February 14, 2014
Today’s forecast was for cloudy skies and 10 to 16-knot westerly winds. Normally when traveling north, we’d be heading to an anchorage on the Coromandel Peninsula called Coville Bay, the final anchorage before making the big jump over the top of the peninsula. But Coville is open to the west and wasn’t doable in today’s winds. With the current conditions, it looked like we might be spending the day here at Waimate Island.
As the morning went on, it was becoming clear that we both felt ready to move on from the Hauraki Gulf. We’ve learned that, in cruising, decisions cannot be forced before their time. For this reason, it’s impossible to make the sort of big, detailed plans like the ones necessary for a grand tour or road trip. Aside from the obvious weather factor, there’s an emotional factor. It’s impossible to predict how we’re going to feel at a given point until we’ve actually spent some time there.
Back in Auckland, we’d considered spending more time in the Hauraki Gulf than we had so far, and we could certainly still do that. But today we were feeling distinctly done with it for the season. Nor did we feel like returning again to Great Barrier Island (a gorgeous island north of the Coromandel full of mountains, hiking trails and anchorages). What we both wanted now was to get to the other side of the Coromandel Peninsula and start making our way towards Tauranga, back to city life. The weather looked good tomorrow for the trip over the top of the Coromandel, and we decided to take advantage of it.
Meanwhile there was one more spot, about 6 miles north, that we’d considered visiting. There’s a small group of islets, the biggest of which is officially called Motukahaua but nicknamed Happy Jack. Happy Jack has a south-facing anchorage called Elephant Cove. It requires either settled weather or northerlies to visit and with its small size, it’s a bit of a gamble to go out there. If we found the anchorage full (and with boats fishing in the area that was a good possibility), we’d have to head elsewhere. Below, a map…
The smart thing would have been to stay put where we were, but Rich was feeling restless, or as he called it, “barn sour.” And I really wanted to see Elephant Cove. So when the sun came out and the wind died down, we decided to head up and check out Happy Jack, reasoning it was only 6 miles away and if conditions weren’t good, we could come back to this area, hopefully anchoring off one of the small islands north of us.
So we pulled anchor and motored in the lee of the islands north of us: Goat, Three Kings, and Rabbit. It was fine, but when we got out into the open north of Rabbit Island, we found swells and the wind up at 15 knots, gusting to 20. Naturally it was a rough, wet, and long trip as the sloppy seas slowed us down. It may have been only 6 miles, but it was a long 6 miles! The last mile, slogging into the wind and swells, was particularly bad.
We were encouraged when Elephant Cove came into view–it looked nice and no one was there. Our optimism lasted until we entered and discovered the reason it was empty: the wind and seas were wrapping around the island in such a way that wind and chop were coming right in here! Suddenly we found ourselves in a rather urgent situation as we were in a tight little bay with rocks, our dinghy trailing behind us, in bad conditions. We needed to get out immediately and to do so we needed to get turned around while watching the depths constantly and getting our dinghy alongside the boat. It was a really stressful situation!
Once out of danger, we faced one of cruising’s most annoying challenges—the psychological trauma of having to turn around and go back after a long trip. Yes, we knew this could happen, but at that point we’d been envisioning a pleasant trip. But it wasn’t pleasant, the anticipated anchorage was cold and menacing, and now we had to go back out into rather nasty conditions. On top of that it felt like an achievement to get a few miles north today, and now we’d be giving up those hard-won miles and adding a good hour to our trip tomorrow. Needless to say, we weren’t very happy.
Heading north we’d noticed that Rabbit Island might have a spot to anchor, but coming back we found a boat in its one tiny, calm anchorage. With no room for us, we headed on. There was no suitable anchorage at Goat Island; so we ended up heading back towards to Waimate. One worry was that we’d noticed boats coming in there as we were leaving. If there wasn’t room at that anchorage, we’d have to head even further south!
Below, some photos from the day, starting with a morning shot of Waimate from our anchorage spot. As for the rest of the gallery, the weather was so cloudy and crappy that I barely had any usable photos. Frankly I don’t know exactly where these places were, but they kind of sum up the trip. (Click on any photo to enlarge, not that there’s much to see.)
Thankfully we found that even with the new boats, there was a spot in front of the pine tree area that had intrigued me earlier. It was really very pretty; so I figured it was a little silver lining to today’s cloud. As it was still very cloudy after we arrived, I waited until the following morning to get these photos of our spot, below…
Once we were settled, it was time for something medicinal to drink. This whole experience had been upsetting, and now that the “emergency” part plus being back out in dreadful conditions was over, I had the luxury of letting the upset of the day catch up with me. Basically we gambled and lost, which happens sometimes, but at the moment I was feeling like a sore loser.
Having one of our special wines from Man O’ War winery helped soothe my spirit while I licked my wounds. When I felt better, I got up and made a comfort-food pasta dinner. This was not our best Valentine’s Day, but hey, we had nice wine, a delicious dinner and were anchored off an island in New Zealand. Would I rather be here or having dental surgery in Pacoima? OK, there were times earlier in the day that I might have picked the dental surgery, but it was pretty nice this evening.
The next morning we woke to a beautiful day. Below, a panorama of the morning sun hitting Waimate Island.
Note: It seems I didn’t get any recognizable photos of Happy Jack Island or Elephant Cove, probably because things got a bit frantic when we were close enough for photos. We did return nearly 2 years later, and I’m going to cheat and post a photo from that trip to show what the anchorage at Elephant Cove looks like. It’s actually a nice place, but it does require very settled weather to visit.
Tomorrow, we planned to head to the other side of the Coromandel Peninsula.–Cyndi
