Red Sky

The old saw is that “a red sky in the morning means sailors take warning”. It means that high pressure is to the east of you (good weather) and low pressure is moving in (bad weather). The weather charts that we are downloading all indicate really bad weather for the next 3 days or so. A series of cold fronts are forecast to move in from the south and the wind is supposed to come up from 35 to 45 knots. Deb took this picture at sunrise confirming same.

In the southern hemisphere, the wind goes north before a cold front and south after it passes bringing cold air up from the antarctic Just the opposite from home. Hence a projected blow from the southwest with rain squalls.

On the way to a more protected anchorage, we were outside and Deb had a friend come and visit. He held just outside of the reach of her hand for about 10 minutes. He is a black petrel.

Once there, the snotty weather called for a change of plans and Deb and I dinked in to Port Fitzroy (one store, one dock, a clinic and a Dept of Conservation Office) and rented a car to tour the island landside.

We toured a marvelous beach, many great overlooks, and Windy Conyon – absolutely stunning stuff, but my Nikon blew a memory card and we lost most of it (Yes Ron – you did warn me). Windy Canyon was almost too spectacular for words and more then a bit scary – once on top, Deb and I looked back down and were terrified. We ended up coming down the top part on our bums.

The following are some shots that Deb took on her Canon.

View off the eastern side of Great Barrier

This small church has no permanent clergy – every week, clergy from a different denomination not from the island or a local person conducts a service.

This is an endangered parrot the Deb caught a picture of.

After Windy Canyon (unfortunately no pictures), we stopped at a small cafe for lunch.

Our intent was to visit some hot springs near Whangaparapara Bay, but is would have taken 3 hours (2 of which were walking) and we were running out of time. The other option was a 2 hour bush walk near Port Fitzroy to a waterfall.

As we were running out of daylight and storms were moving in again, there was no time for swimming. That will come, however, as such places are numerous in New Zealand.

Back to the boat for a wild night at anchor with the winds just howling – but Iron Lady did just fine and with all of the exercise, Deb and slept well.

Next destination is Kowou Island after the winds die.

April 7