Weather bound

Well, we are still here at Gt Barrier as the forecast for today and the next few days is for high winds, although in the main from the right direction for us. It looks as though Saturday will be the best day for us because after that the winds are supposed to go to 30 knots +. Some people would no doubt say we'd better get used to it but it is different at sea because if you can't keep to the rumb line course then you just sail off to a point of sailing which suits best and then do a series of tacks, whereas for a day sail such as Barrier to Whangarei we don't want to spend too long on passage because it's preferable at our state of experience to arrive in daylight. At the end of an ocean passage one would always try to ensure that landfall was made in daylight by slowing down or heaving to, but we really don't want to spend all night hove to outside Whangarei after a long sail! Having said that though, we would be OK entering Whangarei Harbour in the dark because we've done it many times in daylight. Saturday looks promising because we can sail vectors to avoid having the wind directly behind us. All sounds good in theory!!
Meantime we are in Kaiarara Bay again which is giving good shelter in a reasonable depth of water. Most bays with reasonable shelter in these winds around here seem to have depths of 50 feet + which means that to obtain good holding we would have to deploy more anchor rode than we would normally wish. We had tried out another bay earlier but decided to come back here for peace of mind when asleep because the depth is 25 - 30 feet! "Spirit of NZ" is in here tonight also and the trainee crew had come ashore to do the walk we did yesterday to the Kauri dam. They had a couple of big inflatables which they then had to paddle some distance in winds up to 25 knots back out to the ship. Just as well they weren't elderly like us (!) as rowing our little dinghy back to the Tiare yesterday was all we could manage after our mountaineering exertions!
We also had a surprise visitor just after we dropped anchor back in the bay. Brian Parker (who Jim had spoken to by phone some time ago) was a previous owner of the Tiare when she was based in Wellington and was known as "Reflections of Wellington". He is now retired to Whitianga. He was in here on his present boat and couldn't believe his eyes when he saw us come in. He had owned her (the Tiare) for 15 years in Wellington and had raced her extensively. She won a cross Cook Straight race on one occasion against 17 other boats and the winning margin was 7 seconds!! He was tickled pink to see the old girl and to see all the work we had subsequently done. He and his wife had come up from the Mercury Islands and had a very rough trip. Tomorrow if the Fitzroy anchorage is reasonable we will go in there for a few supplies and then come back here in readiness for an early morning departure to Whangarei.
More later!
Cheers,
J & J(G)

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