And dolphins and albatross and a leaky watermaker.

That’s our shakedown day from Urquarts Bay to Barrier Island. About 40 miles. We left at 0715 and arrived about 1400. The course goes south of “Hens and Chickens” Island group which is where we saw the penguins and the first pod of dolphins. Well, actually Ann heard penguins at “0-dark-thirty” as we were leaving and looked around to see some blue penguins cavorting in the channel.

Leaving Breem Head for Barrier Island at sunrise.

We made good time motor-sailing with jib and stays’l. Not much wind, but we made about 6.5 knots over ground against the current.

The albatross was amazing. The biggest I’ve ever seen. It was closer to a small airplane than a bird. I’m thinking it was a Great Albatross but we won’t know until we’re back since there’s no internets here to consult with Dr. Google. In any case, the wingspan was over six feet!

Additionally we were greeted by a flotilla of penguins, larger than little blues, as we approached Barrier Island. All just bobbing along, disappearing underwater every once in a while. Very entertaining.

So…we got here and were escorted into the bay by a pod of dolphins who cavorted around Charisma for a while before returning to their fishing expedition. They must have been successful if judged by the number of gannets circling and plunging ahead of us. It was magical sailing through thousands of gannets swirling overhead.

A dolphin escort. We saw more dolphins on this day trip than we've seen in the last year!

A major Gannet greeting to the island.

Landfall at Great Barrier Island.

We then proceeded to anchor about 30 yards off some rocks to do a little red snapper fishing. It was successful and sorta not. We hooked a couple of dinkers and then I hooked a monster. I think it might have grabbed the hook and ducked into a hole in the rocks ’cause it wasn’t budging. I pinged the line with my finger and it sounded like the high string on my ukulele. Unfortunately, I got impatient and pulled too hard and “bing” went the line. Broken. No snapper for dinner.

Oh well, we had a lovely sautéed chicken and mushroom dinner. Tough life. Another benefit of cruising…Ann makes English Muffins! Yay! I can smell them right now.

A lovely moonrise from our snug little anchorage in Nagle Bay.

So that’s today. Hope we can get this posted. We’ll add some pictures in a week or so when we’re back in Marsden (we hope to head back on Friday). That’s where we’re going to jump to Fiji from – hopefully on the next window.

Oh yeah, the watermaker. It’s the last thing we needed to test and couldn’t until we were in clear water. Once out, I turned it on. Oops – leaky teaky! I tightened a couple hose clamps but there is still one plastic plumbing fitting that is dripping. I took it apart and put on new pipe tape, but it’s still leaking – although not as much. I’m hoping it swells – we haven’t used it in six months – If it keeps dripping, I’ll try and find a new fitting. I think I have one, but it’s buried at the bottom of all our stuff. That’s always the case, the broken thing is always at the bottom.

In the meantime we’re looking forward to four days of fishing and hiking before heading back. It’s nice to be cruising again!!