by steve, on December 15th, 2010 (
Inspiration Lady, New Zealand)
Keen to ensure all the crayfish we’d caught would not be mobbed by octopus I set out at 6:30am to retrieve the trap. I discovered that two of the fish frames we’d hung inside the trap had completely gone and the other 3 had been stripped to the bone by overnight critters. And the total catch of crayfish was….. You guessed it….. Zero.
With no better reason to stay and keen to avoid any bad weather coming in we headed west to find shelter from the predicted bad weather due to come in from the east and then north. The fog and murk had completely lifted and as we passed the pass we had squeezed through the previous day I was quite shocked at how narrow it looked. If I could have seen where we were going we may have gone the long way around.
The wind was again light so we motored back. The genset shutdown with a temperature alarm on the way back which usually indicates the zinc pencil has crumbled in the heat exchanger and it needs to be cleared out. The problem was easily mitigated by easing back on the throttles thus demanding less from the generator. We eventually set our anchor in Taurikura Bay which we understood to have good holding and protection from all angles, especially the east and north.
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Here we found a couple of open internet connections so we could all catch up on communications.
Later in the afternoon we went ashore to stretch our legs and look for the store we believed was nearby. We found it nearby and picked up a few bits and pieces before returning to the boat. Later still we were joined in the bay by Gary and Jackie on Inspiration Lady who were making their way down the coast and ducked in here with the same idea to avoid the forecast nasty weather.
They invited us aboard for something to warm us up. We put the pizza in the oven and joined them where they ended up being quite generous with some fine rum. We ended up sending Ben back to Dignity to fetch the pizza which we all shared. Nicely warmed up I very nearly fell into the drink while boldly (perhaps too boldly) stepping into the dinghy. I saved my dignity by leaping back onto Inspiration Lady.
The weather this morning is truly miserable. The wind is around 20 knots gusting higher at times. It is cold, wet and murky outside. We had hoped to hike the nearby Mount Manaia but this is not on the cards for today. Fingers cross for tomorrow.