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Firefly - Cruising the Bay of Islands



Firefly arrived in Opua, New Zealand a week ago following a difficult seven and a half day passage from New Caledonia, five of the seven were spent beating into strong winds and rough seas. Once we were checked in with customs and immigration we moved to a berth at the excellent Opua Marina, this being a great place to get everything shipshape again and a good base for some land based exploration.

We visited the Waitangi Treaty Grounds where the still current agreement between the British and the Moari was signed in 1840, a recreated Moari settlement at Rewa Village in Keri Keri and the interesting museum at Russell, the town referred to as 'the hellhole of the Pacific' back in the whaling days. Hugh from World Cruising arranged drinks and dinner with the other World ARC yachts whom we had sailed in company with to NZ. Gareth left the boat to return to the UK on Sunday 16th November and since then we have been attending the 'All Points Rally'. Its a week long seminar laid on for international yachts visiting New Zealand and so far has been both informative and fun.

The 'rally' is still running but as the weather was forecast to be great we have nipped out for a couple of days cruising in the Bay of Islands in company with Pat and Stuart on Brizo and Mike and Tracey on Allegresse. Distances between islands and great anchorages are relatively short and we have had separate lunchtime and evening stops, walks on land both days and have gone everywhere in convoy - all very sociable, We will go back into Opua on Friday 21st for the final afternoon and evening of the rally and to continue working our way through the to do list.

As its approaching summer down here its really great to have long days and light in the evenings until about 2030. We have just anchored in Opangu Bay and its absolutely glorious, no clouds but still quite chilly (its the equivalent of mid May at present) and the scenery is wonderful. Everything feels pristine here, we see no rubbish pollution at all, lots of wild life and the air tastes really clean and fresh. On the way into the bay we saw a 'squadron' of gannets diving into a small area of sea, clearly they had located a shoal of fish. In amongst them we could see dolphins. As we motored past two large bottlenose dolphins broke off from their fishing to come and have a look at Firefly and swimming alongside they both surfaced to look at us and rolled over a little to lift their eyes out of the water more.

Our plan is to head back out into the Bay on Sunday and we will have a almost a week more to explore the Islands before the start of the NZ Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) 60th anniversary rally on Friday 28th November. This starts in Opua and finishes a week later in Whangaroa, only 25 miles north - so its not what we are used too in terms of distance. There are however numerous anchorages on the way and it will be good to go cruising with crews from locally based boats in order to get information and ideas about sailing in NZ waters. We are new members of the OCC and are really impressed with the effect of flying the 'flying fish' pennant - other OCC members are always keen to come and say hello and share their experiences. Our great friends Barney and Juanita who flew into NZ recently will join us for the rally and at the end, Firefly will have a few nights in Whangaroa Marina while we head off inland to do some landbased exploring in the north of 'Northland'.

Paul and Susie



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