"Good water, good life; poor water, poor life; no water, no life" Sir Peter Blake


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

One Nights Escape

With the sniff of autumn in the air we decided that we would escape for the weekend after Craig finished work on Saturday afternoon.  The NZ weather has been kind to us all, but unfortunately with no rain since Christmas there are areas in serious need of water, and now are officially declared 'drought zones'.  This means water restrictions are applied as the lakes and rivers (NZ stock for water) is the lowest for many years.
The sun escaping the day - silhouettes of the Silo Park, Auckland City

Heading out Auckland Harbour, the kids enjoying the bumpy ferry wakes!

We left the Viaduct at about 7pm and headed out towards Islington Bay, Rangitoto.  The kids had had an afternoon sleep earlier in the day so they were wide awake with our adventure.  As the wind was dying out we decided to motor and arrived to what looked like a xmas tree of lights.  Many boats in there, as it's a favourite friday or saturday night spot for many, close to the city if the weather changes, and very sheltered in most directions.  We anchored with plenty of room, as the wind was forecast to rotate 180deg, to which it did by morning.  Fortunately it was only about 10knots so it was a very welcome cooling down to the cockpit.  Kids in the water once again, then we decided to head out to Rakino Island and the Noises, and collected some shelfish for dinner.

Shelfish for dinner... yum! 

mmmmm.....

The kids went for their first 'snorkel' using their goggles and flippers.  They were super excited to see the bottom but got so exhausted they just about fell asleep in the dinghy returning to the boat!

Mazuran enjoying being on anchor.

A well exhausted Blake after doing his first snorkel!

After deciding at 4pm we had start heading back to the city we hoisted the sails (Blake help hoist the main), and spotted two ships, one carrying cargo, and the other carrying human cargo.. quite neat to see.

Blake hoisting the mainsail

Ship racing -  They just about fit together as a jig-saw

Rangitoto Island, Hauraki Gulf

 At the Candy Stick (Rangitoto Light) we saw a line of wind coming down the harbour, and went from 7knots of breeze to 20-25knots!!! We furled in the jib a bit and had a great sail back to the Viaduct doing about 8.5 - 9knots on the wind!

Heading back up Auckland Harbour, nice flat water and a good breeze meant a great sail!

After tying up the boat, we attacked the kina we had collected, and had a seafood dinner.  A lovely end to a night and day away!

Kids watching Craig trying to pull the kina off the bottom of the tub! 

4 comments:

  1. As always I like the photos - do you post-process them? the silhouette of silo park made me miss the place ...

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  2. Hi Paval, lovely to hear from you ;-) no not much in the way of post process, only the occasional crop if I've taken something too wide. Where are you now? The baths are pretty full at the moment, the kids are getting confident in the 'big' pool now.

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    1. whow I was quite sure you were fiddling with the colors and contrasts. Now I'm even more impressed with your photo taking skills :) Great to hear about the swimming progress soon they'll swim around Mazuran during your cruise :) Miss the baths ... we're still in Bangkok and the hot season is killing us. We go swimming here to an outside pool but the water is so hot (around 30°C) that you're very dehydrated after half an hour in it :) it's a very nice pool though - with an incredibly unpleasant, mean, evil, ugly and fat receptionist :) I always dread getting by her to the pool ....

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    2. Ha ha! you made me laugh. Off to the pools again now. We've finally had rain after no rain since Christmas - the grass is dry! Fortunately it doesn't affect us so much on the water, only makes us relax and watch DVD's! We had a small earthquake in Auckland yesterday! Yes, very surprised! They do not happen often. Good luck with the swimming ;-0

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