December 5 – 6, 2012
The Bay of Islands is a very large area, about 7 miles across at the entry and about 12 miles deep. In the bay are islands, jutting rocks, peninsulas, etc. We probably entered the area around midnight and then had to motor through all this to Opua (our port of entry) at the innermost part of the bay, a trip that took a little over 2 hours.
I would love to say that, like our friends on Bright Angel, we were astonished at the incredible scenery and beautiful green of the islands. Unfortunately, it was dark . . . really, really dark. There was a moon, but the cloud cover was thick. We could barely see the outlines of some of the islands we passed by. We have a good chart plotter and we trust it; so we were able to just go from one waypoint to another and carefully make our way down to Opua. Luckily, the wind had nearly died, and it now seemed much warmer and more comfortable.
As we continued inland, the channel became more narrow, and we started to see boats. There were boats on moorings and boats at anchor. And they just seemed to be increasing! We were trying to find the marina and the customs dock, but all these boats made everything confusing. Why is it that things in real life always look so different than they do on a map? We even had an aerial photo which didn’t seem to match the reality of the situation.
We finally saw the main wharf but no customs dock. By now Rich had me get the big spotlight and use it to look at the boats that seemed to be closing in on us. I was like that panicked girl in Jurassic Park struggling with this giant flashlight. I know it’s unbelievably bright, and now all the people whose boats I shined it on know it, too. I also accidentally turned the strobe on, which temporarily blinded Rich.
After the wharf ended, Rich noticed a strange-looking sort of dock structure off to our right. It didn’t look like anything useful to me, but Rich studied it awhile, then made a sudden hard right. It turned out we were looking at the very end of the customs dock, and as we motored up to it we could see a sign that confirmed this. Then the dock started to come into view, thank God.
There was plenty of room; so we just headed to the nearest area to get tied up and then figure out what was what. There was a current running (currents can be wickedly strong through here) but we managed without too much trouble. After tying up, I found a sign that confirmed that yes, we were in the right place. We weren’t quite in New Zealand yet as the customs dock floats unattached to land, but it was close enough.
By the time we got showered and the boat straightened up, it was around after 2:30am, but it’s never too late for an arrival drink. In this case, it was rum. Well, one rum turned into four rums, which was great fun but not one of our smartest moves considering customs was supposed to come “at first light” whatever that meant. (It turned out it meant around 10am). We were conked out by 3:30am.
We woke up around 7am to a cool, gray morning, gusty and even rainy at times. The weather had taken the predicted turn for the worse, and we felt so relieved to have made it in. Rich called the Opua Marina and we were thrilled to get assigned a slip, which would save us from having to try to find an empty mooring ball or to have to anchor in this weather.
In preparation for customs and Quarantine, I worked on putting out everything they might be interested in. I put out every shell we had collected and every woven basket from Tonga. I located the beans and lentils (which I knew would be confiscated) and put those out, along with the spices for examination. I opened the food lockers and pulled out the food bins and made a list of all the alcohol we had on board. We were ready.
A woman form the customs office came by and talked to us and took our pre-filled-out paperwork. That was very easy. Then the Quarantine guy came by. He didn’t have any dogs as we were told he might, but he did go though our all our food storage himself. Away went our onions, beans and lentils, honey, and surprisingly, our Trader Joe’s Wasabi Mayonnaise. Everything else got to stay (I was especially relieved about our rice and spices).
The Quarantine officer left with our confiscated food and our trash, and we were done! Now, we could really go to New Zealand. It was gusty and drizzly outside and we thought we’d wait for a lull before moving to our slip in the marina. We did wait awhile, but we’d run out of coffee yesterday and had to resort to instant this morning, and we were hungry for a meal ashore. We decided wind and rain be dammed, we wanted our slip! We motored over in the wet windy weather and our friends Bob and Linda kindly helped us get tied up. Now, we were really in New Zealand at last! -Cyndi
