Monthly Archive for November, 2009

BOI: Cape Brett and Hole in the Rock

Of course the next Bay of Islands “must do” was to sail out to Cape Brett for an up close inspection of Percy Island and the famous “Hole in the Rock”. The latter is heaps of fun to explore in a boat that can fit under the arch – there are often thousands of fish schooling in the shadows of the rock.

But ADAGIO needs 25 meters to clear the top of her mast, so there was no chance we were going through :-)

BOI: Urupukapuka Island 10 Nov

We were blessed with good weather in the days right after ADAGIO made landfall in New Zealand. We wanted to show Andrew and Ian around the Bay of Islands a bit, so one of our first adventures was to anchor in Urupukapuka Bay then spend the day walking all over Urupukapuka Island. We still didn’t make every one of the Pa sites. We’ll visit those when the Weindorfs visit around Christmas time.

By New Years we expect the pohutukawa trees to be blazing red all around the island.

BOI: Waipiro Bay

ADAGIO is very happy to be back in NZ’s Bay of Islands. As soon as we were cleared of formalities, bought some groceries, and booked some travel arrangements for Andrew and Ian, we were off to explore. Our first stop was Waipiro Bay – just 1.5km south of Urupukapuka Island – where we plan to hike tomorrow.

We were hoping to find MAGIC DRAGON anchored in Waipiro – and so we did! What a treat, as it has been some five years since we last had Jane and Michel DeRidder aboard. We have a lot of yarns to exchange and catching up to do. More to come in future posts…

One of the bits we learned from Michel was that he had built a house atop the western point of Waipiro some years ago. Subsequently that house was purchased by a new family who decided to build a much more costly/luxurious home in its place. That is just an example of what we are seeing everywhere in the Bay of Islands. “Big money” seems to arrived since we last visited in 2004. We have seen at least a dozen multi-million dollar new estates constructed in the most special BOI positions. I think we will see this repeated as we revisit our favorite anchorages.