Zinkwazi

Yep, Auckland. There was a 35-40 knot wind blowing this morning & weather is not going to get better for a day or two. So we delayed as long as we could, fiddling around drinking coffee, having breakfast and checking every weather forecast before heading out to the boat. This in-it-self was a mission as […]

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Friday 11 April 2008 Mangonui Harbour (lost day) Somewhere I’ve gained a day. Oh well, easy to get confused on holiday. Weather forecast is for weather to worsen so we want to be off our dodgy mooring as soon as possible. We had decided overnight that the best thing would be to haul-out. Mangonui has […]

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We were up early, ran donk for an hour to double check that we’d resolved problem, dropped mooring and headed out for Whangaroa. We had last filled out water tanks in Whangaroa so had been conserving water and were fantasizing about long showers once we had filled tanks at the Viagra Falls in Whangaroa Harbour. […]

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We were up early, cast off mooring, and motored down the Houhora channel counting off channel markers as we went. Pretty straightforward. Exited Houhora into a head wind, there was about a 1-1.5m swell but with the 15-20 knot wind there was a lot of chop so sea was quite messy. I did consider putting […]

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Cape Karikari – in the immortal words of Queen “VERY VERY frightening”. Friend of ours lost his boat on the islands off Cape Karikari about this time last year. And according to the The Royal Akarana, 1 of 2 “bibles” we have on board for the Northland coast “only well found yachts equipped to off-shore […]

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Oh dear there has been no cell coverage so you are going to get a whole bunch of these at the same time. I like Houhoro harbour. We went ashore to have breakfast & buy bait. Since Ross & Mark left we have not really done much fishing. When we got back to boat I […]

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We’ve had an awesome day. Well, it did not start well but got better. I always start every day by checking the weather. To do this, I roll onto my back, look up through the hatch (open in good weather & closed in bad). From this position I have a good view of the sky […]

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It has been a rainy overcast day. We went to the local market this morning – fell on the second hand book stall like ravenous wolves, we are always worried we aregoing to run out of reading material. I visited all the galleries while Rob sat on a  bench watching the harbour. Exhausting so we […]

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We left Whangaroa at about 10:30 and it was so rough going out the entrance both Rob and I had reservations about heading north. But once clear of the entrance, the sea was more settled and Zinkwazi lifted her skirts and romped along under full main and about 75% of our genoa in a 15 […]

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3 April 2008 Whangaroa Marina, Whangaroa No, I am not back in Auckland. But I am now a blogger. www.zinkwazi.co.nz My Greg (middle of my clever sons) has set up my website so that I can email through updates. To test it I have been sending out daily updates (also because there is good cell […]

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