S/V Tough Life (also, we saw a UFO)

From Nelson, we flew to Auckland and drove up the North Island to Opua, the small marina town on the shores of the Bay of Islands. We came here two years ago to sail with our friends Adam and Lauren, and were excited to be back. This year it would be just the two of us, sailing the 43-foot/13.4-meter Elan Impression 434 cleverly named “S/V Tough Life.”

The Bay of Islands is crazy beautiful. As in, New Zealand is the most beautiful country we’ve been to, and we’ve been all over New Zealand, and this is the most beautiful spot in New Zealand.

That first day gave us a wonderful bit of sailing, which was a nice change of pace from the mostly wind-less Hauraki Gulf. Our first stop was the small island of Moturua, which gifted us the above views, and was the location of Captain James Cook’s first encounter with the Māori in 1769. In what was to be a theme of many of the early encounters between the Māori and Dutch, British, French and finally American explorers and traders, Cook promptly shot and killed nine locals.

Our next destination, Whangaroa Harbor, is just outside the Bay itself, a six hour motor-sail north. The winds cooperated off and on, and we had a finicky boom-furling mainsail, but on arrival in Rere Bay at the mouth of the harbor our long journey was rewarded with the kind of shockingly beautiful anchorage that makes you contemplate a life on the hook. We briefly contemplated a hike around the harbor, but my knee was acting up and it was a little roasty and well actually just feeling terribly lazy and comfortable and zzzzz. Naps at anchor in places like this are special things.

Here’s a good moment to say that Zeynep and I are the kind of people who don’t think aliens come to hang out on Earth, but also think they probably do or have existed somewhere. (Wait But Why’s explanation of the Fermi Paradox is a must-read.) I mention this because from our anchorage in Rere Bay anchorage we absolutely, 100%-not-kidding saw a UFO. Or, more accurately, a couple dozen UFOs. We were just sitting there, comfortably reclined after watching the sun go down from the cockpit, when we both saw a not-entirely orderly string of lights slowly moving across the sky. Not moving lights like meteors or what have you, more moving lights like our neighbors have finally decided to come visit. Alas, the next morning there were no reports of little green party crashers, so unclear what we saw.

From Rere Bay we puttered just across the harbor to the dock of the Whangaroa Sport Fishing Club. Neither of us fish, but both of us enjoy cold beverages on a warm dock, and it turns out sport fishers are into cold beverages on warm docks.

As we consumed said cold beverages and watched the gulls harass each other, a relatively small boat pulls up to the dock and much fuss and attention is quickly paid to it by wrinkly old men who look like they know something about fishing. Moments later the weighbridge hoists up a ~180 kilogram / 400 pound swordfish. Now I’m not into fishing, and even less keen on the ethics of doing it for sport, but it was impossible to deny the impressiveness of hauling such a thing out of the sea that very much didn’t want to come along. And as to why the boat in this picture is named Shenandoah, a place more than 13,000 kilometers away, not a clue.

(A quick aside related to cold beverages: New Zealand has, on the whole, just atrocious beer. If you like low-alcohol, high-malt beers of the British style, this is your place. But if you like your drink to have some drink in it, stick to the country’s excellent wines.)

From Whangaroa we retraced our track back to the Bay of Islands, this time to a secluded anchorage in the Waewaetorea Passage on the north end of Urupukapuka Island. Urupukapuka Island is pretty cool for several reasons: 1) It’s called Urupukapuka Island, which is lots of fun to say, 2) two years ago when we were here Adam proposed to Lauren on Urupukapuka Island, and 3) Urupukapuka Island is crazy pretty and has these delightful, Department of Conservation-maintained walking paths that run from one bay to the next. Our anchorage in the passage was the rolliest we’ve ever had, but even a sleepless night can’t compete with saying Urupukapuka Island over and over at breakfast.

From Urupukapuka Island (see how fun that is?) we sailed back toward Opua, but stopped short at Paihia, a small tourist trap of a town on a long, beautiful beach. If you’ve just spent the last week living a quiet, fairly isolated existence in the confines of small fiberglass box, Paihia is a bit much. But for all its tasteless touristy trashiness, it’s a nice spot to anchor, dinghy into town, and eat a pizza.

More significantly, Paihia is the modern town at the site of the first European settlement in New Zealand and much of its colonial history. The short version is that a missionary set up shop in the Bay of Islands and successfully converted several local groups of Māori. From there, things predictably got messy, up to and including the signing of the Waitangi Treaty, which - beyond the run of the mill nastiness of colonial Britannia - is substantively different in English (what the Crown signed) than it is in Māori (what the Māori chiefs signed). We learned this at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, which is a really well done guided tour, museum, and performance center. The Treaty itself continues to haunt New Zealand and in particular complicate questions of Māori self-governance and sovereignty, which makes it all the more impressive that the country has this institution to explain its history and significance.

The Treaty Grounds are also home to several ceremonial but functioning Māori war canoes (waka), pictured above. Because I’m an idiot and took this picture along the the longitude you can’t see how impressive it is, but this thing holds 150 fighting men and weighs 12 tons. The Grounds also includes a memorial to the thousands of Māori who fought and died in World Wars I and II in pursuit of the “rights of citizens” guaranteed by the Treaty. The entire Treaty Grounds experience was fascinating and illuminating and we’d highly recommend it to anybody visiting New Zealand.

A final note for my own reference later: we nailed the docking back in Opua. Docking haunts me. It’s never as bad as I fear, and most docking experiences have been fine if not perfect, and none have been worse than near-disasters (there was one of those). But this one was like butter, and to future Corey who reads this, it’s gonna be ok.

I write this from the Auckland airport, where I await a flight to the US and from which Zeynep has already departed for Turkey. As excited as we are about our next destinations and continued adventures, leaving New Zealand is always a sad thing for us. Over the last month we’ve seen lots of new and beautiful places here, and ending the trip in the Bay of Islands, the place that first made us fall in love with New Zealand, was a special treat.