Oakura Bay 35.23.1 S 174.20.9 Laser attack
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Sun 8 Dec 2013 08:01
It IS cold! The bay was just wonderful. Last night the kids and I went ashore and built a water system from fresh water coming in a small river to the ocean.
Today my head was so full of stuff to write for the new speech that Ellinor went ashore with the kids and I sat down to write.
As the morning was heating up from the sun the sea breeze caught up really strong. So strong, Ellinor could not row back to the boat. The wind was taking the dinghy away.
I was sitting with headphones on but kept the volume low since "you never know" and thank god I could hear them scream.
No other boat in sight (read no dinghies) Ellinor yelled that I pls take the anchor up and pick them up before they disappeared from the anchorage.
I started the engine, and started to pull the anchor just to free the snubber then I saw that Ellinor was getting relieved from the wind and made progress.
When she came on board she fell just on deck totally exhausted. Why no engine? It does not work properly so we decided to save it till Whangarei and get parts etc.
Next thing we had lunch and sailed off, it was rough to get out of the bay. Tall waves and hard wind.
But eventually we came out.
As we sailed along the coast we came to a big rock that is the big attraction around here. It has a big arch.
Two turist boats approached and stayed by the rocks and we where 2 nM from them. I looked at a big yellow catamaran (ferry boat like size) when suddenly a red laser beam stroke right in my eyes. That did hurt and later on my eyes hurt and I got a headache. Ellinor decided we should call the maritime radio and ask for medical advice. As time went on the pain got less and less and we decided to leave it as that. The medical advice from them was just to see if it would hurt more.
They told us there has been incidents with people aiming laser at ferries and airplanes as they land, with dangerous situations following.
It is strange that it becomes more adventurous when you reach "civilization". More help,yes. More problems? yes.
Now we rest for the night in Oakura Bay, we had a round of Yatzy (thank you Anders) and now we will go to sleep early.