After a lovely day in the sun we conclude our Sunday with a fantastic sail back to the marina. First time that we have sailed all the way back to the marina as the winds were perfect 👌 The Waitemata Harbour it can be challenging when is peak time with many boaties heading back and then you have a container ship leaving the port...our confidence on our skills is growing every nautical miles!

Feels so good to be out on again...waking up with a busy schedule for the weekend but also with the perfect conditions to be out sailing. So we decided to cancel all our appointments and hoist our sail: best choice!!! As per usual living behind the city and spending even one night only anchored up in a bay can fully recharge our batteries, keeps us focused on the final goals and let us appreciate the simple life. Techinally our summer has ended at the beginning of March but the weather is gifting us a really warm start of autumn, with sunsets that turning the sky on fire and chillier nights! Cannot think any better way to spend the weekend if not taking our home for a spin in the gulf!!!

With some bad weather coming upon us this weekend and some rain, we decided to go back a day earlier into the marina. We left Woody Bay with a little break in the sky and hoisted our head sail and motor sailed to try to keep up with a sunny & windy day. We managed to keep up with that for half of our journey. Once we got around Rangitoto Island the winds picked up a bit more so we just motored.

With the low from the islands (mini cyclone) coming down to Aotearoa (NZ) we have decided to head to Rakino before to go back to the marina. We had a fabulous sail: higher winds already than what was forecasted but so much fun. After passing Tiritiri Island we start to have 13kts gusting up to 17/18kts.

After spending one night in Aotea (great barrier) we decided that it is too early in the boating journey of our dog to spend the day next few days there... Unfortunately at the moment there is a ban on anchoring in the whole west and south side of the island due to the invasive seaweed brought in a couple of years ago and with E SE winds the other anchorages where the dog is also allowed on land are off limits. So we took advantage of those winds and head straight to Kawua Island..that it is also the first island that we sailed to last year when we bought the boat.

Motor sailed the whole way, because we wanted t9 ensure to get there with enough time to take our little fury baby on land!! On our way we have saw a whale 🐋 jumping out of the water: first whale ever and even of it was far it was magical

Where we were anchored had no trespassing signs everywhere so we decided to hop in the nearest bay that we know that dog are allowed to let our baby burn some steam, planning on sailing to Great Barrier tomorrow so today is all about the puppy needs.

After a super yatch decided to anchor straight up in the middle of the bay where we were we decided to pick up anchor and find a new spot for the night!!! Went for a little exploring around the islands to find the perfect location!!! Hopefully will stay the only boat anchored up in this bay tonight...

The app crushed or lost GPS a couple of times but we had a fantastic sail: 17kn nort- north east Such a fun day on the water 💙