BACK IN THE BAY
March 11, 2007
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

No sooner had we left Whangaroa Harbour to head back to the Bay of Islands than the world we had inhabited for the past month took on a faster tempo. As we sailed down the coast, we were startled by a telephone call with an invitation for a fish meal in Oke Bay that evening. (We are still not used to getting phone calls under sail - it seems a form of magic.) We sailed past the Nine Pin, stopping in Endico Bay to un-glom the dink from Dragon's topsides, first trying to staunch a leak while we could get at it. Trouble was, the snout of the gun kept being forced off, depositing the product all over the inside of the dinghy rather than forcing it into the purpose-drilled holes. After visits to friends on a couple of different vessels, off we set to get to the dinner table on time. In threading through the shallow passage off Otehei Bay, we went aground in a place we had passed without incident dozens of times before. (We had not noticed that it was a super low tide.) We graunched our way off the sand bar and headed back round the long way, arriving just in time for smoked kahawai on crackers followed by green mussels in herbs and white wine, then BBQ'd albacore and moki with all the trimmings. Sheer bliss. Until the next morning when we swam around the boat in the clear water as the sun rose, discovering not surprisingly that we had managed to sand the keel bottoms clean of anti-fouling paint. They are down to primer not two months after our haul out. The gods do have a lousy sense of humor.

Unexpected sights piled themselves one upon the other as we headed toward home. First we spied two charter boats with at least a dozen snorklers in the water swimming with dolphins. Swim fins and dolphin tails were all mixed up together. Next we passed close by an enormous dark-hulled private motor vessel Boadecea anchored off Roberton Island, an extravaganza of turreted decks, satellite domes and uniformed crew. Then we encountered a large fleet of gossamer-sailed racing yachts drifting under Kevlar mains'ls only, waiting for the wind. Ninety-two had signed up for the three-day Bay Regatta. We sped up the river on a rising tide to tie ourselves to home pilings. The picnic was over. We attacked the work list.

New Opua Boating Club building.

We picked up a few necessary hardware items to complete the generator 'garage' on the stern deck that Michel had begun while we were in Whangaroa Harbour. The handle of his pop rivet gun snapped as he tried to use it with too-large rivets. (The pop rivets he wanted were unobtainable.) He had to borrow a stouter gun to finish fabricating the aluminium bar structure on which the vinyl covering is riveted. The new 'garage' does indeed muffle Power Chief's noise but caused overheating until Michel managed to devise a nozzle for the air intake so that it cannot suck in and recirculate its own hot breath. He then cut out a rain coat for the garage which we stitched up on the vintage hand-operated Singer sewing machine. We celebrated another job ticked off our list with a picnic under a huge pohutukawa tree, driving up Tokerau Beach at low tide in Zorro, our camper van.

Colin's slipway.

Then we launched ourselves on yet another project, beefing up and renovating our aging dinghy jetty. Colin Reid's old slipway in Waipapa Landing was a lovely spot to do the job. Duckling families checked up on us. Young fluffy tuis scolded - so unlike their sleek iridescent parents. Colin's Goat Track, far steeper and longer than Cardiac Track, was good for wind and limb, but hauling heavy loads of tools up and down in our trundler added to the end-of-day fatigue. Michel replaced the waterlogged and worm-eaten wooden braces under the bridgeway with SS stays and spreaders. This time, in place of the wooden boards to add shape, strength and resilience, he used an old back stay cut in two, tightened by means of rigging screws to form an upside-down suspension bridge. He replaced the truck tire hinge that had held the tidal jetty to the shore all these many years, substituting rope protected by hose. He refastened the handrails. He reinforced or replaced soft spots as necessary. All this using a hand saw and a hand drill slowed and exhausted him. All the huffing and puffing and levering and blocking up exhausted us both.

Torrential rains plagued us for several days, cutting off several small communities north of here. The day the river went into flood Michel sped off in the dinghy as the river rose, to make sure that the two drums that we use to give buoyancy to the jetty float were still safe. I was frantic with worry fearing that he would try to return to the boat at the height of the flood, when trees, roots, branches were being hurtled along in the steadily increasing current. They could ram and upset the dinghy. Some time later, as foam replaced battering rams, he returned, chortling. One of the plastic drums' floats had indeed disappeared. He found it in a back eddy, and managed with difficulty to catch it. As he approached it slowly, it took off like a scared puppy, blown away by a gust of wind. The jetty project was a much-needed job, well (though slowly) done, as more and more weaknesses were revealed both in the jetty and in ourselves. Colin said, "You sure know how to make a job last!"

Dinghy pushing jetty back.

Rather than towing the structure with the dinghy as we had done to transport it to the slipway, on the return trip we pushed the jetty, gangplank first, with three big fenders lashed under it. As we went, we watched the jetty platform float sink lower on one side - heart-wrenching after so much work. We had to wait for a super low tide to replace the brand new tire valve on one of the drums that must have been scraped off in launching just prior to the trip back to our landing spot. The tide was not nearly as high as it had been when we took the jetty away, so to re-attach the ramp to shore Michel had to use block and tackle, ingenuity, and oodles of time. He built a new approach to the ramp to cover the rope and the iron bar to which it is tethered, stapling chicken wire anti-skid on the tanalized timber. He harnessed a much heavier rock anchor further out in the stream for the dinghy outhaul, and slid a weight down the anchor line. The jetty job we had hoped to do in a couple of days had taken us the better part of a couple of weeks. But the structure is vastly improved. We are satisfied. Soon we hoped we would be able to untie our lines and pop back out into the bay to swim, stroll, row, read, and relax once again.

Jetty back in place.

But just as we were coming closer to the end of our list, we encountered another horror, thanks to Zorro, our van. Two days before its Warrant of Fitness was due, nearly all the warning lights on the dash board suddenly lit up and wouldn't go off, all except for the oil pressure warning light. We went to see a Japanese girl, manual in hand, to see what the Japanese suggest. "Go to the nearest Toyota dealer, never exceeding 2000 rpm", she translated. The alternator was the problem. But the alternator is a misery to get at because the driver's seat, the floor cover and the gear shift unit all have to come out to give access. And so it goes, scratch two items off the chore list...and add three. Michel ordered a replacement from a junk yard but it wouldn't arrive until after the weekend. Just what we needed. A break. A change of scene. We shed our lines, and off we went to unwind, swim, and find oysters and pipis out in the bay while awaiting the arrival of the second-hand alternator. We even got a few varnish and two-pot paint touch-ups done. The alternator, when it arrived, turned out to be old and tired. Michel incorporated bits of the one he had just taken out into the replacement one. He even turned the commutator in a friend's lathe and put in the original brushes. It worked. Cruising on a yacht for so long, often out of reach of electrical and mechanical facilities, has made him resourceful. So off we set to celebrate our freedom once again. Digging cockles before breakfast was a pleasure. So was the swim that followed.

Before we went to Opua to take on fuel, we paused to see why the engine exhaust water flow was not copious enough. It turned out to be a small slit in the water intake hose, soon replaced with a piece we just happened to have on hand in our box of hose spares - just in case. Meanwhile various other possibilities were checked out and serviced: the impellor was fine, the belt tightened a tad, the screen intake checked for debris. While he was at it, Michel replaced the portside heat exchanger zinc. So various routine maintenance chores were dealt with and ticked off our list before we got underway. In the array of cruising couples we have known, we know several first mates who do all such maintenance jobs. I am not one of them. I simply admire the resident gungineer, telling myself, "She also serves who only fetches tools."

Opua Residents Association gala.

On the day after our fueling, Opua was in a fit of revelry. It was the annual Opua Residents Gala Day, the major fundraiser for the Opua Primary School. An auctioneer's voice resounded throughout the port. Music played. Stalls under bright umbrellas offered hot dogs and smoked green mussels, books, homemade jams and pickles, garden plants, books, clothes, shoes, as well all manner of 'Trash and Treasure', marine and otherwise. Crowds thronged. Local artisans sold handiwork of various sorts inside the old club building, while the new OPUA BOATING CLUB offered snacks. The day was made even more festive since only the day before the old NZ naval frigate Canterbury arrived under tow to moor alongside the Opua Wharf where it will be readied to be sunk off Deep Water Cove for fish and divers to enjoy. It was open to the public for tours. Children clambered up the hawsers and jumped from the bow.

Boys clambering up hawse lines and jumping off the bow of the Canterbury.