Last sail in New Zealand waters for me, for now. What a windy bumpy ride it was, which is what I have come to love about New Zealand’s waters. Sailing down here is no easy feat but man it is worth every second of hard work. Unforgettable coast lines and incredible people.

Today the wind was all over the place, it would be a book if tried to explain all the changes. We hugged the coast all the way down and caught only a 10cm kingfish (obviously threw it back) seems New Zealand sea life is a dead.

Very easy and slow day out on the water, not much wind to use so we filled the time with cards, music and books. Beautiful anchorage to end the night

Good day of upwind sailing with a further destination than expected. Wind was about 13 kts when we rounded Cape Brett and grew to about 18kts by the time we got to Whangaruru.

Mostly spent my day reading Finding Endurance by Darrel Bristow-Bovey. Light winds gave us a pretty easy and calm sail.

Early morning rise joined by a pod of Orcas just of Berghan Point. Had some breakfast in the nearby bay and then set of for the Cavallis. All upwind today blowing a firm 10-15kts easterly.

Flying the spinnaker up to 60’ apparent didn’t quiet make the point but a beautiful day of sailing either way

Beautiful day out with the spinnaker. Average wind speed of 8kts, starting South Easterly and ending Northerly. Quote of the day: “you’re born naked, then you die knackered”

Gotta love the Cavalli’s

5-8 knt winds all day with a SW morning and a NE afternoon. Made two fishing stops stocking up on snapper and even a pig fish, a first for me. Ending the day darting through the Cavallis was pretty good to say the least.

Beautiful day for some champagne sailing, 8-10 kts of wind mostly spent going upwind trawling and some of it spent drifting for some snapper.

Upwind all day with 1st reefed main and jib. NNW winds averaging 15kts with 1.5m swells. Been a while since my last sail so good to be back on the water

Good long day of sailing starting with a spinnaker run averaging around 6kts. Outside the Poor Knights we caught up on 3 skip jacks and a yellow fin tuna, a first for me, so lunch was sashimi of course. The wind then switched forcing us into a beam reach toward Cape Brett. The wind completely died for about 2hrs so engine was was initiated, but getting close to the Bay of Islands the wind picked up again. We shot the gap between the hole in the wall and Cape Brett then had a final little spinnaker run into the bay. Beautiful anchorage in Paradise Bay tonight with many boats for company. Yellow fin and veggies for dinner.

20-25 knot winds, started on the jib doing 6kts and ended on the para-spin doing up 13kts. Bit of a struggle finding a good anchorage with pretty dodgy wind angles and rocky bottoms. Been just over a month since my last sail so all in great to back out here.

Upwind back home for Christmas and man did the ocean have a present for us. We found some kingfish feeding and had a ball catching a few. The sail itself was upwind and we just cruised passed Sail Rock and into Mangawhai after a tack, averaging about 7kts. Tired and ready for Christmas.

Good morning of fishing in Elliot’s Bay waiting for the wind to start. Had good wind all the way to Poor Knights and it only dropped away about 10nm from Hen’s and Chicken’s. Beautiful anchorage in starfish bay with some good company from Brizo.

Beautiful day of downwind sailing. Flying the Para-spinnaker in 15-20kts of wind starting off at about 150’ apparent and rounding Cape Brett with 180’ right up the rear. Had an average sail speed of 7kts and a max of 10kts. We ended the day running our job into Whangamumu harbour.

20kts true wind slowing down to 15kts later on. Started off with a beautiful upwind sail around Cape Karikari averaging 8.5kts. Then started downwind to the Cavallis, still on Jib and 2nd reefed main averaging about 6kts. Hooked a big tuna and luckily the lead snapped cause the rod wasn’t big enough, had a lot of spooled line to reel back in.

Rounded North Cape on an upwind sail at a 50’ apparent wind angle, had to put in 3 tacks. Once we got round the Cape we sent up the spinnaker, now named “le bleu”, which worked perfectly up until the wind died down completely. Engine ran for about an hour after which the wind picked up from another angle allowing us to finish the trip on main and jib. Overall a beautiful slow day of sailing with very fair weather. Tired scale is pretty high so dinner will send me straight to bed

Beautiful sail back to Cape Point from 3 kings. Very light wind for the first 15nm with only about 2-4kts of boat speed. A nice cloud came close and kicked our boat speed up to 7-9kts which helped us get to anchorage before sunset. Flat waters made it a comfortable ride.

First bit of “offshore” sailing to the 3 Kings Islands of the North Cape. Had SW winds all the way up at about 12-15knts, just ran a single reefed main with our jib for an easy beam sail up averaging about 7.5knts. This place is crazy, HUGE rock face cliffs plunging down into the deep sapphire blue ocean. This visibility is sitting around 11m so the rock bottom is clearly visible. Fishing has been our worst skill these past week, can’t catch a single fish whilst trawling hopefully our tides will change 🤞🏽 We’re parking of here for 2 nights of beautiful weather and then head back to mainland on Sunday.

Beautiful downwind sailing with just the main sail up, we replaced all the ball bearings yesterday and today was the first day we used the full main, hitting up to 11knts. Going around the most Northern section of New Zealand was something special. Had beautiful sunset with a corona (as one should) paired with smoked marlin. Feeling truly grateful for this life and the experiences that come with it. Funny thing is North Cape of New Zealand is on almost precisely the same latitude as Cape Point in Cape Town. Went half way around the world to end up in the same place, who would’ve thought.

What a day, averaging 10.5knts up the coast whilst flying our para-spin and a double reefed main. Max speed of 17.8knts. Had a bit of confusion with a fishing boat we ended up going way past our jibing point and essentially added an extra 6nm to the route, but I don’t complain about extra mileage. After our Jibe we flew the jib and yankee and still averaged about 9knts. P.S. I forgot to record yesterday’s trip but was similar with mostly downwind sailing and about 9knt average. This Cat can fucken move 🌊💨

But a foul day of weather with a patch a fair weather midday. The wind is swinging 180’ later tonight so we needed a different anchorage and ended up in Kaingahoa Bay, the homes nearby look like they’ve got some hootch (witblitz/moonshine), so a good place in my books. Most of the leg was done under motor and we even caught a beautiful Kahawai so we’ve got sashimi for starters tonight. The bays and islands here in the Bay of Islands are absolutely breathtaking. Known as the birthplace of New Zealand it has a rich history of explorers coming here for refuge from the Pacific. The Māori people have lived and fished in the area for 100’s of years.

Mostly spent the day on docks filling up diesel and petrol. Also been fixing odds and ends on the boat, she’s still got a lot of work to do before we head offshore but I believe in her. Tonight it’s my turn to make dinner and we got some stir-fry cooking up let’s hope my cooking skills are adequate👨🏽‍🍳 Some dolphins also came past for a hello, they get huge down here in New Zealand

Quick trip to Paihia for a maritime inspection of the boat. We used our spinnaker for the first half of the trip then engined into port. Let’s hope we get cleared for sailing😅

Very early start and a late night. It was a challenging day with upwind sailing towards Poor Knights Island, stopped off for a swim in a cave. Wind died down after our stop and we therefore had to motor the rest of our way to the anchor destination which gave us time to do some odd jobs, Wilson is set up and ready to be thrown in the water if one of us unlucky sods decides to fall in 🛟