East Cape

It’s been a busy couple of weeks since my last blog post, and we’ve done more than a few miles in that time. Departing Gisborne we had a reasonably fast sail up the rest of the east coast to East Cape with a steady 10-15kt downwind sail, a moderate easterly swell and a little current with us to help speed things along.  We had read that there could be some strong rip tides and overfalls around East Cape, and there is a bank of shallow water (Ranfurly Bank) about 15 miles offshore from the Cape, which can also build up big waves. Keeping all of this in mind, we departed Gisborne mid-afternoon to time our sail around East Cape the following morning as it got light, and also around the time of slack water. This leg of the journey was about 80 miles and took around 17 hours. Unfortunately the second leg of our trip after East Cape was not quite so straightforward.

Cook's Landing, Gisborne

Looking down on Gisborne Harbour

After rounding East Cape we had a very challenging day of sailing. Tacking into the wind, very close hauled, against current, and in fairly turbulent sea conditions, we made very little headway towards our next waypoint – Cape Runaway, which was only a matter of 25 miles away. I think “soul destroying” was the phase Dave used as we examined our track on the GPS, virtually tacking back and forth across ourselves as the current pushed us backwards. We weren’t able to take the sails down and motor our way through it as we only have a small engine and we wouldn’t be able to make any more headway motoring against wind and waves than we were able to sailing. In summary we spent 12 hours sailing and only gained about 20 miles in that time. Finally the winds dropped off in the evening and shifted a little and we gratefully started up the engine and were able to start motor-sailing more or less in the right direction. However, our peace was relatively short lived.

Sleeping on passage

From Cape Runaway we motor-sailed into the night on a course for Mayor Island at the western end of the Bay of Plenty via White Island, a distance of some 80 miles. Because of the awkward wind direction we ended up motor-sailing much further north of White Island than we had planned, about 40 miles offshore. As we approached closer to White Island we could smell the sulfur coming from the volcano. During one of Dave’s night watches, around 4am, he suddenly noticed the engine temperature had risen above normal. That was the first time the engine temperature had ever moved, and he immediately turned the engine off and woke me up. While Dave went below to try to figure out what had gone wrong I went outside to mind the sails. This was the last thing either of us needed after the day we’d had and on the second night of our passage.

White Island in the distance

As Dave examined the engine it quickly became apparent what had gone wrong - the heat exchanger again! One of the bolts holding the heat exchanger in place had sheared off completely and as a result one of the pipes had disconnected. Dave managed to do a temporary fix with some cable ties and we spent the rest of the night motor-sailing and anxiously checking the engine temperature every 5 minutes. Late the next morning we were able to turn the engine off and sail the rest of the way to Mayor Island arriving around 7pm on the Saturday evening after leaving Gisborne on the Thursday afternoon. Exhausted from the journey we fixed ourselves some dinner and fell into bed for a decent nights sleep.

Sailing from Mayor Island back to Tauranga

The next morning we had to address the issue of the heat exchanger and what to do about it. We chalked up the why of the problem to an old bolt and over zealous tightening of said bolt when we replaced the heat exchanger a few weeks ago in Havelock. But the how to fix it did present a significant problem for us. The clearance between the engine and the bulkhead is only about 10cm, a very awkward, small gap. We also weren’t sure we had the right tools to do the job, and to get to the bolt we would need to take off most of the cooling system. After some discussion we decided the safest course of action was to head to the nearest marina, and marine mechanic if we needed them. Luckily Tauranga was only 20 miles from us, but frustratingly in the wrong direction from where we wanted to go. At least the wind was going in the right direction this time and we managed to sail within about 200m of the marina before having to turn the engine on. A few set backs and engine issues are inevitable on a boat if you sail for long enough I suppose.

Mount Maunganui at the entrance to Tauranga Harbour

We really enjoyed our couple of nights in Tauranga and if we hadn’t been on a schedule to get to Auckland to pick my mum up, who was flying in from the UK, we would have liked to explore a little more. Sailing into the marina alone was quite an experience. Mount Maunganui, an old volcano that dominates the skyline and guards the entrance of the harbour, makes for a very impressive entrance. Then the marina itself is within the tidal flow of the estuary. We had timed our entrance for near slack water but even so the marina said it would send Fred out in a small boat to meet us to guide us in. Indeed Fred did come steaming up to us as we approached the marina and hailed, “Welcome to Tauranga”. We were very glad for his guidance, as even though most of the strength had come out of the tide, we still had to crab our way diagonally down the channel between the piers and into our berth!

Sailing into Tauranga Harbour

 Fortunately, once in the marina, Dave was able to find the tools he needed to extract the bolt end and re-bolt the heat exchanger back into place with much less difficulty than he expected. Three nights later we were back at Mayor Island again and making headway in the right direction. Seriously, lesson learnt; when you replace an engine part, also replace the rusty bolts holding it in place!

Napier to Gisborne

We had a great few days in Napier during Art Deco weekend, a festival celebrating all things 1920s and 1930s. Napier markets itself to tourists as the Art Deco Capital since many of its buildings were rebuilt in the art deco style after the 1931 earthquake. The atmosphere was fantastic walking around town with everyone in 1920s/1930s style dress, vintage cars driving around, and WW2 planes circling overhead. There were also lot of events on, both free and pre-booked.

Aerial display

Obviously we were a little unprepared on the clothing front as we didn’t know it was on until after we arrived. However, we got Dave some braces and I managed to dig out some shoes and jewellery that looked vaguely 1930s and we got dressed up for a night on the town. Our swing dancing lessons came in handy for the evening big band concert too. We caught up with our friends Helen and Luke, and some fellow dancers from the Full Swing dance school in Wellington, all of who were in Napier for the weekend of festivities.

The marina in Napier is a few miles out from the centre, but there are quite a few nice cafes, bars and shops in the area as they have developed West Quay and Ahuriri village. We were particularly happy to find a good Mediterranean food market and gourmet butchers just a short walk away. We stocked up on lots of tasty goodies that we haven’t been able to get our hands on since Wellington.

Tasty treats

Napier Marina looking onto West Quay

After a few of days of land-based fun we decided it was time to cast off the dock lines and set sail for Gisborne. The journey from Napier to Gisborne was an overnight trip of approx. 100 miles, taking us 22 hours. It was a fairly unpleasant passage beating into 20kts of wind with waves and swell. Because the boat was so bouncy in the wind and waves it made sleep impossible. To add insult to injury I was incapacitated by sea sickness for the first time on this whole trip, which meant Dave had to do more than his fair share of the night watches. The approach into Gisborne harbour was easy and we didn’t have to worry about tides as the channel is deeply dredged due to all of the cargo ships that come in and out. There is a small marina next to the port, which is adjacent to the town centre. We arrived exhausted, but joyous for finally having solid ground under our feet again. We treated ourselves to a large pub dinner after the long night and day spent getting here.

Life on passage - sailing with 2nd reef in main and full Genoa, rails in the water

The next morning another yacht pulled into the marina that we had seen on our sail up from Napier. As we had passed them on our way, we assumed they were carrying on further north. It turns out their journey was even more arduous than our own after blowing out their main sail and arriving in Gisborne much later that same night, after a very slow sail. They had to anchor outside the sea wall in the dark and wait until the next morning before coming into the marina. We’re planning to carry on into the Bay of Plenty soon and are looking forward to spending some nights away from marinas. At $35 a night in Gisborne, and $22 in Napier, the costs can soon add up after a few days.

Picton to Napier

After a good week of watching the weather we finally got our window of opportunity to sail north. We originally planned to sail all the way to Gisborne, but after finding out there was a fishing tournament on and there would be little room in the marina for us, we decided to stop in Napier instead.

The journey from Picton to Napier was approx. 250 miles and took around 55 hours. Of those 55 hours, 28 hours were spent motoring in no wind, and the rest of the time was spent sailing into a headwind. The journey was not without its challenges; weather, seasickness, fatigue, sailing at night, and the challenges of doing everyday activities such as showering and cooking on a moving boat. However, we planned for those challenges, which made a big difference to our confidence and comfort during the passage.

Being escorted across Palliser Bay  

We spent quite a lot of time preparing during our last days in the Marlborough Sounds. One of the things we found difficult was knowing what weather to look for in choosing when to go. We had a lot of piecemeal advice from other sailors we had met but couldn’t find any definitive advice on what weather to look for. Probably there is no ideal forecast but a variety of trade-offs to be made depending on which winds you choose. We spent a lot of time scrutinising the MetService weather forecasts and even decided to pay for a weather routing service, PredictWind, to help us plan. We also spent time checking the tide times for Tory Channel and the Cook Strait, and plotting out our route with waypoints on both paper and electronic charts. Overnight we took turns to do 3-hour watches. We also spent the day before we left cooking all of our meals for 3 days so we only had to heat up food while on the move.

Sunset on the first night as we rounded Cape Palliser

We chose to leave Tory Channel in a dying southerly, the previous days had been blowing 30+kts in Cook Strait. We headed out at 10am, two hours after Picton high tide and timed so that we would not have too much current leaving Tory Channel, and also so we would not pass through Karori rip at mid tide. The forecast for the Cook Strait was for a 20kt southerly wind dying out so we had our smaller headsail rigged.  As usual we had the short turbulent waves going around Cape Terawhiti and Sinclair Head, but overall the Cook Strait was relatively calm with a little swell and a moderate sea. We had a pod of dolphins join us across Palliser Bay, and they kept returning to the boat several times to keep us company. Just before we started to round Cape Palliser, around 10pm, the wind died off and we had to turn the engine on and motor for the rest of the night. There is a large lighthouse at Cape Palliser that is visible up to 26 miles offshore and another lighthouse just a little further along the Wairarapa coast. It was really nice to be able to see clearly where the coastline was during our watches on the first night.  The night watches were generally uneventful, with the exception of some dolphins swimming around the boat at 1am in the bio-luminescence, which Dave tells me looked spectacular – I was sleeping.

Motoring along the Wairarapa coast in zero wind and zero swell

The next day we decided to swap our headsails from our smaller headsail (100% jib) that we had used in the stronger winds in Cook Strait to our larger headsail (130% Genoa) that would be more suitable for the lighter breezes that were forecast for the rest of our trip. We had only ever changed the headsails before while the boat was stationary in the marina. Hauling out the large headsail through our front hatch, dropping the smaller headsail and swapping them over, all the while bobbing around in swell, was a little more challenging. Apart from wrapping the halyard around the forestay on the first hoist and having to drop it again to sort the lines out, it went smoothly. Once we successfully got the bigger headsail rigged, it was well worth the effort as we were able to sail at a respectable 4-5 knots in light 10kt northeast winds for the rest of the day. We also had some more dolphins come to visit us throughout the day, which provided some relief from the general monotony.

More dolphins!

The second night, Dave was on watch tacking us around Cape Turnagain. It was a little unnerving as we tacked our way around the headland with no lighthouse. It was difficult to judge how far away the land was in the dark, and we were grateful for the radar and GPS.  At about 1am, the wind shifted slightly as I was about to start my watch. With the two of us up and about we tacked the boat and I sailed us for another hour until the wind died off again. I gave Dave the fright of his life when I turned the engine on, forgetting as it roared to life that he was sleeping in the back cabin with his head right next to the engine compartment.

Sunset as we sailed around Cape Turnagain

It was interesting to see the change in the coastal landscape on the third morning, which was much drier close to Napier compared with the dark green, rugged landscape around the south coast and Wairarapa. As we rounded Cape Kidnappers the wind came back in and we had a nice 4-5 hour sail across Hawkes Bay. The entrance to the marina in Napier is quite shallow and it’s better to go in on at least half-tide. Thankfully our timing worked out well and it was almost high tide when we came in. It would have sucked if we had needed to wait for the tide after such a long sail. Unknown to us this weekend happens to be the Art Deco festival in Napier so we’re going to stick around for a few days to enjoy the festivities.

Finally on a beam reach as we sailed away from Cape Kidnappers

The waiting game

After six weeks exploring the Marlborough Sounds and Abel Tasman our time here is coming to an end. We now feel that we’ve seen most of what the area has to offer and are looking forward to heading northward for a change of scenery.

We’re both looking forward to the journey north with excitement and nervous anticipation. The journey from Marlborough to Gisborne, around 300 miles, will probably be the most challenging stretch of coastline on our entire trip. The weather between here and Gisborne is notoriously bad. The good news is that we have plenty of time to wait for a decent weather forecast. The bad news is that requires a lot of patience. For example, the Cook Strait experiences a high percentage of days per year with gale force winds, which means there could be a lot of waiting involved. In addition to the weather, we’ll have to deal with a straight 48hr+ sail, and taking it in turns to sleep or keep watch, something that we’ve not done before. We’re expecting it to be both a physically and mentally challenging couple of days.

Luke and Helen on board Desolina

Still, we’re making the most of our last few days in Marlborough. We were joined by some friends, Helen and Luke, from Wellington for Waitangi weekend, and had a great couple of days with them showing them how to sail Desolina. We sailed out to Endeavour Inlet on the first day from Picton and took them for a walk up to the viewpoint on the Queen Charlotte track overlooking both Ship Cove and Resolution Bay on the second day. Luke brought his drone and GoPro camera with him and we got some excellent aerial shots of Desolina.

Still footage from the Drone

We’ve also been exploring a few of the coves we didn’t make it to last time around, mostly around Grove Arm. We had a nice day at Lochmara Lodge for a spot of lunch and a walk. I would highly recommend Lochmara as a place to stop off for a day trip or a longer stay, especially if you have young children. The lodge has extensive grounds with sculptures and a wildlife recovery centre. In particular, we had great fun feeding the Kakariki, one of New’s Zealand native parakeets.

Feeding the Kakariki

Punga people at Lochmara Lodge