Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Yesterday evening was fairly normal except for being invited over to Emily Grace to share desert with them. Kim had baked a pumpkin pie which wasn’t a pumpkin pie but tasted like one. We hung around for about an hour before returning back to Dignity as we were feeling a little tired.

This morning we moved to Whatupuke Island, part of the Hen & Chickens group. The wind was light initially so we motored half way before being able to sail downwind with just the job out. It was foggy most of the way and it was a little nerve wracking coming through the nearby pass with such little visibility. But we made it ok.

We soon had the fishing rod and handline out and not long after were reeling in the snapper. Ben looked up the legal size limit and although the fish were not exactly huge, they were certainly bigger than the number Ben quoted. We caught fourteen in all putting four back as they really were just too small. Five I filleted leaving all the guts intact (giving us five ‘fish frames’ for our crayfish trap) and five I disembowelled so they could be cooked whole. Ben and I then hung the five frames from the roof of the crayfish trap and, now in the rain, dinghied out to set the trap. I then double checked the minimum size limit and came up with a different interpretation to Ben. We may have to use some relavistic style argument to ensure all the fish we kept were above the minimum limit.

The trap with five fish frames looked irresistible. Our hopes are high. We have whole fish and some filets to cook and, no doubt, we’ll be bringing in the crayfish tomorrow morning.

If the current weather forecasts remain as they are we’ll have to hightail it out of here tomorrow as the winds are expect to become strong from the east making this anchorage untenable towards the evening. We’ll be heading west for shelter at the same time getting closer to Whangarei where we’ll spend Xmas. It looks likely that we’ll have Sam’s Godfather / old friend / of Helen and myself and his family over on Xmas day so we’re looking forward to that. They’re over here on vacation and the timing works out perfectly for a visit to the boat.

We set off from Whangamumu fairly early with the intent of reaching Whangaruru before the tide turned allowing us the possibility of taking the dinghy up the nearby river. As we sailed down we changed our minds about the river trip and headed instead for the anchorage at Matapouri Bay quite a bit further south. Some strong northerlies were predicted and we wanted somewhere with protection from that direction. Keeping consistent we changed our minds again and eventually ended up in Tutukaka.

The allure of being reconnected to the internet drew us in and the mountain of stuff to deal with had certainly piled up. Ben needed to make some changes to his website as it has compatibility issues with some browsers. He is getting some interest and needs to get everything properly working.

In the afternoon we went ashore to look around the marina area to see if this is a possible stop for Xmas. Thumbs are down on that front but it was pleasant enough. We found a store and picked up some essentials (bread, custard and ice cream) before returning.

On the way back to the boat we stopped by Emily Grace who are anchored here too. They’d just returned from a day out to Whangarei which is not too far from here. We ended up aboard chatting for a while. As it often does, the conversation came round to boat projects, issues. Tom talked about a chain of issues plaguing is water maker. It all started with an end cap failure like the one we suffered coming out of French Polynesia. In his case the water drenched the control board which suffered some nasty corrosion. Even though the control board has been replaced on warranty and with two days of help from another cruiser, his water maker still wasn’t working. With some experience in these matters I listened to his story and in particular to the history of symptoms. I asked his permission to try something out. With the wooden end of his hammer I tapped the feeder pump. We turned it on and all was working. My suspicion was correct. The sounds he described were just like those when our brushes began to fail. With the unit sitting for a few weeks not doing anything I felt there was a strong chance a tap would do the trick. It did. Tom was happy. I earned a smug grin for the rest of the day. Seriously though. After the hours of cursing and swearing dismantling my assembly and reassembling it, twice, I’m glad someone’s got the benefit of my knowledge learned the hard way.

This morning (and much of this afternoon) I’ve finally done my UK tax return. This has taken some heroic prevarication to get to this point plus a certain amount of long term catch up on vastly distributed paperwork. I’m pleased it’s done.

I’ve also managed to upload all our recent photos so the last few entries have been updated. I also updated yesterday’s text as I forgot to mention our afternoon encounters with the dolphins. That’s now in.

And. I guess you want to know if we caught any lobsters. I can confidently say that I won’t be saying “We caught no lobsters” this time. This is because what I’m going to say “We caught no crayfish” because that’s what they call them here. When in Rome …