Surprise Visit to Canada

Mt Baker as seen from our home waters in Sidney BC!

Family and friends are by now very accustomed to the ever-changing plans of Picara's crew - in late June, with winter weather bearing down on our planned passage to Fiji and a job offer for Mike thrown into the mix, we did a 180 and went home for a few months' working visit. And we were glad we did: the best Canadian West Coast summer either of us remember, plus an awesome time with the folks and the buddies.

Rafted up in Fulford Harbour

Harvesting apples

So lucky to have good boating friends

Family BBQs and wild salmon galore...

West coast surfing for Mike

Good times on SSI

Hiking day, rain or shine for my folks

Chilling in Pat Bay

At the Ocean Discovery centre where Mike's awesome nephews volunteer

"Teak Bird" - the summer project at Abernethy & Gaudin Boatbuilders

Great Barrier Island - May/June 2014

Southbound with Cape Brett and "Hole in the Wall" rock behind us.

In May 2014 we embarked on another ‘retirement installment’ and went for an off-season cruise between the Bay of Islands and Great Barrier Island, a 285-square-km island comprised mostly of parkland, about 80 nm to the south of Cape Brett.  

Pipi Bay

      First step: out of Opua, into the Bay of Islands.  Pipi Bay on Moturua Island is sheltered from most directions and is one of our favorite spots. The island is almost all park and we like to walk the trails Kiwi-style - that is, barefoot! After all, there's very little here to hurt you, maybe just a little bit of gorse prickle if you're not watching. 

Looking south from Whangamumu

After rounding Cape Brett, which forms the eastern headland of the Bay of Islands, we anchored in Whangamumu harbour. This excellent anchorage is protected by steep hills from southerly through to northerly winds, and the unpopulated ridges ringing the bay have spectacular hiking trails. The bay was the grisly scene of whale slaughter during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and on shore there are remains of the boilers for processing the animals into whale oil.

Then: Whangamumu's bloody past 

Now: Three dolphins fished around Picara for hours

Cabbage tree on the tramping track

Oh yeah, snappa for dinna

Mussel barge working the farm in Port Fitzroy

From Whangamumu, we sailed overnight to Port Fitzroy on Great Barrier Island. In the first bay we ventured into were greeted by a friendly local who tossed a package of delicious freshly cooked snapper on our deck! Maybe it was the time of year, or maybe the fact that many of the GBI bays contain commercial mussel farms, but Mike’s snapper fishing success rate immediately improved!

“The Barrier” is “chockas” with hiking tracks and we went on long walks almost every day of our visit. There are over 2000 steps on the long, long staircase to the top of Mt. Hobson! Finally made it and the view was worth the tired legs.

Regenerating stand of Kauri in the foreground; looking west with Little Barrier in the distance

Kauri Dam with scarred creekbed

Top of Mt Hobson

 

The island, like pretty much everywhere on the North Island, was extensively logged for Kauri trees. We didn't see any big old ones, but there are large stands of regenerating Kauri to be seen.
We hiked past the remains of an old Kauri dam built in the late 1920s – loggers collected the felled trees into the reservoirs behind these dams. When the time came to send the logs downriver, the large gate was tripped and all hell broke loose – as one logger recalled, “ the logs… would rip up any trees in their path and you could hear the roar they made miles away. As they tore the valley sides the ground would shake under you. Hundreds came to watch and many of them were terrified.” Scars on the riverbed are obvious below the dam.

Chopping fuel for the hot shower in Smokehouse Bay

 One of the highlights of boating at GBI is ‘world-famous’ Smokehouse Bay, in Port Fitzroy; the land was donated by yachties for yachties and in addition to fish-smoking facilities there is freshwater available, laundry tubs and lines, and best of all a bathhouse with wood-fired hot water. That's right: hot shower. Oh, yeah.

Messing about in boats: the new-to-us Tinker dink 

With winter looming, and the prospect of heading to Fiji, we made our way back north to the Bay of Islands. and spent a few days at another of our favourite spots, near the Black Rocks at Moturoa Island. There’s green-lipped mussels galore in them there rocks!

Black Rocks Anchorage, Morurua. Cape Brett is in the distance at right.

A WWII gun placement with strategic views of the BOI  is being overtaken by Pohutukawa trees on Moturoa Island. These days it is part of a farm property and sees a lot more sheep and cows than soldiers.

 

By late June winter has pretty much arrived in subtropical Northland – cue the hibiscus.

Just to prove it's not all fun and games - dinghy malfunction! Handyman to the rescue with hammer and chisel.

Winter surf break at Patau North, north of Whangarei

January 2014

Otaio Bay at Urupukapuka in early January -- as you can see the ‘plastic fanstastic’ white boats were giving the strange blue steel boat quite a wide berth!

The all-star crew

January has gone by in a flash, with buddies Donald and Camilla visiting from Canada and lots of boating and sightseeing while they were here. 

Mike and Camilla commuting Picara-style.

For the first two weeks of their visit we cruised around the Bay of Islands and to the Cavalli Islands and Whangaroa, about 30 miles northwest – and we had great weather the whole time.

Being ‘boaties’ themselves, not to mention seasoned Picara travelers, they are great boat guests and adapt well to the little weirdnesses of on-board life, like water and power conservation, showering on deck, rowing everywhere you want to go, and of course endlessly repacking things to make the best use of a small space: pull everything out and then put it all back in again, at least a couple of times a day!!

Surveying the convoluted terrain near the northern Pa site on Urupukapuka Island.

Locals call January the ‘silly season’ of boating, since here in NZ Christmas holidays and summer school holidays fall together which means that lots of Aucklanders bring their boats up to the Bay of Islands. Anchorages in the islands were quite busy but still lovely, and we had the walking tracks mostly to ourselves.

Rangihoua Pa 

The bays on the west side of the Bay of Islands nearer to Kerikeri were a little less crowded. The terraced hill in the centre of the photo is the ancient Pa (Maori lookout and fortification) that overlooks Rangihoua Bay, site of the Marsden Cross where Samuel Marsden preached his first sermon in New Zealand on Christmas Day 1814,  199 years ago; hard to imagine what the Maori overlooking that little European settlement must have been thinking at the time. Did they already have an inkling of the scale of Pakeha (white man) invasion that was to come? Old Pa sites like this one are very plentiful and make up the majority of our lookout spots as we hike (or tramp) around Northland NZ.

We had awesome hot weather through most of January – a bit of a shocker for the newly arrived Canadians but apparently good for the cicadas, which were singing incredibly loudly in most of the anchorages we visited. Apparently only the males sing, in hopes of attracting females, and only for about two to four weeks of their lives. 

Dining on freshly gathered  BOI  scallops and Greenlip mussels.

“Cue the Dolphins” – Donald and Cam
commune with cetacean visitors in the BOI.

View of Urupukapuka from the ridge above Oke Bay.

Looking northward from the summit of Motukawanui Island in the Cavallis.

Cavallis on our stern

Cam takes the helm for a brisk sail southwest of the Cavallis

We were lucky to have calm weather to visit the Cavalli Islands, just a couple of miles offshore from Matauri Bay and the site of the Rainbow Warrior’s sunken remains.

Whangaroa seen from the Duke's Nose

Our next stop was Whangaroa Harbour, which has a spectacular narrow gorge entrance – the geography suddenly changes from bald, rolling hills to steep rock faces. The harbour has many arms and protected bays which we could easily have spent a lot more time exploring. Whangaroa is a longtime sportfishing mecca and a very friendly harbour with lots of great walks. We spent a night in the marina and wandered up St. Paul’s Rock, above the village site, then headed back to the northern end of the harbour to anchor in Rere Bay and climb up the Duke’s Nose, a scrambley hike with a great view. As luck would have it our friends Holger and Roz sailed Melody into the anchorage later in the afternoon and we had a fabulous dinner on board with them. Marni and Camilla explored the beautiful river mouth the next morning.

Mid-January means Bay of Islands Race week, and Opua was bursting with race boats and sailors. The crew took Picara out to view some of the racing.

Hokianga Harbour entrance

 We took a long weekend to go up to Cape Reinga and had yet another beautiful day at the northern tip of NZ, including a long drive up 90-mile beach in the rain, and collecting tuatuas, delicious little clams that can be found in mind-boggling abundance in the surf shallows.

Big waves and tidal turbulance at Hokianga

On the way home we stopped in Hokianga to check out the crazy waves at the harbour’s entrance bar – hard to believe that a hundred years ago large ships carrying Kauri logs would traverse the bar on a regular basis, guided by a flag warning system on shore. We speculated that perhaps before all the Kauri forests were cut down that there was less silt in the harbour and a deeper and slightly less scary bar crossing?

Mike and Donald making Tuatua ravioli, our contribution to NZ haute cuisine.

Our last weekend with the Briggses in was in style in Auckland: Marni and Cam at the Viaduct waterfront.