I was able to escape the travelling teenagers and head out onto the water for my last day in the Bay of Islands. Hanging around with this teenage crowd really isn’t for me and I’m going to have to do some serious thinking about how to spend the next nine months if it is going to be like this, but more of that later.
Again it was an early start (why don’t these tour operators take into account just how lazy I am in the mornings?!) to meet the motor launch and we cruised out of Paihia in the flat calm of the early morning to where the dolphins like to feed.
It took no time at all before we were surrounded by a couple of pods who began frolicking around the bow and leaping out of the water for what seemed like our entertainment, but must have been for their own.
Again it was an early start (why don’t these tour operators take into account just how lazy I am in the mornings?!) to meet the motor launch and we cruised out of Paihia in the flat calm of the early morning to where the dolphins like to feed.
It took no time at all before we were surrounded by a couple of pods who began frolicking around the bow and leaping out of the water for what seemed like our entertainment, but must have been for their own.
There was no clicking or beeping from the dolphins, but they genuinely seemed to be pleased to see the boat and we motored around with various different pods for a good couple of hours.
It was delightful to see them playing like that, not quite as awe inspiring as the whales, but touching none the less. If nothing else, the two trips have moved me to swear never to visit an aquarium ever again - in Argentina the guides said that Orcas in the wild have a life expectancy of at least 25-30 years, but in captivity it is about seven. Similarly the dolphins, normally they can live for up to 40 years, but only five in an aquarium leaping through hoops.
I’m no great animal rights evangelist, but having seen these animals in the wild I can understand why a glorified swimming pool would hasten their ends. Very sad.
After playing around with the dolphins we transferred, at sea, to a sixty-foot catamaran for some lunch and sailing.
We had lunch on board and then sailed over to a beach on one of the islands where we did a bit of snorkelling, swimming, sunbathing and cold-beer drinking. It was all very stressful as you can imagine.
The clouds came in and the wind picked up as we weighed anchor after lunch, which was a huge relief as up until then it had been flat calm - if you’re going to spend the day on a 60-foot cat you want some wind!
The universe played ball though and we had a good couple of hours of 12-15kt sailing back to Paihia, and that was only in about 18-20 kts of wind. It was a fast boat (top speed 33kts across the Tasman Sea apparently) and great fun sitting on the netting as we roared over the water back to shore.
The final morning in the bay was spent sat by the beach with the girls listening to a young Canadian guy play guitar as we sat staring at the sea. Not normally my thing, but he could actually play - and he didn’t speak Swiss German.
A bus deposited me back in Auckland where I was planning on spending my last day in the City of Sails on another boat.
NZL41 is a 1995 Americas Cup yacht, which bar the additions of an engine, a hand rail and heavier duty sails is still in racing shape. There is nothing in the cockpit but a couple of wheels, giant winches and half a dozen “grinding pillars”.
Normally the boat requires 17 crew, but there were only five full-time crew and about 10 of us. So while the crew stood about we were set to work on the grinders. Although there were 12 on the grinders, winching the main sail up the 103-foot mast was not easy.
Once it was up though and we’d got out of the lee of the harbour headland we caught what little wind there was and were off out into the main bay.
The crew were pretty excited as today was one of the days that the two current Americas Cup boats were out practising, and in no time at all we were sailing perpendicular to them as they ran down to a mark with spinnakers flying.
Unfortunately for Oracle, and Kiwi sailing legend Russell Coutts, they dumped the spinnaker into the water and we could hear his infuriated shouts come across the water. Such is the speed of these boats that the BMW boat was five lengths ahead and the race was over by the time Oracle had retrieved the spinnaker.
Not to be outdone we hoisted our own spinnaker and raced down the bay with the crew keen not to be seen to be dumping theirs in front of their mates.
Three of us were sent into the “pit” in the bow to haul in the sail as we dropped it.
It was hard work hauling in such a huge amount of canvas in so short a time, and we lost one of the haulers under the sail as it came in, but we managed to keep it dry and turned back to Auckland.
The boat is just incredible, I had a go on the helm and the skipper kept telling me to come tighter to the wind - at one point the wind was only about 12 degrees off the bow and we were still doing 10 knots in 16kt breeze.
Apparently they perform so well close to the wind as they are designed for harbour racing not straight-line speed. Even so the attention to detail in their construction is incredible - everything is titanium or carbon fibre - and once you take the 20-tonne lead weight off the bottom of the keel the whole thing only weighs four tonnes. It moves through the water like a stealth yacht, barely causing a ripple, even at 12kts. No noise, no bounce, no fuss. Just beautiful.
It was only a two-hour trip, but it was magical. After so many years of taking my sailing heritage for granted almost, I really felt at home and happy. Beautiful waters, clear skies and an amazing boat. All that was missing was Dad at the wheel, Tom up the mast and Mum drinking G&T and it would have been perfect!
It was hard work hauling in such a huge amount of canvas in so short a time, and we lost one of the haulers under the sail as it came in, but we managed to keep it dry and turned back to Auckland.
The boat is just incredible, I had a go on the helm and the skipper kept telling me to come tighter to the wind - at one point the wind was only about 12 degrees off the bow and we were still doing 10 knots in 16kt breeze.
Apparently they perform so well close to the wind as they are designed for harbour racing not straight-line speed. Even so the attention to detail in their construction is incredible - everything is titanium or carbon fibre - and once you take the 20-tonne lead weight off the bottom of the keel the whole thing only weighs four tonnes. It moves through the water like a stealth yacht, barely causing a ripple, even at 12kts. No noise, no bounce, no fuss. Just beautiful.
It was only a two-hour trip, but it was magical. After so many years of taking my sailing heritage for granted almost, I really felt at home and happy. Beautiful waters, clear skies and an amazing boat. All that was missing was Dad at the wheel, Tom up the mast and Mum drinking G&T and it would have been perfect!
I got talking to one of the girls on the crew who was English (from Winchester) and it turns out she had left the UK about a year ago to go travelling around the world, and when she got to Australia she did an RYA Competent Crew qualification in Sydney before coming to NZ to work. Six hours a day sailing an Americas Cup boat around Auckland - beats picking fruit!
It got me thinking as well. I had planned on doing a PADI qualification, but that would have been just for fun, so I could spend the money on getting a sailing qualification instead. It would be a way of avoiding the travelling teenagers as I could stay put in one place for a few weeks, it would be a way of earning money either in Oz or in south east Asia, and it would be a good life skill to have when I get back to the UK. And spending two or three weeks sailing in the Australian summer is hardly a chore anyway!
They don’t do it in Wollongong where Susie is, but Frances and Carly are in Perth now and I have a few London buddies based in Sydney so I should be able to find somewhere to do it, as apparently you can do RYA qualifications all over Australia. It might mean I miss out on seeing a lot of Australia, but I’ve seen beautiful beaches before!
Hmmmm, will have to have a think about this.
