Happy New Year! We came around to Hahei beach for the day. Nice spot - very busy. Good brewery ashore too!

Finally out of the marina, and anchored for the day. No wind, so we’ll hang here until tomorrow morning when we find out if we can still sail!

Rapidly becoming our favourite spot to anchor in the harbour…

Moved down to Whenuakura island (also known as Donut island). It’s interesting because it’s a former volcanic vent in which the lava tubes have collapsed, leaving a tunnels through and into the centre of the island.We’ll stay here for an explore, possibly staying the night. Then Tauranga and Duplicat’s new home berth tomorrow!

We moved on down to Slipper Island - which given the holidays and the weather was incredibly popular. This panorama was taken before it got truly manic.We anchored a way out, but as it got busier and busier, it got more and more crowded around us. We were enjoying the people and boat watching. I must say, I’ve not seen such bad anchoring and jet ski behaviour since Columbia on New Year’s day! High speeds around anchored boats when people are swimming is just asking for trouble! Just when we

Beautiful but absolutely manic on a New Year’s Day!

Happy New Year from Whitianga…

What a perfect little bay! Just enough room for a few vessels to swing at anchor, protected from the wind we expect tonight. We have it to ourselves now which makes it pretty heavenly!We had a brief walk ashore but couldn’t find a track through to Coralie Bay on the east side of the island - but we could see the masts of the yachts anchored there rolling pretty well. Glad we’re this side.Tomorrow, we’ll look along the south side of the island, but with the wind shift coming, we’ll head t

We had a wonderful day ashore at Great Barrier - visiting Aotea Brewing again along with a number of great hikes. In fact, Aotea Brewing had just got their licence to sell, and we were officially their first customers! It was nice to have a pint after the hike to the hot pools and a walk along the beach. We also filled our growler again :)The weather the next day was a bit average, and so we ticked off a few boat jobs (mainly trying to work out why the water flow through the starboard engine was

We’re back on Aotera (Great Barrier island). Yesterday was light winds, and plenty of rain, so we opted to move south rather than sit onboard for another day. The weather here is better today, and tomorrow we’ve got a car hired on the island to do some more exploring.Currently anchored at Smokehouse Bay, a place we’ve not been since February and the cyclone that we experience here. Much calmer today! We’ll do some walking ashore on Motu Kaikoura today…

After a couple of rainy days in Whangaroa where we really couldn’t get off the boat, we decided to chase the better weather down south. So we’re now in Whangaruru (a new anchorage to both of us - though I have anchored in Whangamumu before).Its going to be windy but hopefully less rain. We’re well protected, tucked up in the inlet, with plenty of protection ahead of us. Bland bay over the spit looks much more exposed!We’ll spend Christmas here, and then look to head out to Great Barrier

Its been a while since Duplicat has ventured beyond Whangarei Heads and out into the ocean. So after (quite a bit of) fettling, we splashed, recommissioned things and left.It was a long day of motoring, sailing and motoring again, but we dropped the hook in Papatara Bay off Motukawanui Island in the Cavelli group.It was pleasantly suprising how things came back to us, and how much wasn’t broken - but there were a few issues. The solar string which had stopped working came back after the MPPT b

Relocating to the Waikato for a while…

Given that Starlink gives us pretty good and near permanent connectivity and my side project to reverse engineer how Victron broadcasts the status of their kit - I thought it time to have some fun.You’ll notice a new menu item above - Tech Status. This will give a near real-time update on the status of our house bank - both amp-hours consumed and current. Also the output of our solar panels. These are graphs for the last 6 hours at the moment, I’ll try to make these 24hrs soon.So an example

We were having increasing difficulties with the Iridium Pilot system we used mostly for email onboard Duplicat. It was an old system but the aerial was showing signs of failing - and this had happened before. However, last time it was in warranty and Iridium replaced it (despite the claim by Mailasail that the warranty did not apply to us, just to the service provider). This time, Iridium have their new satellites and would prefer you to be on their Certus system. Which means new kit (roughly £

We anchored off Rangiahua Island in the group known as the Broken Islands this morning. We’ll stay here overnight and head south tomorrow. It’s a lovely spot, especially since the sun came out this afternoon. We’re making lots of water, batteries and full and thinking about a bit of Paddleboarding. Its a bit tough to know if we can go ashore here - but its quite rocky, so not ideal for the dinghy.We opted to stay on the boat. I had some work to do, and we have a few boat jobs to do as well

We’ve loved being at Great Barrier. The sheltered harbour of Port Fitzroy has lots of nooks and crannies to explore. We had a great time ashore walking on Kaikoura island, going back a couple of times. Its easy to leave the dinghy attached to the pontoon there whilst doing a 16km lap of the island…Then the story was all about the storm. We had know it was coming, and opted to stay in a little bay just south of Kaikoura. This would give us plenty of shelter from both the wind and the swell. T

As we were leaving the harbour, Nina snapped this picture of the sunrise over the Heads.This morning, its rather greyer with some rain, but we’re hoping it improves soon so we can go hiking.I should also mention that I forgot to say we saw 2 pods of dolphins as we sailed out yesterday. The first pod was of some large dolphins and they stayed with us a while. Didn’t get any pictures or video though. We’ll try harder next time :)

Shortly after 6am, coffee in hand, we pulled up the anchor and motored out of the bay and down the harbour. There were quite a few locals out in small boats, fishing. Typically New Zealand.Once clear of the harbour entrance (about an hour from the anchorage), we had the main up (one reef) and full genoa and we were making good progress. The wind sat between about 12-14knots, just aft of the beam giving us a nice 7-8knots over the ground. We kept the pace up apart from a few lulls, all the way in

We’ve had enough of waiting for NZ Immigration to get their act together, so we’re off sailing. It’s been a while, so we’ll have to see if we can remember what to do!This morning, at high tide, we slide out of our berth, backed down the aisle and turned in the river. The bridge lifted and we headed down the harbour to anchor in Parua Bay for the night. I’ve had a swim, checked the hulls and the remarkable amount of rain we’ve had has been good for the hulls. No growth and no barnacle