Takapuna to Te Haruhi Bay

I was awake to watch the sun rise over Rangitoto Island through the back window of the van. The rest of the morning passed in a frantic blur of shopping, packing and repacking the boat. At points I had to take a moment to convince myself that I would be able to to fit 8 days worth of food, clothing and camping equipment through the two small hatches that accessed the bulkheads in front of the footrests and behind the seat. I got to the point where unpacking the boat to check that I'd brought a towel for the third time was more arduous than potentially being wet for a fortnight, so with a final 'sod it' and a bulging boat, I was ready to go.

Doug helped me carry my heavily laden boat down to the beach, the operative word in that sentence being heavy. Man, the boat was heavy. At that point, it was probably the heaviest boat that I'd ever lifted. I'll admit to questioning my own sanity at this point, but once the portage was over and I was sitting on the beach in my boat, the worries subsided. The wind generated chop from the Waitemata Harbour formed little waves that would wash an inch or two of water past my boat, and riding these into deeper water, shuffling along with my hands, I was eventually afloat and away. I took a few shaky, noisy strokes with the wing blades, flipped the rudder down and took a deep breath. There was no backing down now, I was in. And it felt good.

Once I rounded the breakwater at Takapuna, I had about 12 nautical miles ahead of me, and at my expected speed of 3-4 knots it would take me (you do the maths!) 3 to 4 hours to get to the Whangaparaoa Peninsular which I could just about see on the horizon. The weather was relatively kind, a beautiful sunny day with little swell and wind gusting to maybe 15 knots just off my starboard bow. It sounds like a mild breeze, but 15 knots in your face is enough to knock a knot off your speed. At 4 knots that's enough to make your journey a lot longer. Today wasn't a day where much navigation would be necessary though, I had the East Coast Bays on my left, Rangitoto Island on my right and a clean run all the way to the campsite at Te Haruhi Bay.

The next three hours were three hours of mental exertion more than anything. The boat was beautifully stable fully laden and the actual effort of pulling it through the water with the wings wasn't that hard. Progress was just so immeasurably slow. Once I was a few miles off shore, the land on my left moved past punishingly slowly, and Whangaparaoa in front of me seemed to barely grow in size. Paddling offshore is a mental art of controlling your boredom, more on that later.

I eventually arrived, with about 3.5 hours on the water behind me. I hauled my boat up the beach, stripped down to my shorts and laid down in the sun for an hour, trying to work up the motivation to haul my boat up to the dunes which separated the beach from the campsite.

The picture shows that I eventually mustered up the energy to do it. That's Rangitoto island in the background, looking much smaller than it did at the start of the day. Fascinating fact time (yawn) - the peak that you can see is 260m tall, and is technically known as a shield volcano. It was only formed 550 - 600 years ago. Luckily for the inhabitants of Auckland, which is just out of sight to the right hand side of the picture, the volcano isn't expected to become active again due to the manner in which it cooled. I told you it was fascinating.

Just as fascinating are the clouds, high level cirrus and lower level cumulus which told of coming storms, something confirmed by VHF forecast that evening in the tent. The next day's boating was going to be very interesting...

Catch you all soon,

Sam and Doug