Location 35° 15.7S 174° 07.2E
Tuesday 12:00, 06.26.2007

The Schooner Maggie B arrived in Russell, NZ, Tuesday, June 26th. We are at the town dock, at 35° 15.7S, 174° 07.2E. We made an easy trip up from Auckland overnight, despite rather dire weather forecasts. The sail up was rather enlivened by dolphin playing around us at midnight and a large, mysterious sailboat, traveling slowly but with essentially no lights on.

Once into the Bay of Islands, we were quite surprised to see about a dozen tourist boats rushing around and a lovely big barkentine R. Tucker Thompson. Several of the tourist boats came by to look and one small motorboat came alongside to welcome us.

Coming into the Bay of Islands, we had initially thought of going into Opua, which is a few miles away. However, while Opua is an official port of entry and has a marina, it has essentially nothing else. Russell, however, is a marvelous little community. In the old days, Russell had quite a reputation. Quoting from the Lonely Planet: “Russell was a magnet for rough elements such as fleeing convicts, whalers, prostitutes and drunk sailors. Charles Darwin described it in 1835 as full of ‘the refuse of society’ and it also picked up the chirpy nickname ‘hellhole of the Pacific.’ Sadly all good things must come to an end, and the town is now a bastion of cafes, giftshops and B&B’s.”

There is essentially only one good docking space at the Russell pier. It is like a narrow “U” facing outwards, with big posts all around. We backed into it with some difficulty due to the 15 knot cross wind. With good crew coordination and some “high wire” work from Theresa, all worked well despite many onlookers at the pier. We are now trussed up like a moth in a spider’s web.

We find Russell delightful and are going to explore the surrounding area, which includes Tane Mahuta (Lord of the Forest), a 2000 year old kauri tree that is 51 meters high and has a girth of 13 meters.

In Opua there is a man who specializes in photovoltaic cells and we are going to see if we can get some fitted to help with our electrical consumption. Our big batteries seem to hold their charge less long, though they charge up quicker. We still end up running the generator for about two hours a day, when we are actively using the boat, if the Yanmar main engine isn’t running. The biggest energy users seem to be the radar/GPS and the autopilot, not the refrigerator and the water maker, as I suspected.

We are organizing supplies and beginning to track weather for the run north. We will probably leave early next week, weather permitting. There are a series of gales forecast for the end of this week.

We are a bit groggy, not from grog but from staying up late to watch the America’s Cup in ValeNZia. Thrilling to have the Kiwis up 2-1. Last night’s race was a real cliff-hanger with the Kiwi’s ahead 400 meters, a huge distance, only to have the Swiss catch and pass them by the last windward mark, only to have the Kiwi’s slip past on the last downwind and win by twenty seconds. Just doesn’t happen much in match racing.

All is well.