We said our farewells to Dean as he set off to crew another yacht back to Wellington! Pete and I headed to land and spent a few nights at my parents place in Kerikeri and had lots of cuddles with Monty. He seemed pretty chuffed to have us around, or it may have just been his tucker time!
After living on board for the last 8 weeks, it was such a treat to have a home cooked meal, sleep in a large comfy bed, enjoy a hot shower, even the ease of clicking the kettle to boil the jug! I was surprised how much I was aware of all the space around me. It certainly makes you appreciate all the little things in life.
We were looking forward to taking the family out sailing around the Bay of Islands. Having a couple of nights off, we took them out to Motuarohia Island – a favourite spot of ours. We all took a walk up to the lookout, enjoyed lunch on board, a few swims before we sailed back into Opua.
We hadn’t done much anchoring as we’d signed up to use the crusing clubs moorings through out the Sounds, most areas down there are not great holdings to anchor in. We knew we wouldn’t have that luxury here and we’d have to get the hang of anchoring.
Before we left Mana we’d arranged to use a swing mooring in Opua until they arrived later that month. This was super handy as it gave us a chance to organise and repair a couple of things we had planned for Nagu.
We called in and saw the team at Great Escapes Sailing, we had chartered one of their boats early last year (mainly to see if we could actually consider buying, sailing and living on a yacht). Our sailing instructor was there and was stoked to hear our journey and see Nagu moored just off from them. We headed over to the crusing club for dinner with them all, they had so many questions and wanted to hear all about our adventure.
We’ve had some super hot days here which has made for some warm uncomfortable nights but it’s been so nice being back in the far north. We’ll get through this list of boat chores then we’ll be off again exploring!
Lucy Kershaw Sailing 