Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

To allow Helen to rest her back (which incidentally is getting better) we made no plans for yesterday. I did get some mail (via St Brendan’s Isle) that required me to send some mail to the UK so I went ashore in the morning to visit the post office. I timed it so the tide was going out and wouldn’t have far to drag the dinghy. I learned a thing or two about beach landings on my own.

I called Vodafone who were able to give me an idea of the bulk of my traffic immediately prior to our bandwidth being used up. Turned out is was our anti-virus s/w trying to update itself. I’d just reinstalled it before leaving Auckland and had forgotten to turn off the automatic updates. Arrggghh. If my monitoring s/w had been working I’d have caught this before we blew $30 of air time. Double Arrggghh.

The rest of the day was R&R. I cranked out the XBox and played for a while and we both read our books too.

This afternoon, when the currents are in our favour, we’re going to move over to Rangitoto. If Helen is up it, we’ll climb to the peak of this 700 year old dormant volcano.

Once breakfast and our usual morning chores were sorted we raised the anchor and headed around to Onetangi Bay. There was insufficient wind to sail so we motored round.

We had an idea we might go ashore during the day but I got stuck into some admin. I sorted out our advance departure paperwork for New Zealand as well as our advance arrival paperwork for Fiji. They’ve all been sent off. I then got stuck into our UK taxes which took the rest of the day and I still didn’t finish.

We went ashore shortly after 6pm to meet our friends. Having dragged the dinghy up the beach we realized we’d forgotten the wine and had to return to the boat getting soaked in the surf doing so. We made it back to our rendezvous just ahead of time so we kept noone waiting. Murray picked us up and took us to their home which we found delightful – just the sort of open plan and size we like. Sian cooked up a delicious dinner. We were joined by Vickie who was also present in the hot springs at Great Barrier.

As ever, good food, good friends and a little fine wine makes for a great evening.

Waking early Carrie demonstrated some mental balance by declining to joining her parents for a morning swim. Jose claimed it was a great way to wake up. I found simply waking up a great way to wake up so again felt secure in my own decision not to join them.

After breakfast we set off in light air (ie we motored) and headed round to Man of War Bay on the east side of Waiheke. (NOTE – I am unable to show any more than one position per blog entry so when we stop twice I tend only show the second spot)

The anchorage was very calm but we wanted to make sure the holding was good. Backing down on the anchor the first time was not successful so we raised the anchor, moved, dropped it again and this time it set.

We were then off ashore and with 5 of us it was a breeze getting the dinghy high up on the beach. Our goal was to walk up to Stoney Batter, a gun emplacement built during WWII. When we got there we were quite surprised as to the extent of the system. Expecting something perhaps built into the cliff, we actually found an extensive tunnel system with underground munitions storage areas and underground command and control centers. Being managed by a trust there was an entrance fee but lots of great information. It turned out to be very interesting.

We had a late lunch back on the boat finishing off the last of the fish caught the previous day which we again ate raw. John and Carrie, this time, went for a quick dip afterwards before we fired up the motors and headed west to Huruhi Bay.

Here we dropped the anchor and with daylight now beginning to fade Helen said her goodbyes. I took our guest ashore in the Dinghy and said my goodbyes too. It was sad to see them go as we’d had such a good weekend with them.

We finished the day with a light dinner and watched a movie.

We now have six days before we head back to the Viaduct Marina in Auckland where we will await Sam’s arrival. We will not go far now but have yet to make any plans. Just to tease us, the weather gods have left open a wonderful weather window for the ride up to Fiji for five days now. No doubt it will soon close and only open a crack some time after we’re all ready to go.

Having guests aboard changed the pace of the weekend. We don’t usually move twice a day on our own, mainly because we have the time. It was quite refreshing to change the pace for a while as it made things different for us. However, the winds are forecast to remain pretty light until Wednesday so right now there’s no rush.