March 20, 2013
When the wind started to pick up in our anchorage at Waewaetorea Island, we decided to head to a well-protected anchorage on the mainland called Omakiwi Cove. The trip only took an hour, but going from Waewaetorea to Omakiwi was like leaving a tropical islet and arriving in the pacific northwest.
Omakiwi Cove is beautiful, but it couldn’t be more different from Waewaetorea. Tall pine trees line the brown pebbly beach while moss-draped pohutukawa trees cling to the craggy rock headlands alongside the bay. The water ranges from dark green to black. It’s the kind of place you’d half expect to see grizzly bears on the beach (if they had them here). Omakiwi looks like it’s no a stranger to rough weather, but it would be well-protected in the current conditions.
One of the nicest things about being in Omakiwi was not feeling the need to go ashore. Between the morning hike in Motorua Island and the afternoon hike in Waewaetorea, we had overdone it and needed a rest. This was a great place to just sit in the cockpit and just enjoy the scenery.
Overnight the weather moved in, and we woke up to a rainy morning, which felt fitting for this bay. Sunny mornings are always nice, but so are those mornings where you hunker below with a hot cup of coffee, read and listen to the rain patter outside. Those mornings are a nice time out when we don’t have to go anywhere or get anything accomplished. I’m often a little sorry when it clears up.
Eventually the rain stopped and the sun started to reappear through the clouds. With that, it was time to go take a dinghy ride around the anchorage and get a good look at it before we headed on, first to do some sightseeing of the bays in this area, and then to our next bay for the night: Oke Bay to the east.
(Note: We’re doing something different these days: putting photo galleries above blog posts instead of beneath them. Click on any picture to enlarge, then on the right side of the picture to scroll through them. Click the X on the lower right corner to return to the regular-size photos. If a picture looks blurry in the gallery it’s probably wide angle. Enlarge it and it will be sharp.) –Cyndi
