new years day race

new years day race

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Jan 31, 2016 January in the Bay of Islands

It has been a while since I updated the blog. We seemed to have stalled in the Bay of Islands, mainly between Opua and Russell. There are definitely worse places you could hang out for a while. We spent most of our time doing schoolwork and boat projects, and enjoying the company of our friends on Fluenta, Honey, Field Trip, Varekai, and Rewa.

On Jan 5th we had an amazing meal with Antoinette and Jess, as usual she made too much food, and she surprised Axel with a massive pavlova for his birthday. It was so incredibly light and fluffy, no one could stop eating it.




The next day was Axel's official birthday, and we celebrated him turning 11 by having Fluenta over for a pizza dinner. Gigi and Victoria had spent all afternoon decorating the cake with a realistic image of a biplane.



On Jan 9th we competed in the Russell Tall Ships race. It is a fun race that tours you around the Bay of Islands, followed by a Hangi (traditional Maori feast).  Our crew consisted of everyone from Fluenta, the kids from Honey, Rod Slater, and Hugh and Hera. It was a fun race, we sailed well, but the RBC does not like foreigners to win, so our placing was poor. The Hangi was delicious, and we danced to the band into the wee hours.

The next day we celebrated Axel and Samuel's birthdays with BBQ on the Russell Boating Club lawn and benefitted from the use of the marquee, tables and chairs they hadn't cleaned up yet. All of the kids play so nicely together, and the parents enjoy each other's company, it is sad that this was our last day together as a group before we all started sailing off in our own directions.


Families from Fluenta, Honey, Field Trip, and Varekai

To get the boat ready for sale, we did a deep cleaning, plus with Gary being a perfectionist, he touched up the paint in the sail locker and in places most people won't look, and did more varnishing, and …  All in preparation to take photos and videos to show her off. It is surprising how long it takes to do these things.



Then after all this he decided it was time to paint the decks. During that time the kids and I had to find ways to occupy ourselves away from the boat. So we did a few school type field trips, including visiting the Pompallier Mission and Russell Museum with Fluenta, which taught us how books were made 100 years ago. It showed you how the leather was tanned for the covers, and let the kids work the printing press. We visited Parrot Place in Kerikeri with Field Trip. Gigi really liked the birds and didn't want to leave, and as you can see the birds were very comfortable with her.






At 2pm on Jan 25, our friend Brian Krell sent me a photo of him on his boat at Urupukapuka Island. It looked so nice, we decided we had to join him. So by 5:30 we were anchored next to him. It felt so good to be out in the islands, not just in Opua working on the boat and school. We did a big hike the next day, then Gary and Axel went diving for scallops and brought back 25 keepers. We had a great feed that night!





 We went back into Opua for the Bay of Islands Race Week. We had friends that came in from San Diego to sail on the new TP52 Fox. It was great catching up with them, and Gary sailed the last day on a small trailer boat with Brian and Dave.

Jan 30 we competed in the BOIYC to Whangaroa race. Since we were in the cruising class we were allowed to use our motor for up to 2 hours. There was no wind at the start, so we revved the motor up to 2400 rpm and took off. It was definitely a different way to start a race. We motored for 1.5 hours until we were nicely past Nine Pin rock, then set the spinnaker and had a beautiful sail. We used the motor again for the entrance into Whangaroa and the finish. We won best use of motor, especially impressing the starting committee. The race party was at the Kingfish Lodge, which put on an excellent dinner for us. A very swanky place to hang out. Axel was impressed that many of the guests arrived by helicopter. He befriended a man that had a jetski and managed to get a ride on it the next day. James had 2 very nice jet skis, and let Gary and Gigi take out one, and they managed to go 90 km/hr, and he took them on a tour of the Whangaroa Harbour.







We plan to spend a few days here, then cruise the next 1-1.5 months around Great Barrier Island, the Hauraki Gulf and the Coromandel Peninsula.

Cheers,
Julie

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