Shamal's Logo

Shamal's Logo

Notification

November 2020: Shamal and her Crew have arrived safely back into Opua, Bay of Islands, New Zealand completing their circumnavigation a year ago. Due to Covid-19 and New Zealand's Boarders being closed, they will continue to spend their 2020/21 Summer exploring some of New Zealand's waters. Thanks to all of you for following our Adventures. There will be more.

14 January 2009

From the Marlborough Sounds to Tauranga

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL

Well it is some sea miles ago that I last wrote so for a bit of an update as to what we have been up to.

It was early December when we left the South Island and headed north again. We motored to the edge of the Marlborough Sounds and dropped anchor just inside in a sheltered bay for the night so we could catch the out-going tide in the morning. We had the inter-Island Ferries passing all night which look like floating hotels going by. At 6.00am we were up anchor and off out into Cook Strait. It was a little lumpy but we had a good wind and made the crossing in 4 hours. We then spent 2 weeks in Wellington catching up with family and friends, doing the rounds of all the local yacht clubs with our SEAWIND info packs, visited the Wellington Museum to see “The Colossal Squid” – a 4.2 metre long squid weighing 459 kilograms caught in the Southern Ocean last year. Don’t really want to come across one of those in our ocean travels thank you, and, I even managed to do my Christmas shopping with Brigitte’s help as she flew down from Auckland to join us for the next leg up the coast. We met another lovely couple on their catamaran who were making it ready to do off shore passages. Hope we cross paths with them again in warmer waters.