Weather

Well we've been getting our share of all sorts lately. Yesterday was quite benign and we went ashore at Te Ti Bay, Paihia to stock up at Countdown which is just across the waterfront road. It's really only possible when the wind's offshore as it's an open rolly anchorage and quite shallow with indifferent holding and landing on the beach in a small inflatable would test anyone's skills except when it's calm. Because it's shallow, we have to anchor at least 200 metres off the beach and even then at low tide we'd only have about 2' under the keel. Anyway, using backpacks and carrying the maximum that we could we made it back to the beach and then back out to the yacht. Then we went up to Doves Bay Marina at the entrance to the Kerikeri river to refuel and were pleasantly surprised that we had only used 89 litres of diesel. This had included some hours motoring away from Whangarei in windless conditions when we left for New Caledonia and then later when we turned around east of North Cape we motorsailed back to the Bay of Islands for about 14 hours in fairly bad conditions before we arrived at Opua. Then there has also been a bit of motoring around here so we didn't do too badly.
Later yesterday a fresh NW started and so we decided to sail from Doves Bay down to Waipiro Bay as it turned out because on the way we heard a new forecast talking about SE up to 40 knots over the next few days and Waipiro offered good protection. We had a very pleasant sail down with the wind just aft of the beam. We had started to think that maybe this is what it would be like from now on but no - in the early hours of this morning as forecast we had 20 - 30 knots in the anchorage and then after daylight even a hail storm! We were getting a bit stir crazy by then so decided to come back up to Paroa Bay. We battled mostly 35 knot headwinds all the way and are pleased to be here in sheltered water. Had another hail storm this afternoon!! Just heard the latest forecast talking about 55 knots from the SE! Have just let out another 20 metres of chain so now have 150' feet of chain deployed in only 12' of water.
There is one thing we can definitely say though and that's how pleased we are with our Rocna anchor. When anchoring and going astern to dig it in it pulls the boat up like it was chained to a building and then when getting underway again it comes up with half the bay on itself so it gets well and truly dug in. We'll be leaving holes the size of India all over the place! And the last 24 hours have been a good test.
Hope all is well and looking forward to your news.
Jim and Gina

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