Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Usually Helen gets to read my blogs before I send them off and gets to add her perspective. Yesterday I sent it off before she woke up. Largely because she took a long time to wake up – the reason was something I should have blogged yesterday. And that is that during the early hours it rained very, very heavily. This had woken Helen up who’d gone rushing round to close the side ports and doors which normally didn’t let the rain in but in this case could hardly contain the block of water that fell from the sky.

The rain had fallen so heavily it had gotten into the void beneath the rear companionway, from there into the port lazarette and then into the port bilge. My makeshift double pump cobbled together a week or so ago worked fine but it did mean some time had to be spent draining the water out of these spaces during the morning while Helen went on a cleaning round.

Earlier in the morning I had popped around the corner to visit Sagittarius in order to swap hard drives so we could grab hold of movies, TV Series, etc. that we each didn’t have. Copying these onto my laptop took most of the day.

After lunch we took off on an extended tour of the bay in the kayak. Just to the south of us is an area with lots of small islands. Almost all the coastline round hear overhangs the coast by 4-5 feet. Put another way, the sea has eroded the land at sea level causing the rocky land to overhang. For the really small islands the islands seem balanced on a very small base. We were able to paddle the kayak in and out of this maze of small islands and inlets finding small clumps of mangroves inhabited by various birds. In the shallow waters we’d occasional surprise a school of fish which would dart about frantically beneath us.

We then headed over to the islands to the west of us over the other side of the bay where we found two more places where we could explore a maze of inlets and small islands. We returned to Dignity by paddling across the bay against the wind and chop. This left us feeling quite hot so we snorkeled the area near the boat.

The large amount of rain the previous night had left a layer of fresh water floating over the salty water below which made effects which we’d not seen since Niue last year when the various densities of water mixed as we passed through. In general the water was pretty clear and we saw a lot of fish. One of my favourites these days are the clusters of tiny blue fish that hover over a branching coral which then all dive for cover within the coral when one waves one’s hand near. We both got excited at one point when Helen spotted an enormous lobster sitting very still on the sand beneath us. Very still. Too still in fact. It was dead and hollow – perhaps a discarded husk from a recent moult. Oh well – it does mean they’re around somewhere.

At 5:30 Bob and Lynette came over for G&Ts and to return our hard drive. A couple of those and a beer and we were all merry. Once they’d left it was dinner and a bit of a movie before retiring for the evening.

We’ve had a glorious sunrise this morning so perhaps we’ll have a nice day (I don’t think this ‘shepherds warning business applies at sea – after all, where are the sheep?). We’ve had a really nice relaxing time (mostly) here in the Bay of Islands. We’ve really enjoyed our own company and that of others. But it’s time to move on. Right now, we’re still planning on heading back to the village today and staying a couple of nights before moving off completely.