New Zealand: Explorations & Boat Haul Out

I’m writing this perched high in the air, looking out at cow fields, with our car parked under the boat. Terikah is hauled out at Marsden Cove for some much-needed love. But before we found ourselves here, we had a couple more weeks to explore the surrounding waters.

Back at Waiheke Marina, we were ready to get off the dock and were happy to have friends to do it with!  One of Cora’s besties Lauren (from SV Water Dogs) joined us on board for a couple weeks and we also connected with two friend boats, another Antares catamaran Linnaea and Wild Thing 2. One more vineyard trip, one last peek at the adorable little blue penguins, and we shoved off.

First stop Motuihe Island, where Calder and Lauren immediately went wing foiling and ducks found a perch on our swim step.

We hiked around the island’s well-groomed trails and reconnected with a cruising friend (Jasmine) who we hadn’t seen since Moorea in the Society Islands; I love how this cruising community reconnects over miles and months. The island has been a Māori home, quarantine station, WW2 prisoner of war camp, naval training station, and now nature preserve. After 15 years of the Motuihe Project, there is a growing list of successful species translocations here including tuatara, a rare reptile which we saw. Our attempt to find kiwi was unsuccessful and turned into a moonlit night beach walk with friends, followed by a séance at the 1919 flu epidemic quarantine graveyard led by some cruising kids. The massive trees that lined the main trail appeared as “Ents” from LoTR ready to come to life.

Sailed past the Auckland city skyline to Izzy Bay, Rangitoto Island where we crawled through a few of the lava caves and hiked up along the volcano rim of this pest-free island.

Rangitoto Island is a young basaltic shield volcano that erupted about 600 years ago, forming extensive lava fields, quite different from the other islands of the Hauraki Gulf.

We managed to lose two of the teenagers along the way who both found their way back to us eventually, one after dark making a dramatic appearance as she slid down the slippery boat launch into the ocean.

Chris and I explored the shoreline and remains of the once bustling squatter community of early-20^th-century baches (holiday homes) the next day, with only about 14 of the original 80 still standing. New construction was banned in 1937 as part of the preserved historic settlement and the community was thus disbanded and mostly torn down.   

The birds were calling to me and we moved on to my favorite (yes, my absolute favorite) New Zealand island, Tiritiri Matangi.

“This morn I was awaken by the singing of the birds ashore…their voices were certainly the most melodious wild music I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells with the most tunable silver sound imaginable (Joseph Banks, 1769).”

I spent almost the entire day on the island, starting with a long dayhike around the island’s perimeter. When the crowds of day visitors depart, the island is a peaceful bird chorus to absorb fully. I walked around with my camara, the curious long-legged robin posing for me along the way, the pigeons perched imperially, the bellbirds cheekily drinking the honeywater that’s provided for the hihi (stitchbirds), the baby oystercatchers alongside their parents.

I would sit on a bench with my eyes closed and listen to the chorus around me. At night, we walked the trails slowly with our red flashlight, spotting a ruru, kiwi, and tuatara before we dinked back through the phosphorescence to Terikah. This is a truly magical island.

With our sights set on heading out to Great Barrier Island again (that woodfired pizza was calling), we moved to Stockyard Bay on Kawai Island where we hiked about and had fun with stilts on the “Mansion House” lawn.

The next day we set out for Great Barrier and, after 6 brutal miles of sloppy seas and gusty inconsistent winds resulting in some full-on seasickness, we turned back. It’s amazing how calm it feels almost immediately when you turn with the weather and waves…ahhhhh. Anchored in Vivian Bay, Kawai Island for the night, Calder and Lauren had some epic foiling, as Calder jumped his board and foil out of the water for the first time. There has been some amazing cooking on board, both meals and sweets, from the dynamic galley duo of Cora and Lauren.

Okay, let’s try that again – our passage out to Great Barrier Island was much better the following day, and we found ourselves anchored at Smokehouse Bay. Lauren made an insane amount of dough that kept rising above the levels of all our bowls and we set off with a pile of pizza toppings to shore. The wood-fired pizza oven hadn’t been lit yet that day, so we went off to find firewood (downed branches of manuka and kanuka) and got it hot and ready for pizza-making.

Chris got into his zone of fire-tending. It turned into a wonderful late night as two families gorged ourselves on 22 pizzas under a full moon rising over the mountains of Great Barrier.

We moved to Onerua (Red Cliff Bay) for a night to catch some snapper, which we enjoyed that night for dinner, rain settling in. Fitzroy Bay supplied us with a few groceries and a stellar waterfall hike.

Our next anchorage, Flax Islands, was mind-bending, as we tucked between steep rock walls, setting a main and a stern anchor to keep us from swinging around in the enclosed space.

We were greeted by our friends who served as a professional anchoring service, as they swam in the clear water to find a perfect sandy patch for our main anchor, then took our stern anchor in their dinghy and dove down to set it!

The ocean swell comes up around the boat, blowholes sound their presence, and the sounds echoing in the tight space made us feel as if maybe we shouldn’t be there. It is definitely a calm weather anchorage so, when the wind came in the next day, they funneled and howled against the boat. It was time to pull up both anchors (thankfully uneventful) and move on.

After a “sporty sail” into Marsden Cove Marina, we had a couple days to go to doctor’s appointments (dental, skin cancer checks, lab work, and ophthalmology) and get the boat clean and ready for her haul-out. It was especially funny when I gave Cora and Lauren the challenge of using up our butter and they made lemon curd thumbprint cookies, but then had too much curd left so made pastry. Then they had too much pastry left so made more desserts; it left us with sweets that made a great offering to the boatyard haul-out crew.

We bid Lauren farewell, as she headed back to SV Waterdogs. Time to get Terikah hauled out for some much-needed work. It was wild to watch Terikah get pulled out of the water by a large tractor with an independent hydraulic trailer, then “drive” across a major road to her first stop, a much-needed pressure wash of her bottom.  

Now she is perched in her 2-month home in Marsden Boat Yard, overlooking fields of cows. We lived in the boatyard for a few days, getting everything tidied up for our time away and arranging yard work, and eating every last bit of food in our fridge and freezer in creative meals so we can shut them off while we are gone.

Here we go to Auckland to catch a flight to Sydney for our 2-month adventure in Australia!