Trying To Go Coastal 2006 I was doing something I haven’t done for years: waiting for mail. Email and ATM cards have been the biggest improvements in the harbor part of my life over the decades, as self-steering vanes, jib furling gear, and GPS have been the biggest improvements in the sailing part. But one of those improvements was the cause of the delay. My VISA card had been unexpectedly cancelled and was being reissued. In past centuries sailors hesitated to go to sea because of dragons and sea monsters. Now we are delayed by compromised databases. It isn’t such a brave new world after all. One morning the envelope finally arrived. I put it in my pocket and walked down to the Opua General Store where I bought a few odds and ends. The clerk commented that I was Noah. I didn’t understand, until he pointed out that I had two of everything: bottles of Coke-Cola; boxes of crackers; salamis; wedges of cheese; paper towels. I carried my menagerie down to the dinghy and rowed out to The Ark, a.k.a. THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, started the engine, cast off the mooring, and began a mini-cruise to the Hauraki Gulf. My mooring is on the edge of a mooring field, but in late April three dozen boats were at anchor beyond me and I knew that the nearby marina was also full. The migrating fleet was gathering, awaiting the end of the cyclone season in the islands a thousand miles north. THE HAWKE OF TUONELA would not be joining them. Several months earlier I had paid the duty on her, so she could now stay permanently in New Zealand, even though I, myself, could not. There were several reasons for this, among them that I have been to the islands many, many times; that I love the Bay of Islands, where I look around from my mooring fifty times a day and think how beautiful it is; and that a career change made by Carol, my wife, meant a move from Boston to near Chicago, but I did not know precisely when that would take place and did not want to be compelled to return and sail the boat from New Zealand before the normal June 30 deadline. I overhead the conversations about cruising plans, observed the groups huddled around the weather maps, watched diesel mechanics run up and down the docks; but I didn’t share their concerns. I maneuvered THE HAWKE OF TUONELA through the anchored craft, dodged the car ferry a quarter mile north, engaged the tiller pilot and let it steer us a bit slowly up the bay. Our speed was .7 a knot less than it should have been. When I returned to the boat two months earlier I had done something even rarer than waiting for mail. For the first time in countless visits to New Zealand over the past 30 years I went in the water. On that first visit in 1976, I took some Aucklanders out for a sail. I didn’t recognize a stubby foot long bird bobbing on the surface. My New Zealand friends told me it was a penguin, which I assumed was a joke pulled on visiting Americans. I soon learned that the bird was indeed a penguin and made an immediate resolution not to swim with penguins. However, this year I knew that THE HAWKE OF TUONELA had been sitting for several months and her folding prop and shaft would be foul, so I went in. The water that was 67°F. Hardly tropical, but endurable. But visibility was not good and I became cold before I had cleaned the entire hull. Our reduced speed proved we still had hitchhikers. A half hour later where the bay opens up to a couple of miles wide between Pahia and Russell, enough wind came up for us to sail, but it lasted for less than a mile, and I furled the jib and restarted the engine before I made the turn east to find an anchorage among the islands just off the mainland. I don’t suppose I will ever anchor at all the possible places in the Bay of Islands, but I have my favorites, depending on the wind. With no wind, the choice was problematic, though east was predicted. I bypassed the closest of my favorites, Roberton Island, protected from the north and east, because I had been there most recently, and continued a few miles further to Paradise Bay, protected from the east and partially the north and south. That openness to the west is what I like about Paradise Bay. It imparts a feeling of spaciousness, particularly in late afternoon when the sun is low above the islands and shadows are long. This was the week after Easter, which is a long school holiday in New Zealand, and there were more boats on the water than usual. Two were anchored in close to shore at Paradise Bay, and later on deck, I watched another make long tacks across the barely ruffled surface of silver water, and thought for the ten millionth time that there are few things as graceful as a boat under sail. After dinner of freeze dry lamb fettuccini on deck as the sunset, I went below, turned on the masthead anchor light, and watched one of the movies I had copied back in the U.S. from television onto DVD. When it ended I went on deck and found the anchor light was out. It is an expensive LED guaranteed to last much longer than I am, and its extinction reaffirmed my intention to perform the long overdue task of rewiring the 30 year old THE HAWKE OF TUONELA. I had forced my hand by ordering a new circuit breaker panel which should be awaiting my return, so I would have no more excuses. In the meantime I dug up my back-up anchor light and hung it from the radar mount. I was awake at first light in an overcast gray sky and raised the anchor at 7:00 a.m. My course was 7 miles east to round Cape Brett, the southern entrance to the Bay of Islands, and then 30 miles south to Tutukaka. As I powered out to clear the next two small islands and enter the main body of the bay, a narrow channel between islands tempted me. At low tide and calm conditions, the many rocks were visible, so I headed in. Toward the east end it was like entering a pass through a reef, with waves breaking not far off either side. They made the early morning interesting. Once in deeper water I set sail, full main and a partially furled jib because the predicted light east wind was blowing 18 to 20 from the southeast, where it remained all day. By noon the wind had dropped below 10 knots and THE HAWKE OF TUONELA was moving smoothly under a partially blue sky, with Tutukaka Head in view 12 miles ahead and the Poor Knights Islands, where I was once almost shipwrecked, off to the east. In March 1976 I was in EGREGIOUS on my first circumnavigation and had been continuously at sea for five months, three of them south of 40°. I was trying to reach Auckland for repairs. But headwinds in the Tasman when I was trying to go northeast turned with me to become headwinds once I rounded North Cape and was trying to go south. Another grey dawn found me only a mile to windward of the Poor Knights, when the mainsail, already repaired countless times, tore all the way across. EGREGIOUS had no engine and we were rapidly driven to leeward. I hand stitched the sail, already so often repaired that it was unusable below the second reef; but it tore again as I raised it. Waves were smashing into sheer rock faces close astern. I stitched the sail again, raised it successfully this time, and EGREGIOUS doggedly clawed her way off, almost in resignation, as though to ask: how much more can you ask of me? I looked over at the Poor Knights sitting there innocently on this pleasant day. I had never expected to get old. New Zealand seldom goes gently into the sea. There is little coastal littoral, at least in the north, where eager green hills leap into the water. And the entrance into Tutukaka is as dramatic as any, with the cliff face of Tutukaka Head rising straight up a couple of hundred feet on the north and the low ledge of Red Rock to the south. When I last entered the harbor there was also a float for a lobster trap right in the middle of the narrow channel. Catch your prop on that and you might not think fondly of the man who put it there. I was pleased to find the channel clear as I made my way for the second time that day between breaking waves. Tutukaka was smaller than I remembered and the marina there bigger. The marina, I learned, has been expanded; but an explanation for the harbor seeming smaller, other than a defective memory, did not occur to me for another week. I anchored to the south of Piercy Island, and the following morning pumped up the Avon Redstart and rowed to the marina to make my semi-annual trip to the fuel dock with a jerry can for diesel. I noticed that the amount on the pump from the previous sale was $845. Mine was $25. Another reason, if one were necessary, not to have a power boat. It was a beautiful, sunny morning, but the attendant mentioned that a storm was due in two or three days and that the anchorage was subject to swell. I wandered around and looked in some new shops in a new hotel, bought a few more odds and ends at a store that would be small compared to any but Opua’s General Store, then rowed back out to the boat. Halfway there I was startled when a rock abruptly appeared just beyond my port oar blade. Then another. And I realized that they were dolphin, the same color and size as the dinghy, though more gracefully formed. I stopped, but they didn’t, apparently having decided that we were too slow to be much fun. I had been aware of the approaching low. For that matter in New Zealand you can take an approaching low as a given. This one was coming as do most across the Tasman and moving up the country from the south. That nights’ forecast contained new information. The predicted track had changed and we could expect a day of 40 knot northeast wind, followed by a day of 40 knots from the southwest. This made a difference, because my next planned anchorage inside Bream Head at the mouth of the Whangarei River was well-protected from the northeast, but somewhat exposed to the southwest. While there were other alternatives further up the Whangarei River, I had waited out a similar storm 15 years earlier at Bon Accord Harbor at Kawau Island. With 20 knots of east wind predicted for the next day, I should have good sailing, but it would mean covering more than 50 miles during a short day. Tutukaka is not a place I would leave at night. I was easily awake before first light, which when it did arrive was compromised by fog. I winched in half the 75’ of anchor chain I had out. It came up clean, but the sound of it clanking over the bow roller was loud in the darkness. I was on my second cup of coffee before I could distinguish the dim silhouette of Red Rock. The rest of the chain and anchor came up quickly and I powered out, an eye on the depth reading and another on Red Rock. Tutukaka Head loomed over us. It became a powerful day. A day when I personally felt the power of the wind and the water and of THE HAWKE OF TUONELA more than I would have offshore because I ended up steering for several hours. Needing to sail compass courses along the coast, I had set up the tiller pilot, but not the Monitor, and the tiller pilot cannot handle THE HAWKE OF TUONELA in rough seas. I had left with an open mind about our next destination. By 9:00 a.m. with the wind gusting 25 from the east, the decision had been made for me. Bream Head was abeam and Kawau Island a little more than 30 miles ahead. Even with her foul bottom, THE HAWKE OF TUONELA was making 7 knots on a beam reach, and the tiller pilot had been relived of all but temporary duties. With full main and a partially furled jib THE HAWKE OF TUONELA was not quite over canvassed, but had we been at sea I would have put in a reef and let the Monitor handle the boat. Instead I attached the tiller extension and took matters into my own hands. I don’t recall the last time I have done so for more than an hour. The sloop’s green hull rose and fell with three foot grey-green waves just aft of the beam. The power, the exhilaration of her acceleration flowed from the tiller to my arm. The sound of her wake harmonized with the sound of the waves. It was a joy. For a while. New Zealand has carried her agricultural heritage onto her surrounding waters. Around noon we dodged some small islands, The Hen and the Chickens, and a week later would pass the Cow and the Calf. The Chickens made me hungry, so I eased off downwind and engaged the tiller pilot long enough to eat a can of tuna for lunch; then took the tiller again as we sped south. Two hours later, the unaccustomed joy of steering had faded and I was pleased off Cape Rodney, five miles north of Kawau Island, to lower the mainsail and let the tiller pilot take over. A bit prematurely as it happened. Kawau is tucked in close to the mainland of the North Island, separated by a half mile wide channel. The mainland peninsula ends in another place named after local farm animals, Elephant Point. Still under partially furled jib, but now on a broad reach, I rounded a quarter mile off. The depth reading was 70’ when a wave rudely doubled in size and broke, knocking THE HAWKE OF TUONELA onto her beam and slewing her around in an uncontrolled, jib-flogging broach. This was not some huge, freak wave. It was only 6’ high, but that was enough to provide the day’s final display of power. I heard things fall in the cabin as I reached up for the tiller. To its credit the tiller pilot was still valiantly grinding away. The weak link in the system is the connecting flange which extends beneath the tiller. Several of these have broken in the past and I carry spares. This one hadn’t broken, but was bent several inches to port. I glanced back. No other waves were breaking. The seas marched evenly. In a few hundred yards we reached sheltered water and I started the engine, continuing under jib as it warmed up, then I put it in gear and furled the sail. But when I increased the throttle, the engine gave a banshee screech. I cut the throttle and it ceased. I increased rpm’s. The engine screeched again. Fortunately no other boats were near, so I let THE HAWKE OF TUONELA drift in the middle of the channel, while I went below and removed the engine cover. There was no obvious sign of a problem. Back on deck. Increase rpms. Screech. Back below. Engine looks normal. Back on deck. Decrease rpms. Screech ceases. So I continued onward, mostly being blown by the wind, slightly being propelled by the engine at just above idle. Bon Accord Harbor almost bisects Kawau Island. A half mile wide at the entrance, it tapers to three hundred yards a mile and a half in where I anchored in water 15’ to 22’deep, depending on the tide. Vacation homes dotted the inevitable hillsides, and boats, mostly up for the weekend from Auckland, clustered in coves along both sides of the harbor. I remained out in the middle where I could let out 125’ of chain. The following day I fit a new tiller flange and experimented with the engine. Eventually I surmised that the knockdown had jolted the alternator. When I retightened the fan belts, the shrieking ceased. The storm hit that night, with 40 knot wind, gusting 50, and torrential heavy rain. The harbor remained smooth, but I slept fitfully, awakened by a plaintive groaning from the anchor snubbing line as the sloop was brought up short. The chain was new and allegedly stronger even than high-test and there is a chain stopper on deck in front of the windlass. Still I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if the snubbing line broke and the chain suddenly snapped taut. What would break, bend, be ripped out? That was a display of power I did not need. Most of our fears are not realized, and I was awakened at 4:00 a.m. by silence. Both wind and rain had stopped. I got up, got dressed, put on my headlamp and went on deck, where I went forward and checked that the snubbing line and its chaffing gear were intact. In moonless darkenss I thought I heard clanking as though someone else was up on another anchored boat and letting out more chain, but I couldn’t see a thing. Moderate rain returned at dawn, but not the expected wind shift to the southwest. I was on my way again the following day. The anchor came up easily but slowly. There was a lot of chain covered with a lot of mud to be scrubbed off before I let it back inside the hull. The big marina at Gulf Harbor was less than 10 miles away. I considered going there to have a mechanic check out the engine. But the little Yanmar ran without histrionics that morning, and I really didn’t want to go into a marina or wait for a mechanic. I had completed most of my first two circumnavigations in engineless boats, so I thought I could probably make my way back up to the Bay of Islands under sail if I had to. As I rounded the end of Kawau, the Hauraki Gulf was smooth. The towers of Auckland were visible off to the southwest, beyond the volcanic cone of Rangitoto Island. I did not head there, but to Waiheke Island just to the east of Rangitoto, where I anchored off the town of Blackpool in early afternoon. I had recently read that 8,000 people now live on Waiheke, from which they can commute to the city by ferry and where property values have doubled in the past three years. I observed them from a distance, anchored beyond thirty or so moored boats; toasted their prosperity at sunset; and was underway again at dawn. With the engine continuing to behave in a civilized manner and the tiller pilot steering, I realized that I rather enjoy powering over glassy water at dawn. However, in the interest of getting to the next place before dark, I was doing too much of it. Te Kouma Harbor on the Coromandel Peninsula, the next next place, I decided, would be the last. I wanted to sail. Like Tutukaka, Te Kouma, which I had visited in both EGREGIOUS in 1976 and RESURGAM in 1991, was smaller than I remembered. It is a beautiful harbor, a mile deep, with a few houses at the head, and a herd of cows grazing on the hills. I dropped anchor off one of the scalloped coves on the north side of the harbor. For the first time in the five years I have been using a Spade anchor, it did not set and we rapidly dragged toward a rocky point that under other circumstances I would have thought picturesque. I told the engine that this was no time to be temperamental, gave it a small amount of throttle, and went forward where I cranked in 100’ of chain in record time. The anchor came up in a snarl of nylon webbing and fishing line. There was not enough room in the harbor to clear it, so I went back out into the Firth of Thames, removed the mess, then returned and anchored again. A late lunch found me a tired old man. I remained at Te Kouma for two days, waiting for a fair wind to sail back to the Bay of Islands. During that time a few other boats came and went. All anchored much closer to shore than THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, and I realized that Te Kouma like Tutukaka may have seemed smaller to me because I have come to judge distance by my mooring in Opua, which is a quarter mile from shore. I have never liked to anchor too close to the shore, where there is less margin of safety if something goes wrong, more noise, and more insects. With a quarter mile row now accepted as the norm, if I can get into less than 30’ of water at that distance, I am happy. Besides I wasn’t going ashore to visit the cows at Te Kouma anyway. Finally the wind turned southwest and I powered out, raised sail and cut the engine. In a light breeze we were only making 4 knots, but we had 34 hours until sunset the following day to cover the 115 miles back to Cape Brett. For that matter the Bay of Islands is one of the few places I enter after dark if I have to. As we eased our way north during the day, the Coromandel Peninsula shed a veil of clouds, and Little Barrier Island, then Great Barrier Island became visible. A vivid sun set behind Kawau Island. And midnight found me on deck, as somehow it usually does, when a brief shower was followed by a wind shift that of course the tiller pilot couldn’t follow. A flashing light marking The Hen and The Chickens was abeam. Dodging farm animals and a few vessels kept me awake most of the night. Dawn was glorious. Spectacular colors, giving way to the first clear blue sky for more than a week. Tutukaka Head to the west; the Poor Knight’s to the east. And the hills and valleys of the mainland taking form in the increasing light. Powering in smooth water at dawn is fine; but sailing at dawn is finer.

Trying To Go Coastal

2006

I was doing something I haven’t done for years: waiting for mail.

Email and ATM cards have been the biggest improvements in the harbor part of my life over the decades, as self-steering vanes, jib furling gear, and GPS have been the biggest improvements in the sailing part. But one of those improvements was the cause of the delay. My VISA card had been unexpectedly cancelled and was being reissued.

In past centuries sailors hesitated to go to sea because of dragons and sea monsters. Now we are delayed by compromised databases. It isn’t such a brave new world after all.

One morning the envelope finally arrived. I put it in my pocket and walked down to the Opua General Store where I bought a few odds and ends. The clerk commented that I was Noah.

I didn’t understand, until he pointed out that I had two of everything: bottles of Coke-Cola; boxes of crackers; salamis; wedges of cheese; paper towels.

I carried my menagerie down to the dinghy and rowed out to The Ark, a.k.a. THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, started the engine, cast off the mooring, and began a mini-cruise to the Hauraki Gulf.

My mooring is on the edge of a mooring field, but in late April three dozen boats were at anchor beyond me and I knew that the nearby marina was also full. The migrating fleet was gathering, awaiting the end of the cyclone season in the islands a thousand miles north. THE HAWKE OF TUONELA would not be joining them.

Several months earlier I had paid the duty on her, so she could now stay permanently in New Zealand, even though I, myself, could not. There were several reasons for this, among them that I have been to the islands many, many times; that I love the Bay of Islands, where I look around from my mooring fifty times a day and think how beautiful it is; and that a career change made by Carol, my wife, meant a move from Boston to near Chicago, but I did not know precisely when that would take place and did not want to be compelled to return and sail the boat from New Zealand before the normal June 30 deadline.

I overhead the conversations about cruising plans, observed the groups huddled around the weather maps, watched diesel mechanics run up and down the docks; but I didn’t share their concerns.

I maneuvered THE HAWKE OF TUONELA through the anchored craft, dodged the car ferry a quarter mile north, engaged the tiller pilot and let it steer us a bit slowly up the bay. Our speed was .7 a knot less than it should have been.

When I returned to the boat two months earlier I had done something even rarer than waiting for mail. For the first time in countless visits to New Zealand over the past 30 years I went in the water.

On that first visit in 1976, I took some Aucklanders out for a sail. I didn’t recognize a stubby foot long bird bobbing on the surface. My New Zealand friends told me it was a penguin, which I assumed was a joke pulled on visiting Americans. I soon learned that the bird was indeed a penguin and made an immediate resolution not to swim with penguins.

However, this year I knew that THE HAWKE OF TUONELA had been sitting for several months and her folding prop and shaft would be foul, so I went in. The water that was 67°F. Hardly tropical, but endurable. But visibility was not good and I became cold before I had cleaned the entire hull. Our reduced speed proved we still had hitchhikers.

A half hour later where the bay opens up to a couple of miles wide between Pahia and Russell, enough wind came up for us to sail, but it lasted for less than a mile, and I furled the jib and restarted the engine before I made the turn east to find an anchorage among the islands just off the mainland.

I don’t suppose I will ever anchor at all the possible places in the Bay of Islands, but I have my favorites, depending on the wind. With no wind, the choice was problematic, though east was predicted.

I bypassed the closest of my favorites, Roberton Island, protected from the north and east, because I had been there most recently, and continued a few miles further to Paradise Bay, protected from the east and partially the north and south. That openness to the west is what I like about Paradise Bay. It imparts a feeling of spaciousness, particularly in late afternoon when the sun is low above the islands and shadows are long.

This was the week after Easter, which is a long school holiday in New Zealand, and there were more boats on the water than usual. Two were anchored in close to shore at Paradise Bay, and later on deck, I watched another make long tacks across the barely ruffled surface of silver water, and thought for the ten millionth time that there are few things as graceful as a boat under sail.

After dinner of freeze dry lamb fettuccini on deck as the sunset, I went below, turned on the masthead anchor light, and watched one of the movies I had copied back in the U.S. from television onto DVD.

When it ended I went on deck and found the anchor light was out. It is an expensive LED guaranteed to last much longer than I am, and its extinction reaffirmed my intention to perform the long overdue task of rewiring the 30 year old THE HAWKE OF TUONELA. I had forced my hand by ordering a new circuit breaker panel which should be awaiting my return, so I would have no more excuses. In the meantime I dug up my back-up anchor light and hung it from the radar mount.

I was awake at first light in an overcast gray sky and raised the anchor at 7:00 a.m.

My course was 7 miles east to round Cape Brett, the southern entrance to the Bay of Islands, and then 30 miles south to Tutukaka.

As I powered out to clear the next two small islands and enter the main body of the bay, a narrow channel between islands tempted me. At low tide and calm conditions, the many rocks were visible, so I headed in. Toward the east end it was like entering a pass through a reef, with waves breaking not far off either side. They made the early morning interesting.

Once in deeper water I set sail, full main and a partially furled jib because the predicted light east wind was blowing 18 to 20 from the southeast, where it remained all day.

By noon the wind had dropped below 10 knots and THE HAWKE OF TUONELA was moving smoothly under a partially blue sky, with Tutukaka Head in view 12 miles ahead and the Poor Knights Islands, where I was once almost shipwrecked, off to the east.

In March 1976 I was in EGREGIOUS on my first circumnavigation and had been continuously at sea for five months, three of them south of 40°. I was trying to reach Auckland for repairs. But headwinds in the Tasman when I was trying to go northeast turned with me to become headwinds once I rounded North Cape and was trying to go south.

Another grey dawn found me only a mile to windward of the Poor Knights, when the mainsail, already repaired countless times, tore all the way across. EGREGIOUS had no engine and we were rapidly driven to leeward. I hand stitched the sail, already so often repaired that it was unusable below the second reef; but it tore again as I raised it. Waves were smashing into sheer rock faces close astern. I stitched the sail again, raised it successfully this time, and EGREGIOUS doggedly clawed her way off, almost in resignation, as though to ask: how much more can you ask of me?

I looked over at the Poor Knights sitting there innocently on this pleasant day. I had never expected to get old.

New Zealand seldom goes gently into the sea. There is little coastal littoral, at least in the north, where eager green hills leap into the water. And the entrance into Tutukaka is as dramatic as any, with the cliff face of Tutukaka Head rising straight up a couple of hundred feet on the north and the low ledge of Red Rock to the south. When I last entered the harbor there was also a float for a lobster trap right in the middle of the narrow channel. Catch your prop on that and you might not think fondly of the man who put it there.

I was pleased to find the channel clear as I made my way for the second time that day between breaking waves.

Tutukaka was smaller than I remembered and the marina there bigger. The marina, I learned, has been expanded; but an explanation for the harbor seeming smaller, other than a defective memory, did not occur to me for another week.

I anchored to the south of Piercy Island, and the following morning pumped up the Avon Redstart and rowed to the marina to make my semi-annual trip to the fuel dock with a jerry can for diesel. I noticed that the amount on the pump from the previous sale was $845. Mine was $25. Another reason, if one were necessary, not to have a power boat.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning, but the attendant mentioned that a storm was due in two or three days and that the anchorage was subject to swell.

I wandered around and looked in some new shops in a new hotel, bought a few more odds and ends at a store that would be small compared to any but Opua’s General Store, then rowed back out to the boat.

Halfway there I was startled when a rock abruptly appeared just beyond my port oar blade. Then another. And I realized that they were dolphin, the same color and size as the dinghy, though more gracefully formed. I stopped, but they didn’t, apparently having decided that we were too slow to be much fun.

I had been aware of the approaching low. For that matter in New Zealand you can take an approaching low as a given. This one was coming as do most across the Tasman and moving up the country from the south. That nights’ forecast contained new information. The predicted track had changed and we could expect a day of 40 knot northeast wind, followed by a day of 40 knots from the southwest. This made a difference, because my next planned anchorage inside Bream Head at the mouth of the Whangarei River was well-protected from the northeast, but somewhat exposed to the southwest.

While there were other alternatives further up the Whangarei River, I had waited out a similar storm 15 years earlier at Bon Accord Harbor at Kawau Island. With 20 knots of east wind predicted for the next day, I should have good sailing, but it would mean covering more than 50 miles during a short day. Tutukaka is not a place I would leave at night.

I was easily awake before first light, which when it did arrive was compromised by fog. I winched in half the 75’ of anchor chain I had out. It came up clean, but the sound of it clanking over the bow roller was loud in the darkness.

I was on my second cup of coffee before I could distinguish the dim silhouette of Red Rock. The rest of the chain and anchor came up quickly and I powered out, an eye on the depth reading and another on Red Rock. Tutukaka Head loomed over us.

It became a powerful day. A day when I personally felt the power of the wind and the water and of THE HAWKE OF TUONELA more than I would have offshore because I ended up steering for several hours. Needing to sail compass courses along the coast, I had set up the tiller pilot, but not the Monitor, and the tiller pilot cannot handle THE HAWKE OF TUONELA in rough seas.

I had left with an open mind about our next destination. By 9:00 a.m. with the wind gusting 25 from the east, the decision had been made for me. Bream Head was abeam and Kawau Island a little more than 30 miles ahead. Even with her foul bottom, THE HAWKE OF TUONELA was making 7 knots on a beam reach, and the tiller pilot had been relived of all but temporary duties.

With full main and a partially furled jib THE HAWKE OF TUONELA was not quite over canvassed, but had we been at sea I would have put in a reef and let the Monitor handle the boat. Instead I attached the tiller extension and took matters into my own hands. I don’t recall the last time I have done so for more than an hour.

The sloop’s green hull rose and fell with three foot grey-green waves just aft of the beam. The power, the exhilaration of her acceleration flowed from the tiller to my arm. The sound of her wake harmonized with the sound of the waves. It was a joy. For a while.

New Zealand has carried her agricultural heritage onto her surrounding waters. Around noon we dodged some small islands, The Hen and the Chickens, and a week later would pass the Cow and the Calf.

The Chickens made me hungry, so I eased off downwind and engaged the tiller pilot long enough to eat a can of tuna for lunch; then took the tiller again as we sped south.

Two hours later, the unaccustomed joy of steering had faded and I was pleased off Cape Rodney, five miles north of Kawau Island, to lower the mainsail and let the tiller pilot take over. A bit prematurely as it happened.

Kawau is tucked in close to the mainland of the North Island, separated by a half mile wide channel. The mainland peninsula ends in another place named after local farm animals, Elephant Point. Still under partially furled jib, but now on a broad reach, I rounded a quarter mile off. The depth reading was 70’ when a wave rudely doubled in size and broke, knocking THE HAWKE OF TUONELA onto her beam and slewing her around in an uncontrolled, jib-flogging broach. This was not some huge, freak wave. It was only 6’ high, but that was enough to provide the day’s final display of power.

I heard things fall in the cabin as I reached up for the tiller. To its credit the tiller pilot was still valiantly grinding away. The weak link in the system is the connecting flange which extends beneath the tiller. Several of these have broken in the past and I carry spares. This one hadn’t broken, but was bent several inches to port.

I glanced back. No other waves were breaking. The seas marched evenly.

In a few hundred yards we reached sheltered water and I started the engine, continuing under jib as it warmed up, then I put it in gear and furled the sail. But when I increased the throttle, the engine gave a banshee screech. I cut the throttle and it ceased. I increased rpm’s. The engine screeched again.

Fortunately no other boats were near, so I let THE HAWKE OF TUONELA drift in the middle of the channel, while I went below and removed the engine cover. There was no obvious sign of a problem.

Back on deck. Increase rpms. Screech. Back below. Engine looks normal. Back on deck. Decrease rpms. Screech ceases. So I continued onward, mostly being blown by the wind, slightly being propelled by the engine at just above idle.

Bon Accord Harbor almost bisects Kawau Island. A half mile wide at the entrance, it tapers to three hundred yards a mile and a half in where I anchored in water 15’ to 22’deep, depending on the tide.

Vacation homes dotted the inevitable hillsides, and boats, mostly up for the weekend from Auckland, clustered in coves along both sides of the harbor.

I remained out in the middle where I could let out 125’ of chain.

The following day I fit a new tiller flange and experimented with the engine. Eventually I surmised that the knockdown had jolted the alternator. When I retightened the fan belts, the shrieking ceased.

The storm hit that night, with 40 knot wind, gusting 50, and torrential heavy rain.

The harbor remained smooth, but I slept fitfully, awakened by a plaintive groaning from the anchor snubbing line as the sloop was brought up short. The chain was new and allegedly stronger even than high-test and there is a chain stopper on deck in front of the windlass. Still I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if the snubbing line broke and the chain suddenly snapped taut. What would break, bend, be ripped out? That was a display of power I did not need.

Most of our fears are not realized, and I was awakened at 4:00 a.m. by silence. Both wind and rain had stopped. I got up, got dressed, put on my headlamp and went on deck, where I went forward and checked that the snubbing line and its chaffing gear were intact. In moonless darkenss I thought I heard clanking as though someone else was up on another anchored boat and letting out more chain, but I couldn’t see a thing.

Moderate rain returned at dawn, but not the expected wind shift to the southwest.

I was on my way again the following day. The anchor came up easily but slowly. There was a lot of chain covered with a lot of mud to be scrubbed off before I let it back inside the hull.

The big marina at Gulf Harbor was less than 10 miles away. I considered going there to have a mechanic check out the engine. But the little Yanmar ran without histrionics that morning, and I really didn’t want to go into a marina or wait for a mechanic. I had completed most of my first two circumnavigations in engineless boats, so I thought I could probably make my way back up to the Bay of Islands under sail if I had to.

As I rounded the end of Kawau, the Hauraki Gulf was smooth. The towers of Auckland were visible off to the southwest, beyond the volcanic cone of Rangitoto Island.

I did not head there, but to Waiheke Island just to the east of Rangitoto, where I anchored off the town of Blackpool in early afternoon.

I had recently read that 8,000 people now live on Waiheke, from which they can commute to the city by ferry and where property values have doubled in the past three years. I observed them from a distance, anchored beyond thirty or so moored boats; toasted their prosperity at sunset; and was underway again at dawn.

With the engine continuing to behave in a civilized manner and the tiller pilot steering, I realized that I rather enjoy powering over glassy water at dawn. However, in the interest of getting to the next place before dark, I was doing too much of it. Te Kouma Harbor on the Coromandel Peninsula, the next next place, I decided, would be the last. I wanted to sail.

Like Tutukaka, Te Kouma, which I had visited in both EGREGIOUS in 1976 and RESURGAM in 1991, was smaller than I remembered. It is a beautiful harbor, a mile deep, with a few houses at the head, and a herd of cows grazing on the hills.

I dropped anchor off one of the scalloped coves on the north side of the harbor.

For the first time in the five years I have been using a Spade anchor, it did not set and we rapidly dragged toward a rocky point that under other circumstances I would have thought picturesque. I told the engine that this was no time to be temperamental, gave it a small amount of throttle, and went forward where I cranked in 100’ of chain in record time. The anchor came up in a snarl of nylon webbing and fishing line.

There was not enough room in the harbor to clear it, so I went back out into the Firth of Thames, removed the mess, then returned and anchored again.

A late lunch found me a tired old man.

I remained at Te Kouma for two days, waiting for a fair wind to sail back to the Bay of Islands.

During that time a few other boats came and went. All anchored much closer to shore than THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, and I realized that Te Kouma like Tutukaka may have seemed smaller to me because I have come to judge distance by my mooring in Opua, which is a quarter mile from shore.

I have never liked to anchor too close to the shore, where there is less margin of safety if something goes wrong, more noise, and more insects. With a quarter mile row now accepted as the norm, if I can get into less than 30’ of water at that distance, I am happy. Besides I wasn’t going ashore to visit the cows at Te Kouma anyway.

Finally the wind turned southwest and I powered out, raised sail and cut the engine. In a light breeze we were only making 4 knots, but we had 34 hours until sunset the following day to cover the 115 miles back to Cape Brett. For that matter the Bay of Islands is one of the few places I enter after dark if I have to.

As we eased our way north during the day, the Coromandel Peninsula shed a veil of clouds, and Little Barrier Island, then Great Barrier Island became visible.

A vivid sun set behind Kawau Island. And midnight found me on deck, as somehow it usually does, when a brief shower was followed by a wind shift that of course the tiller pilot couldn’t follow. A flashing light marking The Hen and The Chickens was abeam.

Dodging farm animals and a few vessels kept me awake most of the night.

Dawn was glorious. Spectacular colors, giving way to the first clear blue sky for more than a week. Tutukaka Head to the west; the Poor Knight’s to the east. And the hills and valleys of the mainland taking form in the increasing light.

Powering in smooth water at dawn is fine; but sailing at dawn is finer.