Whitianga, the joy of being tide rode.
Coralie Bay on Mercury Island, near Whitianga
A long time ago we sailed into Whitianga Harbour in Wild Honey the Hartley RORC 32 I had just built. (See Cruising Helmsman, June p 18) The Admiral and I were on a ‘maiden voyage’ in May, 1978. Also on board were two crew- a student of mine from Tauranga Boy’s college and a friend of a friend who thought that yacht cruising was a case of days on end of ocean bashing and heroic harbour entries. He didn’t realise that cruising was sheltering from gales, exploring the hinterland, fishing, maintenance, chewing the fat, cooking, bread making, eating and more maintenance. It was generally low level debauchery and indolence.
In those days culinary excellence made itself manifest in the SHERRY LOG.
Whip a bottle of cream into submission. One by one, soak a chocolate chip cookie in sherry (or your favourite tipple) and sandwich it in the whipped cream, building up the whole lot as a log on a plate. Leave an hour or two and enjoy. Do not drive.
We cruised into the Coromandel township of Whitianga, offloaded one crew, then walked two miles to a pub in rain for a meat pie and a pint. Whitianga was a depressed rural town recovering from heavy exploitation of its forests.
Fast forward 33 years to another Wild series, the Wild Bird with two wrinkled hedonists aboard. We anchored in the river as we had done so before, ignoring the flash new marina and picking a narrow spot beside a marked channel. Many other boats were moored here, on proper blocks, and we had no trouble with the plough and 25 metres of chain resetting itself in the swift river current every six hours. As long as the wind was abeam.
Flashback, Opua estuary 1980. Ten metres of chain and rope warp was used then, also in a fairly swift stream. At 2am (nautical events always happen at this time) we awoke to the boat feeling weird. The tide had changed, and the rope wrapped around the keel when the wind rode us over the anchor. Wild Honey anchored side onto the current, the rope caught on the aft of the keel. Solution – buoy the anchor warp and set it free, start the motor and then retrieve the buoy and anchor gear. Lesson learnt.
Rewind to the present again. Wild Bird in a 4 knot current at 4am with a SW wind blowing up our jacksee rides over the chain at low water, causing the chain to make a din as it rubs against the bottom of the keel. That’s the end of that idea, and soon a call to the very helpful harbour master has us safely installed on a solid recently inspected mooring. We’ve tried Tauranga for a berth in a marina, but there are too many hoops to jump (one marina is full, and the other demands insurance be kept) and besides, the weather for getting there is nothing short of abysmal now for the trip down.
