Cruisin' home

Still night and beautiful morning in Whangamumu as we rose at dawn to ready for the final leg back home.

 Drifting slowly off the anchorage (no speed records today!) we practised some light air sail trimming with 'Herbie' the Gennaker as we edged out towards Cape Brett, accompanied by some fine freshly brewed Tanzanian coffee...


The wind slowly built from the North, with a predicted change to SW later in the day.  We didn't want to get back to the Marina too early as docking is a lot easier on an incoming tide - due to change at 1430hrs.

Deep Water Cove

Decided to detour for lunch into Deep Water cove - beautiful spot and pristine still.  The old frigate Canterbury is 'buried' not far outside the entrance and several dive parties were in evidence.

Back on track we headed inside the Hope reef passage to make excellent time in a 15kt northerly, which promptly died as we reached Roberton island.  20 mins later the SW filled in, building to 15-20kts which gave us a cracking beat home most of the way up the estuary.

A tricky entry into the marina berth with the strong tail wind counteracting the tide - but eventually lines were attached and we were snug once more at home base.

Some links to videos of the Tutakaka-Whangamumu leg below... plus some stills from the video.

http://youtu.be/yu8UvxITMe0
http://youtu.be/pbnzK80pf_U

What displacing 4-5 tonnes of water looks like...

7+ knots - no problem!