Prelude: The actual name is Wild Goose Expeditions, the name of the boat is The Wild Goose (it used to just be Wild Goose but there was already a boat registered under that name so Lisa painted on a small THE). I put [E]xperience in an attempt to be ironic and funny because there is a charter bus that drives around all of New Zealand called The Kiwi [E]xperience; but it is mostly filled with 17-20 year olds getting drunk and making brief stops at some tourist sites. And traveling on The Wild Goose was probably the antithesis of that. Us real backpackers (HA!) scoff in their general direction. Also, we didn't actually sail all the way to Auckland (The City of Sails, more sails per head than any other city in the world), but we got pretty close...and it makes the title sound much better so get over it.
Brief background story (don't quote me on this, Jamie and Lisa if you are reading this please correct any misinformation): Jamie has sailed all around the world (literally, all the way around) in his previous boat Possibilities. He's been sailing himself around for about 14yrs, starting when he was 20 and going to school for something like agricultural science, he told me the name but it was too long. He has sailed across the Atlantic Ocean 3 times (twice across the north and once across the south) and out of all his stops he enjoyed staying in Brazil the most. The funniest part about Jamie is when people ask him where he's from he says "Australia....I guess..". He was born in South Africa while his parents were sailing around, stayed in Aus for a few years and then started sailing himself. Very mellow and laid back guy, made me really appreciate sailing. Lisa knew Jamie through a mutual friend from Uni and they all decided to sail to Brazil together.
He and Lisa picked up The Wild Goose while in the U.S and sailed across the Pacific to Australia then to New Zealand where Tane Mahuta Harry Ketu Mitchel was born. While sailing across the pacific the longest they went without seeing land was 27 DAYS! between Panama and Marquesas. Pretty wicked right?..yup. Now on to my journey.
I woke up pretty excited for my first sailing journey, the only other sailing I've done was at Ben's cottage and that was on a tiny sail boat and just around the lake for a while; so I was pumped. Berni and I made our way to the port at around 8:30am and waited there for Christiana to arrive. After she arrived we met with Jamie, piled our bags into the dingy (Sidenote: This was a great feat, three large backpacks (Berni's being the biggest and heaviest LOL) and 3 small backpacks plus 3 people rowing in a small dingy. Christiana was else where at the time so Jamie had to go back and pick her up). Once we got on board we met Lisa and Tane (3 month old sailing master and part time DJ) and they gave us the tour, they made special note of the bicycle cupboard.
We needed a little push to get out of the harbor (help from the engine) but after that it was just quiet and calm sailing. We started off by passing by a few bays (Cooks Bay, Lonely Bay, and some others) very beautiful and then we were out onto the open water; or at least what I would consider open water, probably nothing like sailing across an ocean. There isn't really much to say about sailing, it is very relaxing and requires a lot of patience, my kind of activity. After a few hours we made it to Great Mercury Island (Fun fact: Great Mercury Island is owned by a New Zealand business man who bought it for about $300,000!!). This place was beautiful, and NOT mentioned in the Lonely Planet, so there weren't very many people around; also probably because it was an island in the middle of no where. We stopped at Peach Tree Bay, there were many others but Jamie thought that this one looked like a nice stopping place, and had lunch.
Before lunch we had a quick swim and snorkel. The water was so clear you really didn't need to snorkel you could just stand on the boat and watch the fish AND MANTA RAYS. I swam around for a while looking for fish, I saw a school of small silver fish and came back out. Then a manta ray came along so I had to jump back in to get a close look. It was pretty awesome I must say. After we ate Jamie decided to do some fishing and caught two snapper for dinner. We then set off again and sailed for another few hours until it got dark, so we stopped at Port Charles. Being on a sail boat there is no real bathroom available, so I had to learn how to pee off the back of the boat. This proved much more difficult than I thought, Jamie said it's because you are using your stomach muscles to balance so you have to relax them to get it going. I figured it out eventually =).
Sailing at night was one of the best experiences I've had here, the stars and the moon looked so amazing from the water, the moon was incredibly bright, a bit annoying as I'd have loved to see some more stars but it was good none the less. Also, as we were approaching Port Charles there was a faint smell of flowers in the air, it made for a very pleasant ride as I laid out on the front of the boat and watched the stars. I even saw the space station go by and a shooting star (yup..best ever). Sleeping on the boat was another thing I had to get over, because I like to sleep on my side. This proved quite difficult as I kept falling over, so I just turned on my back and everything was fine. I woke up in the middle of the night to pee and when I went out the moon was near setting so it was ENORMOUS and really close to the horizon, very cool.
I woke up the next morning at around 830-9ish (really good sleep after I figured it out) and we set off at around the same time; the wind was good so we had to get going quickly. On our way we saw Great Barrier Island which is the fourth largest in New Zealand's chain of islands. It was MASSIVE, from the front it looked alright, but then once we got around you could really see how big it was. And comparing it to Great Mercury it was pretty amazing in terms of size; if we had another day we may have made it out there but we were on a schedule. We also passed by Port Jackson which was quite nice, Berni and I had previously discussed driving up there when we rented the car, but seeing it this way was much more impressive. We also saw a penguin swimming along as we were sailing, which was pretty cool. During the trip Jamie taught us how to tie a Bowline knot and he taught me how to tie a monkey fist knot, which I will be using to decorate things from now on.
We finally arrived at Owhanake Bay, Waiheke Island in the late evening. The houses along the bay were really big and beautiful, there was also a vineyard just up the hill. It was a very nice quiet bay (the kind that Jamie likes) for us to say our goodbyes. We stopped in the bay for a while and I played with Tane for one last time (quick DJ session, he's a natural...obviously because he's a December baby like myself), said goodbye to Lisa and hopped in the dingy with all our stuff. This time around we had ALL the bags and ALL the people, and we still survived; I'm pretty sure Lisa has a video or at least a picture of this, pretty sketchy but we made it.
From there Luke from Kina Backpackers on Waiheke picked us up, not sure how else we would have gotten there really, and brought us to a pub. Oh right...it was St. Patties day! I had completely forgot, time flies when you're sailing I guess. So we stopped for a few beers and then continued on back to Kina (which was a really nice place right by the beach on a hill) to sail into dream land.....
Thanks to Jamie, Lisa, and Tane for giving me such a great trip around the Coromandel Peninsula. Look them up if you are ever up for some REAL adventure. It was a spectacular way to see the mountains and beachs, and I hope it won't be my last sailing expedition.
Peace & Love
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