New Years trip to Waiheke

Monday 31st December 2007 Frenchie, Sam and Ben set out for the boat at 9.00am. Ben and Sam rowed out and ran her aground for loading of New Year essentials while Frenchie moved his car. We motored out of the bay, raised the main and unfurled the genoa soon afterwards. The wind picked up as we passed North Head and we cut the engine. We were soon overtaken by a Russian Navy ship, which Ben and Frenchie took pictures of for about half an hour yielding the two photos below. Heading towards the gap between Browns Island and Musick Point, Ben wired a switch up to the new navigation lights and had Frenchie on the bow checking them. All of a sudden Frenchie shouted "Rock!" and we stopped suddenly as we slammed into West Bastion Reef about half a metre below the surface. We quickly dropped the sails and reversed off the rocks with the outboard. We then headed around Browns Island, no damage done.

The wind dropped off a bit and we motored for a while and Frenchie produced some manwhiches. Sam jumped into the dinghy to give it a good bailing, which aided our speed before we cut the motor for a swim. Frenchie delighted us with the usual swimming drama by making a big kufufle out of getting back onboard.

Around 3.00pm we cranked the outboard and headed straight for Otakawhe Bay where we arrived at 4.50pm. We ran aground, unloaded and moored ready for New Years celebrations.

New Years afternoon we beached the boat, scraped the old name off and removed all signs of the previous and new name. Ben then asked forgiveness from Poseidon and Frenchie did his business on the bow. The Tui in the Hand vinyl decal was then applied and our newly named ship was remoored.

Wednesday 2nd January 2008 we departed Otakawhe Bay around 10.15am into a calm sea. We all cranked our first Tui's in our hands since the renaming and set forth towards Devonport. An uneventful bus massively enjoyable time was had cruising home. We managed to avoid all hidden reefs by following other boats between Browns Island and Halfmoon Bay and made such good time that we decided to detour past the harbour bridge before arriving at the mooring at 5ish. Success!