Whangarei
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Mon 9 Dec 2013 06:13
Last anchorage in Bay of Islands - Whaiwapukupano, Salsa is in the middle showing her bow Left the anchorage this morning and the ocean was calm as we never seen before close to NZ. Just large loooooooooooong swell and 8 knots of wind. Up went the gennacker and it was the most peaceful sailing we had for a very long time! Like sailing along a romantic painting, with the shores of NZ on our starboard. Light, pristine green fields rolling along interrupted by some forest patches and some single big trees standing in the middle of the fields. Clouds above playing with shadows and letting the sun cast rays on the green. Birds chasing schools of fish around us. Salsa moving along with a slow pace, the water making that peaceful sound that makes you want to go to... On the port side the ocean is intense blue with some strange volcanic islands shooting out of the water. No other boats are around us. None, just us and the ocean and the coast. No Autopilot today, we had to hand steer all day until I finally found the problem and fixed it in the afternoon. But the nice thing about hand steering is that you are forced to really sit there and LOOK. Just before turning around the corner to get into the entrance to Whangarei river we caught a fish. A beautiful fish that was just enough for a dinner. It looked like a streamlined cod, but the meat was more like mackerel. We had it with boiled mashed potatoes and melted butter. MMMMMMMMM! Now we are at anchor again, it is no use to fight the tide upriver, we loose 2 knots in the water flowing out. So tomorrow we will start to work up to the town (12nM) on a curving narrow river. Look forward to a change. We will have a favorable current after breakfast. Andreas took the opportunity to learn to hand steer as we had no Autopilot, he had a really good feeling for it! (Erika knows it already) |