36:48.49S 175:28E

Trish and I have sailed Curious away from the fleshpots of downtown Auckland and headed over to the Coromandel Peninsula.

Strong winds and rain kept us tucked away for 3 days on the SE corner of Whaiheke Island in the Harauki Gulf before we were

able to sail 20nm across the Firth of Thames and into Coromandel Harbour.

This large, shallow, sheltered bay is not a harbour at all but does provide a choice of anchorages to suit any weather conditions.

The 3m tidal range and shallow nature of the bay demands a good deal of attention when picking an anchor spot, especially with the

ever changing winds that we have had for the last 5 days or so. As always we chose a lot of swinging room and plenty of scope to enable

us to sleep easily at night and leave her for a few hours while we head off exploring.

                                Curious at anchor with the entrance to Coromandel Harbour in the background

Sadly all of these require a long dinghy ride or as we found out today and even longer walk into Coromandel Township.

The town is the “capitol” of the Coromandel Pensinsula with Tourism, Mussel and  Oyster farming providing the main income sources.

                                The historic old gov’t building, now the DOC and information centre