Woke early (even before the birds?)to a beautiful morning in Whangaruru, having arrived there last night and anchoring in the upper reaches of the harbour, near Bland Bay.
Such a nice morning, we decided to go ashore and explore. According to the local tourism blurb..."Bland bay is an undiscovered piece of Northland Paradise with a huge reputation for great fishing, diving and recreational water sports.
- 65kms north of Whangarei, 30kms south of Russell
- Fishing and diving at your doorstep
Evidently this area is of particular significance to Ngatiwai, who are the tangata whenua (Local tribe). Uhimoanariki, the first ancestor of Ngapuhi, named this place "Whangaruru" while sailing up the coast. Legend has it that iIt took Puhi a long time to find a good sheltered place to settle, so when he did he named it "Whangaruru" Whanga (to wait), ruru (to shelter), or alternatively the sheltered harbour. There are a number of Pa's (fortified Maori settlements) like this one we climbed just outside the cluster of holiday homes. You can see the ridges that were made for the fortifications on the right side of the hill.
Decided to head further down the coast to Teal Bay after contacting an old buddy, Paul Mcintosh who was up at the family bach for the weekend. Tried to find a suitable anchorage within the bay in several locations, but were either on a lee shore where we would be reluctant to leave the yacht unattended, or we couldn't find good holding. The wind was gusting up over 15 kts but we eventually found shelter near an almost completed multi-million dollar house being built by, according to the locals, a Russian millionaire who had purchased the local farm for $15mill in order to get access to the beach-side property. It was great to catch up with Paul and Christine, there with their oldest daughter, Alice. Paul and I were part of the legendary Balunatix, infamous as much for their practical jokes as their singing prowess and mastery of the well-known "Dead-Ants" antics - well before 'planking' became popular!
We headed back to the boat late afternoon in the ever-reliable rubber ducky with the little 2.5 Merc doing a splendid job on the 2 kms leg across to the other side of the bay. The wind was predicted to back from the NW into the South, so we decided to head up the coast to one of my favourite anchorages, Whangamumu. A deep enclosed harbour which is a safe anchorage in almost any wind direction. Some of the yachts were expected to hold up there on their way back after completing the Coastal Classic race from Auckland to Russell the previous Friday. We had seen some of the stragglers on our way down from the Cape.
Unfortunately the wind stayed very light and stubbornly in our faces so we ended up motoring most of the way on the 13 nautical miles back up the coast. The new prop and serviced engine are going really well, with 2300rpm giving us 5.6-5.8 kts. We tried a range of revs to see what worked the best - with 2900rpm pushing us to our theoretical hull speed of 6.8 knots. Throttling back to 2200-2300 is however, a lot more economical!
We set up way-points on the marine GPS as we expected to arrive on dusk and the entrance to Whangamumu is quite narrow and long, with jagged rocks either side about 100m apart.
About half a dozen boats already anchored still left plenty of room and we cooked a late dinner of steak and pasta to top off another great day.
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