Fifty metres across the water from where I sit in the sun on Sauvage’s deck lie the red cliffs of Oneura Bay. Yet again, I am struck by the beauty and diversity of the land around me. Each time I sail to Aotea Great Barrier Island, I fully appreciate how lucky I am to find myself here, visiting shores that are unique to a small number of intrepid sailors. Fifty metres across the water from where I sit in the sun on Sauvage’s deck lie the red cliffs of Oneura Bay. Yet again, I am struck by the beauty and diversity of the land around me. Each time I sail to Aotea Great Barrier Island, I fully appreciate how lucky I am to find myself here, visiting shores that are unique to a small number of intrepid sailors.
In last month’s edition of Boating New Zealand, we wrote that we spent Christmas Day on secluded Beehive Island, a little south-west of Kawau Island. There is something magical about experiencing a part of the world accessible to so few other people.
As planned, we returned home to Cambridge between Christmas and New Year to work, hoping to head out into the Gulf again for the New Year’s holiday.
As I write in mid-January, I can say with honesty that January so far has been truly a mensis horribilis for weather! By the time we were returning to Whangaparaoa for our New Year’s excursion, the weather forecast was telling stories of wild winds and the word we’ve all heard many times since the start of 2023, a ‘cyclone’.
What has really been impressed upon Kirsten and I this January is that, with our cyclonic weather patterns, a sailor must be prepared to take advantage of a spontaneous day-only sail. Our two-and-a-half-hour drive (in moving traffic) to get to Whangaparaoa, along with the needs of our business and staff, makes this difficult, however. Unfortunately, a trip out on Sauvage is not as simple as looking out our kitchen window in the morning, deciding its good sailing weather, and then going. Neither is it as simple as deciding to be ‘leaves in the wind,’ where once we’re out on our sailing adventure, we can return to land as we want.
Over the past three years, as we’ve become more experienced sailors, the pull to be out exploring New Zealand waters has become stronger. With it has come the desire to lead a simpler life – one in which we can spend more quality time with our kids, enjoying their teenage years before they become totally independent. The time spent on Sauvage with our kids has already helped us achieve a small part of this goal but is not enough.
Due to the weather we swapped the New Year holiday cruise in favour of moving onto the boat for a few days to finish off some jobs onboard, the main one being to install the aft head.
Since last February, we have only had one working head on Sauvage. Our experience of living with a few days of toiletby-bucket after the only working head failed during our Xmas cruise, convinced me it was time to get the aft head job finished, especially with our goal of heading back to Aotea Island with seven people on board this summer.
With time on my hands, I spent the few days over New Year completing the aft head, which was a reasonably easy installation process. We’ve now got two working heads!
We also installed the new six-switch control panel which we got months ago but never installed to control the power to the two heads. Last month I installed the pure sine wave inverter, so we installed the (now) backup inverter back into the locker (now in backup position).
A solar controller for one of the panels got retired in December in favour of a controller attached to the wind turbine – but discovered that the new controller is great for the wind turbine, but not so much for its solar ability. So, I re-installed the Victron controller, and its new home much closer to the solar panel is significantly better than the old location.
For the first time ever, both panels are working a treat – I am sitting there watching the app report approaching 700W on panels spec’ed for 800W. I am very happy with that.
We also had a great declutter, we had far too many tools on the boat, so I took a box of them home – we still have a sail locker with tools up the wazoo – but fewer than at the same time a month ago. I have committed to removing some surplus tools on every trip to Sauvage – we will retain a toolbox onboard but bring specialist tools for each job we want to complete.
Still on the radar now is a half-completed transom teak deck job (trivial in a bigger scheme but still needing to be done) and there are a few imperfections in the paint which really bug me. I think I will save that for my winter job this year.
Given that January has been such a write-off for weather, as I write, I consider myself lucky to be at Aotea Great Barrier Island sitting in warm sun. Tomorrow we’ll head back to Whangaparaoa – in a few days we expect another cyclone and don’t want to be caught in it.
This year we have found kai moana significantly easier to harvest than in previous years. While on Great Barrier we have eaten fresh fish, generally snapper, daily – the biggest challenge is concocting exciting ways to eat it all!
After finding Oneura Bay on our walking travels, we decided that we had to move over there – and what a wonderful place it is. We are sharing Red Cliff Cove (aka Oneura Bay) with one other boat in a depth of about 7 metres. The bottom seems like a sandy/clay bottom which, thus far, appears to hold well.
As I look around, the solitude here is amazing. The water is cool and refreshing, the kids are swimming and snorkelling, or sunning themselves on deck – an amazing place to just relax and enjoy what boating can really deliver!
While we were within a 30-minute motor to a shop and a 30-minute walk to an anchorage with many vessels, at Oneura Bay we lapped up the blissful peace and seclusion.
Our only little bit of excitement was when the painter securing the tender got wrapped around the prop. But the kids jumped into the water and untied it with ease – a job well done.
I’ve been thinking about our need to simplify our lives and spend time with the kids – I’d love to try sailing to the Cook Islands and spending a few months there enjoying a less complicated life. While at Smokehouse Bay we met a French family who in five years had sailed from Europe right around the world with their kids. It was inspiring.
We’ve enjoyed such a stress-free time with our kids at Aotea and know that to have more of this lifestyle we need to travel on a journey of self-discovery. Ultimately, we’d like to be free to sail wherever, whenever. BNZ
