Two At Sea

December 9, 2015

That’s what they taught the mynah birds to say on the island of Pala in Aldus Huxley’s book called Island to remind people to live in the here and now. (I love that book!) I repeat that phrase to myself to try to remember to pay attention and live here and now as often as I can.

It cracks me up that I’m out here in the South Pacific Ocean on a boat off the coast of New Zealand’s North Island and what am I doing? Searching newegg.com* for a hard drive. Is that living in the moment?

Shouldn’t I be paying attention to my surroundings? Admiring Cape Brett? Noticing the way the wind moves the boat and feels on my face? Appreciating the little sun that there is and happy it’s not colder?

I wonder: Am I really any less “here and now” when I’m shopping on Newegg? I feel like I’m very much in the moment. Not a moment of being at sea, but I am totally engrossed, for the moment, in the hard drive shopping process. I might even say I’m experiencing flow – aware of nothing else, not remembering the past nor contemplating a future that might have limited space to anchor in the next bay. During this time, I’m not worrying about anything and I’m not making any future plans (other than maybe installing the new drive in our laptop!).

Is it really worse to be out here looking at hard drives on my phone than to be staring off at the landscape? I think when I’m staring off at the landscape or the ocean, I’m more apt to worry about things to come and things that have been. I feel like people would look down on me for working on the internet out here. Strange this, kind of a reverse work ethic. “You should be doing nothing and not working.”

And to sail off on a slightly different course: It’s kind of amazing that shopping Newegg is even an option. Not many years ago, there wouldn’t have been internet waves out here. What an amazing world. I don’t know if the change is for better or worse. For me, better I think.

Better for us because this isn’t a day sail, a vacation, a one-time day-trip on a sail boat, but rather a way of life for four years now. If it were my only chance to sail beside beautiful mountains on a calm, blue sea, than it would be a shame to miss even a second of it. It’s not a one-time event for us… It’s just another Wednesday. I think it’s different when you are living this life rather than just experiencing what is our day-to-day world as a transitory event.

Yep, that settles it. It’s OK for me to shop on my phone. I give me permission. I’ll let you know how the new hard drive works out. -Rich

*If you don’t know newegg, you should. It’s an incredible place to buy computer stuff. www.newegg.com

December 12, 2015

We looked at both North Cove and Bon Accord Harbor on Kawau Island for a spot where we could ride out the front that’s due to cross NZ tomorrow and didn’t like the protection from the predicted western quadrant winds. Cyndi, brilliant researcher that she is, had a plan C: Mahurangi Harbor.

This is, hopefully, just the ticket. Mahurangi is an amazingly large natural harbor with more room to anchor than I could have guessed from the chart, despite hundreds of moorings across from us and in another nearby branch of the harbor. It’s also beautiful with bright green water and lush vegetation surrounding us. More cruisers should come here!

This is a fully-functional Google map. Pan and zoom away!

And this evening, across the bay…

 

We’ll hang here tomorrow, and hopefully continue the great Legacy NZ expedition of late 2015 on Monday, after the weather calms. In future episodes, look for Legacy and crew to move towards Tauranga for a haul-out, after indulging in all the Hauraki Bay has to offer (wine tasting at Waiheke included). Then we hope to continue south for some time at Wellington and points in between. After that, it’s across the Cook Straight to the top of the south island we’re we hope to spend the rest of the season. All that, or maybe just chill in Auckland until it’s time to go back to Fiji… who knows. -Rich

Our Anchor Waypoint:

36° 28.87′ S, 174° 43.11 E in 15 feet of what’s probably mud with tons of swing room in all directions and great protection from the western quadrant.

December 12, 2015

We always have our radar running. On the trip today, I noticed a radar return on our Simrad 4G radar and I couldn’t find the responsible boat. It turns out it was a kayak.

I’ve enlarged the part of the photo with the kayak – see insert. Here’s what his radar return looked like…

I don’t hesitate to make mention of a product when it doesn’t perform as I expect. I am trying to do the same when it does. This radar sees boats much better than we can, in the distance, up close, small, large, and in calm and rough seas. It also does an excellent job of spotting squalls (and birds, plastic oyster floats, breaching whales, helicopters, and New Zealand’s Orion aircraft, for that matter).

They call this radar “Broadband” but please ignore the marketing terms. Marketers love to use words like “High-Def” or “Digital” or even “Broadband” but it is usually just the same old thing with a new label. For instance, “Digital” simply means that the signal is translated into ones and zeros at some point. Not only is that unimportant, but it’s not always desirable. It really doesn’t make it any better.  “High-Def” is totally meaningless. High as compared to what? “It worked for televisions, heck, it ought to work for radar” says the marketing brain trust.

In the case of the 4G radar, “Broadband” might be appropriate in that the radar outputs a wave that sweeps from a lower frequency to a higher frequency, or a broad band of frequencies. By doing this, they are able to get amazing resolution at a fraction of the power used by conventional radar.

Also, most conventional radars have a watch mode or guard zone mode. In this mode, the radar usually comes on every few minutes and does a few sweeps, looking for targets. That was how our old Furuno unit worked. Since the 4G radar uses so little power, it can run continuously, always looking for targets to enter the  alarmed area. I like this. Sometimes, especially in big seas, targets only appear every few scans.

I am continually impressed by the Simrad 4G radar. -Rich

(Not paid for by Navico, Simrad, B&G, nor any other affiliate company 😉

December 10, 2015… A Three Bay Day

We started at Bland Bay, toured Poor Knights, drove the dinghy through three amazing caves/archways, and ended the day at a perfect little no-name bay in Tutukaka Harbor.

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These islands are stunning. I think they’re as pretty as anything I’ve ever seen from our boat. There are jagged cliffs, caves and arches, stunning blue water, and it’s all covered with what Cyndi called pohutukawa sauce (pohutukawas are New Zealand’s Christmas tree, blooming with vibrant red flowers in December). See for yourself…

You say Archways, I say Caves
After anchoring, we launched the dinghy to drive through a few of the many nearby caves. Wow! One, we think, was high enough to take Legacy through, mast and all. Another was smaller, dark, colorful with crystal clear water beneath us.

All the while, ghosting through these caves, “Dead men tell no tales!” was bouncing around in my head. We were on a Disneyland ride!

And below us, these must have been workers, cleaning the tracks…

We had to put up the dinghy engine and paddle through this cave using our yelling sticks so we wouldn’t run over divers from one of the three dive boats anchored nearby.

Below is a photosphere of one of the caves. Click on its title bar and then drag to pan left, right, up and down. -Rich

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Comment from Cyndi: Poor Knights is famous for being a dive destination, which is a shame because it’s so much more than that. You don’t have to brave the cold water to enjoy it; all it takes is a dinghy, a kayak, a paddle board, or even just your own boat. The wind picked up and the skies were gray as we arrived, and we wondered if it had been a mistake to make this trip. But as soon as we saw the masses of pohutukawa trees dripping off the top and down the slopes of these islands, we decided it had been worth it just to see that. When we went around the east side, the wind instantly dropped and it was calm, proving that contrary to what we’d been told, there is some protection here. When the sun popped out,  it made for a great afternoon for running around in the dinghy.

We thought about spending the night, generally thought of as a no-no, but with the winds due to shift north, we decided to play it safe and make the 12-mile trip back to the mainland. We ended up spending the night at a bay in Tutukaka Harbour which turned out to be a very comfortable stop for the night. If it has a name, we couldn’t find it; so we called it No Name Bay.

Anchor Waypoints:

Bland Bay: 35° 20.62′ S, 174° 21.56′ E in sand and mud about 15′ deep

Poor Knights: 35° 29.047′ S, 174° 44.637′ E in ROCKS! This was close to shore and still 55′ deep. We wouldn’t spend the night here unless it was pretty windless.

No Name Bay, Tutukaka Harbour: 35° 36.807′ S, 174° 32.272′ E in muddy sand about 15′ deep. There room for about one boat in this bay (or eight Kiwis!). We had it to ourselves. There are some rocks on the bottom.

December 10, 2015

We’re on the move again. After a change in plans, we’re going to harbor-hop down the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island until we get to Wellington. From there, it’s a short trip across the Cook Straight to the South Island.

Our first stop surprised both of us – Bland Bay.

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We didn’t think we’d make it this far, having left the dock at 1PM. If we did make it this far, we’d planned to anchor in one of the usual spots: Whangamumu or Whangaruru. The wind came up. The seas got rough. The tiny ship was tossed. Oh wait, that’s Gilligan’s Island. We weren’t tossed much at all, but it would be more comfortable if we could stop before Whangaruru.

Bland Bay? Anchoring here saved us at least an hour over winding up into Whangaruru. David Thatcher, author of popular NZ cruising guides says this isn’t a good overnight spot. We disagree. We had a great night, not quite out of the wind but there was no fetch from the southerly wind we had. There was also very little east swell running. We could see how that might be a problem if there were. David Thatcher must have been here during an east swell. (Click to enlarge and scroll through pictures below.)

Below is a photosphere of Bland Bay. Click on it and after it loads, you can pan up, down, and all around. You can also zoom in. It’s not perfect. I have a hard time taking these on a moving boat, but it should give you a feeling for the place.

Anchor Waypoint:
We anchored at about 35°, 20.62′ South, 174°, 21.56′ East in about 16 feet of water. There’s tons of room here and the bottom feels like sand or mud. We felt no rocks where we anchored.

-Rich