On the Manawanui in the Bay of Islands

We got up early Thursday morning, loaded our pile of gear into the car and drove down to the wharf at Paihia. I deposited Miriam and the gear at the wharf, drove the car back to Cap’n Bob’s, parked on the grass just in front (with Mervin’s blessing), and walked back to the wharf to find Miriam talking with a fellow connected to our sailing tour.

We had booked a three day, two night “ecocruz” on the Manawanui, a 72 foot, steel hulled, cutter rigged ketch. The Manawanui will hold ten, but there were just two more signed up for this trip: “Sam” and “Lynn.” Sam and Lynn are a Belgian couple who have been working in New Zealand. Sam’s education is in entomology and related areas, and he has been working for a company that breeds bugs to eat other bugs. Lynn is a social worker, and she has been working with disabled folks. They converse among themselves in Dutch, but speak quite good English.

Our hosts are Joachen (“John”), Lilly and Moby. John was born in Germany, spent a bunch of time working in the U.K., moved to NZ and used an advance on his inheritance to purchase the Manawanui. He bought it about eight years ago at an excellent price from folks who had spent their money fixing its basics, ran out of money, and had to sell. He spent about a year and a half fixing it up, and has been running tours ever since. He is 6’4” tall, bearded, and pushing 40.

Lilly is from England, probably in her 20’s and quite a bit shorter; she has to stand on a box to steer. She has a smaller boat she sailed here from England; in the off season she sails North to Tonga and dives.

Moby is a seagoing mutt. Short haired, mostly brown and tan, and fun. He spends a lot of time resting his elbown on a bench and his head on the railing, looking out at the ocean. He gets excited at the words “fish” or “dolphins.”

They are both delightful, as is the Manawanui. Because of our mound of luggage and the dobro we are given a cabin on the port side with a double bunk running across the room and a single running at right angles to it on the left. There is plenty of room to store our luggage under the double bunk. I keep mentioning the luggage because normally we would have left most of it in the car, but the guide books all say that anything left in the car is likely to be stolen. The cabin has a porthole; this satisfies both our need for romance and our need for fresh air.
The Bay of Islands is closer to the equator than most of New Zealand, and is often described as “hot” or “semitropical.” I’m sure it is, but not right now, in the Spring, during our visit. We have to bundle up with most of our warmer clothes to stand on deck. But we love to stand on deck, so a bit of chill is worth it.
We sail out in search of dolphins. There are two kinds commonly found here, and a lot of the service providers here advertise the opportunity to “swim with dolphins.” Our hosts are of an ecological orientation, and don’t offer dolphin swimming except in the unlikely case where the dolphins want to swim with us. John has a great cartoon posted in the cabin. It shows two dolphins swimming along chatting. One says to the other “If I could do just one more thing in life it would be to swim with a middle-aged human couple from Connecticut.”
We do find a pod of oceanic dolphins, but the wind and seas are a bit high (6 foot seas). The trip out apparently reminds Miriam and Lynn of how some birds feed their young by ingesting, partially digesting, and then regurgitating their food. They decide to try this with the local fish, but there was no lasting evidence it worked. Lynn even had aiming problems, and hit a lot more of the boat than the ocean.
They both were done by the time we sighted the dolphin pod, and the experience was a lot of fun. The dolphins are amazingly fast swimmers; they easily catch up to, and keep up with, the boat. We see them surfing swells and riding along with the bow. We all wish we could swim like that.

We have a very late lunch (about 3:00 pm), which is tasty. We then sail to a sheltered cove because higher winds are predicted. We ride the dinghy in for a short hike up one of the steep islands for a beautiful view of the islands in the glowering, grey twilight.
We go out fishing with Lilly in the dinghy until the sun sets, while John cooks dinner. We get nibbles, but the only catch is mine. It’s snapper with pretty blue spots. Everyone in the boat agrees that it is larger than the piece of squid I was using as bait. Lilly unhooks and releases it so it can return to kindergarten.
Amazingly, we are hungry again by the time dinner is ready, and dinner is awesome. Deliciously barbecued steaks (mine is about 12 inches long and 7 inches wide), new potatoes, scrumptious cabbage salad, garlic bread and fruit. The cruise is BYOB and, having been warned, we pull out a bottle of NZ Chardonnay and share it round.
We fall asleep easily, the boat rocking in the swells, cool air flowing in through the porthole, and under a quilt that really actually almost gets us completely warm.
The next day we wake up, have a good breakfast, and sail out to a spot where we can kayak about the shore and into sea caves. We don wetsuits, which are delightfully warm. We have not used the “sit on top” style of kayaks before, but find them easily maneuverable and fun. There is an algae bloom in the water this time of year, so underwater visibility is not great, but it is great to be paddling about the rocky, craggy shoreline.
After kayaking we have lunch. Lunch is an amazing, thick, delicious quiche. We are sure this cruise was not billed as a gourmet experience, but it could have been. And the quantities are huge!

After lunch we sail to our evening mooring, and dinghy over to the island for a short but almost vertical hike to the top of the island where we get great views in all directions and see a Maori cemetery.

We climb back down, dinghy over to the boat and sit down while dinner is prepared. It being a sea cruise I have followed the British naval tradition and brought along a bottle of rum. We share with Sam, Lynn and Lilly (John doesn’t drink, at least on duty) and get to know each other better.

Dinner is amazing. Huge pieces of chicken cooked with ham and cheese inside and spices on the out, assorted accompaniments, and home-made apple strudel for dessert. Sam and Lynn share a bottle of Chardonnay. We consume it all with gusto, but Miriam begins to fret that she must have a tapeworm because she can not otherwise understand how she can eat so much.

We fall asleep, again to the rocking of the waves, again warm enough – but not toasty warm.

Our final day begins with a leisurely breakfast, a trip in the dinghy to the beach so Moby can have a pee, and a short trip to beds of green-lipped mussels. We don wetsuits and are given brief instructions on snorkeling, and are given permission to swear loudly in the language of our choice when we enter the water (or, more precisely, when the water enters our wetsuits). The water is COLD! But it is fun.

It is near low tide, so the mussel beds are only about 8 feet down. The water is murky, but it is exciting to be so near the rocks and moved back and forth by the waves that break on them. At first none of us see mussels, and then we see them everywhere. I discover the wetsuit actually is working, and my breathing rate slows to only about 150% of normal. The larger mussles are about 9-10 inches long. It takes some strength to pull them off the rocks, and we scrape a bunch of skin off our hands, but feel inordinately proud of ourselves.
We harvest a little over a dozen, flipper back to the dinghy, haul ourselves in, and return to the Manawanui. We get out and I discover that it’s a lot warmer on the deck in the wetsuit than it was in the water in the wetsuit. I hang out with Miriam (who wisely decided to pass on mussel gathering and remains wrapped in dry clothing) while Sam and Lynn use the shower, then I take my turn. There is something truly glorious about a warm shower.

We then motor over to “hole in the rock” and then have a late lunch. We help Lilly cut the mussels open. About half their meat clings to one shell and about half to the other. John puts them on the barby, shell down, and dollops them with garlic and butter. We stand around and eat them as they come off, using our first shell as a scoop to assist in eating subsequent ones.
If it weren’t for the sea air and the need to maintain body temperature I’m sure we would have been full just eating the mussels. However, John also puts on large lamb rib chops, and Lilly makes a yummy potato salad, and stir fried veggies with cashews. I am ashamed to admit we ate it all.
Then John heads us back to Paihia. It’s about a two and a half our trip. Here's a picture of the cabin on the way back with Lilly steering, with John on the right and Sam and Lynn on the left.

We arrive about 6:00 pm, unload, say goodbye, I walk over and get the car, pick up Miriam and the mountain of luggage, and we check back in to Cap’n Bob’s. Miriam and I both proclaim we have eaten so much that we will simply skip dinner. We open a bottle of wine, have a cracker, look at each other, and head off to town in search of dinner. We each at a pleasant place off the beach, have seafood chowder and garlic pizza bread, and walk back to Cap’n Bob’s. I transfer our pictures from the cameras to the computer while Miriam starts the laundry, we look at the pictures, and I fall asleep. Miriam, bless her heart, finishes the laundry before she crashes.