Well, Great Barrier was butt ugly after we hit Bowling Alley Bay. Winds and Williwaws in the bay ran up to 35 knots. Rain – well imagine torrential. Didn’t drop until 1900.
So much for heading off to Great Mercury (owned by a friend of Joe’s) Deb took advantage and had a great rain day sleep. I was just tired and bored. New plan was to leave at 0530 the next morning and head for Whanagmata before the southerlies (forecast to 30 plus knots) and low tide arrived (river bar entrance and shallow harbor).
I went to bed early when the wind dropped to 10 knots. Slept until 0200 and then was up once an hour checking things. Just the way I am.
The 7 hour trip down south to Whangamata was delightful. More good news since the Coleville Channel between Coramandel and Great Barrier is infamous in NZ. The Pacific squeezes between the two and add in wind and current and it has a deservedly fierce reputation. Today it treated us kindly with just confused seas. Iron Lady was making good time.
Lots of nice pictures on the way down. These is a view along the Coramandel Peninsula.
Hear are some nice views of Needle Rock.
We also had some dolphins join us – fish pictures seem to escaping me at the moment.
Here is a picture of Castle Rock.
Whangamata – well – a new experience. Great marina – just nerve racking getting in. High tide was around 1000 – we arrived around 1300 at the peak of the outbound tidal flow. Not many options since we couldn’t get in at low and didn’t want to arrive on an incoming tide. Tides here run at 2.5 meters plus so you can imagine the current. Then there were winds building to 35 knots this afternoon from the southwest had we arrived later. Not a pretty picture. Best scenario would have been to arrive just after the top of the tide when outgoing flow was establishing. That is probably what I will do next time (in a similar situation) even though it would have meant a 0300 departure from Great Barrier. If we had gotten to Great Mercury, it would have only been a 3 hour run so it would have been easy.
Crossing the river bar tested my nerves in tidal flow that looked to be over 5 knots. Once inside, the tidal flow eased only slightly and there were long rows of pilings parallel to the tidal flow with boats moored between them. It was difficult to ascertain which alley to take. Once further down, the entrance channel to the marina was not clear to me so I had to hold station in an area about two boat lengths long and one wide surrounded by boats, pilings and no water. Making the turn in to what we thought was the marina entrance channel meant making a turn and that put us broadside to the tidal flow – not a place to make a mistake.
It exceeded my ability to hold station for very for long and I asked Joe to take over. Being practical, Joe suggested we tie up to a channel marker until we could get things sorted. (Kiwi for getting things sorted out)
Folks from the marina were kind enough to come out and guide us in. Just to add some additional spice, a large catamaran outbound met us in the narrow twisty entrance channel – fortunately with his shoal draft, he could slide outside the channel enough for us to pass. Once inside the break wall, things were cool and I took over to back the boat into her slip.
Here is a picture of our route in – much more imposing in real life. You can see where we held station.
A picture as we approached the bar.
And a picture looking back out of the marina.
Unfortunately, no good shots of the tidal flow and the congestion inside the bar – I was a bit busy at the time.
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