We spent one month in Whangarei after we returned to New Zealand from our 5 month stay in Norway. We got an AirBnb close to the town center, so we could easily enjoy the city amenities we were about to leave behind for some time.
The captain spent most days at the boat yard, where he did a stellar job with preparing Noxoma for our next travels. She probably won’t be on the hard again for quite some time, so we had to ensure all of the out-of-the-water projects were completed.
While the captain worked on the yard, the admiral worked on her PC from the AirBnb apartment. She is now working full time, and is very excited that she has found a way to combine the sailing life with a purposeful job along the way.
Our daily routine entailed the captain meeting the admiral around lunch time, when we would go for a little stroll along the river and have a cafe latte. We’ve got to enjoy these city amenities while we still can!
The river walk in Whangarei is really nice, as it leads into the Town Basin marina, where there are several fellow cruisers at the docks. It was nice to bump into familiar faces from the past two years we have spent in the Pacific. We had a lot of “what did you do since last” chats with old and new acquaintances, and we were all wondering when that great weather window to move north would come.
It was now early fall in New Zealand, and the days were still quite warm, and we could wear shorts and a t-shirt. However, the evenings were chilly and demanded long pants and jackets. After spending winter in Norway, we were not particularly eager to stay in New Zealand too far into fall, so the captain actively checked the weather forecast, even though we were still on the hard.
The sailing community is great at helping each other out, and sharing intel. All the boats that came into New Zealand are now planning the post cyclone season sail North. Most are planning to go to Fiji, like us, but some are also going to Tonga (where we came from last year) or west of Fiji, to Vanuatu or New Caledonia.
We took the occasional chance to explore some of the immediate surroundings around the city. The area is quite known for its glow worm caves, which we still had not gotten around to explore. The captain brought his camera along, and we found a self guided cave which had a plethora of glow worms in it. It felt like we were inside a night club, and we really enjoyed the experience. The shots turned out pretty good, as well!
When our splash day was approaching, the boatyard manager came up to our boat, and let us know that they were not able to finish the work, and we needed to postpone the splash. We used the extra time on land to ensure we had the boat fully stocked up.
We stayed another week on the hard, and finally splashed on May 13th.
We were eager to get on the water, as we had seen a decent weather window coming up. This meant checking out of the country and leaving the following day after we splashed.
We spent a day anchored on the Whangarei river, before we made our way south to the river mouth, where we checked out of Marsden Cove on May 14th. Fiji, here we come!
