Early mornings and final days
As much as I’d like to sail to get to our next destination, instead of motoring, the weather was not playing nice in this department. No wind to speak of for days and days in the forecast. While the lack of wind meant we would have to motor to change our view – a necessity to keep what little sanity we have – it also meant that we could visit a particular anchorage that would otherwise be too rough to stay in. With no wind, there is little to no ocean swell, so off we went on a one-hour motor to return to Urupukapuka Island, but this time we go to the Eastern side of the island to the unimaginatively named “Urupukapuka Bay”.
Side rant; I find that the NZ folks do not bother to add any flare when they name things. They keep it as simple, and as factual, as possible. This applies to a bay on an island as well as their business names. “Bob’s Bakery” is preferred over “Bob’s Fine Baked Goods”. In fact, if an adjective were to get used at all, they would downplay – never up-play – their own ability, “Bob’s Average Bakery”. It is as if there is too great a risk of being sued for false advertising for being anything but exactly factual when naming. Anyway…
We spotted Urupukapuka Bay on our second hike on the island during our last visit. It has a campground full of sheep… seriously. And it is this that became our back yard or the next week or so, while the wind was on vacation. Kerri’s work load has picked up so she really didn’t get out of the boat during our stay here. I started rowing our dinghy to shore, or to explore some area of the water, in the early mornings. This to give us both a splash of alone time each day, and I am desperately trying to reacquire the joy in this sailing life that slowly moved out without notice over the course of 2024.
Eventually we would need to return to a grocery store. Especially considering that our future voyages would take us further and further from easy-to-get-groceries. Back to Russell we motored (still no wind) where we were able to get another good haul for food to fill our mostly empty cabinets onboard. We stayed only long enough beyond the groceries to complete the hike out to the view point up north.
Said hike may have been our most enjoyable in New Zealand so far as the curators of this trail added a lot of cool things like “bug hotels”, and hand made viewing boxes where insects would hide but us humans can see them being a window by opening a trap door, and other trinkets and nature along the path. It did transform a somewhat boring walk into an hour of fun, as if we were back in grade school on a field trip.
Just 1.5 miles across the bay is the town of Pahia. Very touristy and very popular when the cruise ships are anchored nearby. But, when no cruise ship was scheduled to be in port, and the wind was still absent, we actually sailed (not just motored) across to drop anchor nearby town to get in one last restaurant meal before leaving the Bay of Islands on the next wind that would take us up the coast line. We had been to Pahia once before, in the early weeks in the marina’s loaner car, but it was a quick visit of only a few hours. This trip we could take our time and try to enjoy the place a bit more. Although, in the end, not much happened. We ate at a restaurant where we snapped a rare selfie proudly showing off our drinks – hers more manly then mine as usual – and walked the town before calling it a night. I returned the following day to grab an ice cream cone and drop off our last bit of trash so we could head out to more New Zealand adventures.
