You gotta love the names! We went all of 15 miles from Whangamumu's former whaling station protected harbor to Whangaruru's Puriri Bay. We thought we could sail and gave it a good try, but the southwesterlies were stronger than we hoped and right on the nose along with the seas...so it was very slow going. It took about five hours to make that short distance.
We are settled into a bay that has a campground on the shore. There are lots of very fancy tents set up. Some look to be five room tents- tent technology has come a long way. So much for "roughing it." There are also lots of SUP (stand up paddleboards), kayaks, small boats and tenders near shore, so lots of activity.
We enjoyed our time in Whangamumu getting two good hikes in – though the "all uphill" climbs were tiring on the legs that hadn't seen much exercise recently! We spent some time socializing with old friends and made some new ones as well. We played some Sequence and "Settlers of Catan" with Sandy and Rankin and just enjoyed our time at anchor.
Puriri Bay isn't as pretty as Whangamumu but it is well protected from any swell. The wind has been changing direction 180 degrees every day so anchoring is an ever-changing proposition. We have been having South-west winds in the mornings and evenings and north to northwest winds in the afternoons. You just have to make sure you have good swinging room in the anchorage to go the various directions. The last day in Whangamumu was very crowded as boats are now making the move either south or north and this is a good stopover point on the North Island as people go between Auckland and the Bay of Islands. There were several quite large mega-yachts in the anchorage on that last day as well as the whole collection of very small to our size – both sailboats and motor launches. That made for good entertainment watching the boats come, drop anchor and then leave. Being there a few days, we had seniority in the anchorage.
Now in Puriri, there are not many boats (yet) – but a few. We'll decide later after checking the forecast again if we stay or leave here tomorrow. Another front is working its way across the island so some bigger winds are predicted for Thursday.
For now, we continue to enjoy our "zero dollar" days and time at anchor.
Tuesday, January 16, 2017
Lat: 35 22.01s
Long: 174 21.40e
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At 12/14/2016 2:09 AM (utc) S/V Astarte was located at 35°18.95'S 174°07.22'E
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