Gulf Harbour

Our last stop up north, before passing through Auckland, was Gulf Harbour. We have a lot of friends here from the time we lived in Fairway Bay Marina, so as we were 'passing', wanted to take the opportunity to stop and say hi. Who knows when we'll be back up this way! Sadly, with the Covid-19 (Corona virus) wrecking its own flavour of havoc, (causing isolation and restricted group gatherings), plus being short on time, we missed a few of them.

The photo above shows the entrance to the marinas and that's one of the ferries on the left (yellow) — berthed and taking on passengers.

We stayed in the Gulf Harbour car park. This is the same piece of grass as in the previous photo, just turned about 90 degrees. The ferry is to my right, entrance to the marina directly behind me and to the left ... the sea.

The view from the slide-out window in our rig. That's the entrance to the marina to the left of the tree.

A stunning day — perfect to be out on the water. We're not sure about this poor cruise ship out in the harbour — they were there when we arrived and still there when we left. I expect they cannot dock because of the Covid-19 restrictions at present.

Meanwhile, yachties make the most of the fabulous weather. Auckland City is in the background.

And this is one of the ferries, arriving from Auckland. You can see SkyTower behind them.

More people enjoying the water. 

Coming out of the marina ... 

A beautiful sunset to finish off a lovely day.

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Fishing at Last

About three weeks ago, a lovely lady we've met here at Fairway Bay Marina invited us out on her yacht for a day's fishing. How could we say anything but, "Yes, please!"

The next fine day, we were off ...

Our friend Sue lives on her yacht with Oscar, her best buddy—that's him sitting right beside her. 

We had a fabulous day. There was hardly any wind, so we didn't do any 'sailing' as such. I think Sue chose a really calm day in case we were poor sailors.

Fish! A lot of the ones we caught were too small and had to be thrown back, but we managed to get some edible sizes as well.

And then there was this shag. It tried to catch the fish as we were pulling them up, and if we threw one back, we had to make sure it was on the other side of the yacht, or Mr Shag here would eat it for lunch! Yes, he got the first one before we caught on to his cunning plan. 

When we tried to move on, he followed. A persistent pest.

Here's Oscar teaching Dave how to steer the yacht.

Looking back towards Gulf Harbour.

Oscar would go nuts whenever someone caught a fish ... so excited, barking and snapping at the fish. He was really quite funny ... but Sue banished him to below deck for a while.

Our sea dog ... Lucy's first time out on the water. She was fine, as long as we didn't get out of sight.

The final tally: one tarahiki and about four snapper. Enough for a few meals.

Back in the marina ... this is the lovely Stella Maris that we went on.

Thanks, Sue, for a memorable day!

The following day I was very unwell and went from bad to worse over the following days. I must have picked up a bug. As I'm typing this, I've just yesterday finished my antibiotics and still not 100%. It's been a long struggle with some sort of chest infection, but now I'm improving slowly each day. Hence such a long time between this fishing day and getting the photos on here to show you. We're planning another trip ... hopefully next week, or before we know it, Christmas will be here! 

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