The trailing edge of the front finally passed yesterday morning.  I woke to a dawn of misty rain and was not off the mooring until three passing showers later at 1030.

        After powering the first half hour, I set the jib, and with southwest wind varying from five to twenty knots, we made between 4 and 7.6 knots for the next hour, when the wind died away almost completely under a clearing sky before filling in again at six or seven knots from the southeast.  I set the main, and close reached across smooth water toward the narrow gap between Cape Brett and Piercy Island.

        I could have sailed outside Piercy Island, but tired unsuccessfully to sail inside.  The wind was touching the water all the way through the passage when I started, but died away, and though I was in no danger of drifting onto rocks, after a few minutes of sitting with slatting sails, I turned on the engine and powered two hundred yards through the dead spot to wind. 

        Heading south I was close-hauled for four miles, until I lowered the sails, and powered in to anchor.

        To the east of me I think I saw the leading three boats in the Coastal Classic, the 118 mile race from Auckland to Russell.  The race record is an impressive 6 hours and 43 minutes by the maxi monohull, ALFA ROMEO.  I read that the new owner of a 60’ cutting edge trimaran hoped to break that record.  Had the race been run on Thursday, he might have had a chance; but the wind weakened too much by mid-day Friday.

        This is a long weekend in New Zealand, with Monday being Labor Day, and so I thought it unlikely I would have Whangamumu to myself.

        One sailboat was anchored when I entered at 1600, and another sailboat and three small power boats came in before sunset.

        I checked the journal entries and find that I was here twice in 2007, the last time on Sept. 28.

        Last evening the full moon rose right above the narrow entrance to the harbor, so I saw it rise over water for a change instead of land.

        This morning I was up in time to watch it set behind the hills at the other end of the harbor.

        I may pump up the dinghy and row ashore after a while.

        This high is supposed to linger and fine weather is predicted for several days.

        I’ll sail back tomorrow.  Might get a chance to set a spinnaker.

1600

        I did pump up the dinghy after lunch and not only rowed ashore, which I don’t think I’ve done since 1991, but did a circumnavigation of Whangamumu Harbor.

        I don’t know if I have ever mentioned but “Wh” is pronounced as “F” in Maori names.

        I think I have mentioned that this was once a whaling station.

        I landed first at the remains of the station, just an inclined landing and some foundations.  A marker with a few old photographs said the station was in operation from the mid-19th Century until 1940.  It is in a pretty location halfway along the north side of the harbor.

        Pushing off from a rocky landing, I rowed to the west end of the harbor, where there is a narrow strip of sand, and pulled the dinghy far enough up to tie it to a tree.

        Of the six boats here last night, only the other sailboat and HAWKE remained.  There are nine powerboats and eight sailboats at anchor now.  In a past entry, I said the harbor was an oval about a half mile in diameter.  After my row I measured it on the chart, and it is more of an ellipse, a quarter mile wide and ⅔ of a mile long. 

        Whangamumu seems like a volcano, 150 yards of whose northeast rim collapsed to make an entrance.  If so it is an old one, for the surrounding hills are steep, in some places sheer, but not high, and the water is not deep, about 50’ at the entrance and 25’ where I am anchored in the middle.