<\/p>\n

Islington bay<\/strong> – A short trip, only 20 miles out.\u00a0 This anchorage is between 2 islands, Rangitoto and Motutapo islands… sunny day and light winds called for motoring.<\/p>\n

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Google Earth image of our route from Auckland harbour to Islington bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Bye Auckland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Just anchored with plenty of time to chillout<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kawau Island –<\/strong> weather still good, we headed to Kawau Island, about 26.5 miles away.\u00a0 Pretty uneventful…minus playing chicken with a freighter.<\/p>\n

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Google Earth image of our route from Islington Bay to Kawau Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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ummmm…we better speed up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Google Earth image of where we anchored at Kawau Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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View from our boat…I guess this anchorage use to be an old copper mine of sorts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Dinner?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Skunked!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hens and Chickens Islands –<\/strong>\u00a0Weather permitted us to check out more remote and <\/span>outer\u00a0islands rather than staying close to the coast.\u00a0 Hens and Chicken Islands looked and sounded cool and what a strange name we thought…..so I had to look it up on wikipedia:\u00a0 “<\/span>These islands were named by Captain\u00a0James Cook<\/a>, who first sighted them in 1769. It has been suggested that the name was inspired by an old name for the star cluster usually known as the\u00a0Pleiades<\/a>\u00a0(and called\u00a0Matariki\u00a0by the\u00a0M\u0101ori<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0Hen Island, or\u00a0Taranga\u00a0lies separate from the rest of the chain, lying 7 kilometres (4.3\u00a0mi) to the southwest. It is also considerably larger than the Chicken Islands, or Marotiri, which comprise a chain of five small islands running north-west to south-east to the north of Hen Island. The chain consists of Wareware and Muriwhenua Islands (together forming North West Chicken), Mauitaha (West Chicken), Lady Alice Island (Big Chicken or Motu Muka), Whatupuke (Middle Chicken), and Coppermine Island (Eastern Chicken).”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Google Earth image of our route from Kawau island to Lady Alice island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We passed “Sail Rock’….I am guessing because it looks like a sailboat…at least from this angle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Fish on!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Another Skipjack….10 pounder or so, perfect for dinner for two. However, Trevor doesn’t like the oily meat so it got put back into the water.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Google Earth image of Lady Alice island where we anchored<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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These islands are designated as scenic reserves and there is no landing on shore. Additionally the anchoring was a bit tricky….there was a short shelf of about 33 feet we needed to stay on, otherwise it dropped of very quickly and had potential for dragging anchor. The birds were incredible to listen too…so many calls and all through the night!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Date night…dinner and a movie with lapping waves and bird calls in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Puriri Bay – <\/span><\/strong>Originally\u00a0we were headed for a bay where we could take a small walk up to “mermaid pools” at low tide. <\/span>Unfortunately…or <\/span>fortunately\u00a0for us…we witnessed a another boat coming out of that bay and their mast was rolling at what looked like a 35-40 degree angle to each side…we thought we better ditch that idea and head for a more protected anchorage from the swell that had kicked up.\u00a0 Delightfully we found Puriri bay, almost no swell and felt like a lake!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Google Earth image of our route from Hens and Chicken Islands to Puriri Bay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We left the anchorage at 7 am…beautiful sunrise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Google Earth image of the bay we wanted to originally anchor…but the swell was coming straight into the bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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But we saw an entire and complete rainbow…..the left side….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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…and the right side.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We also did our civic duty as we are cleaning up the ocean 1 piece of plastic at a time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Google earth image of our anchorage in Puriri bay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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View of the shore from our boat in Puriri bay…calm as can be<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Opua, Bay of Islands and around Cape Brett –<\/strong> It’s Thursday March 29th and we realized most of the businesses in Opua would be closed for the long Easter holiday (they take Good Friday and the Monday after Sunday Easter off)…so we made a few phone calls to our rigger who we needed to confirm a few parts before he could start working on our project so we belined to Opua so that he could come aboard and take measurements early to get the ball rolling : )<\/p>\n

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Google Earth image of our route from Puriri bay to Opua, Bay of Islands<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cape Brett from our boat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cape Brett according to Google Earth (3D)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We have seen this image in a lot of advertising around here and wanted to see it for ourselves so we decided to go through the islands at the Cape rather than around. This island was incredible busy with tour boats…..<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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…and helicopters?!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The first lighthouse I have seen this close in New Zealand….sad I know!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We arrived just after 2pm and called Rob, our rigger guy, he promptly came and up the mast he goes to measure parts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A month of boat work and looking for a weather window to head north again…..\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s that time…getting ready to hit the ocean again but before we do that we need to do lots of[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-zealand"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVSN-Qf","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3239"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3310,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239\/revisions\/3310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}