Leaving the mainland

After more than six months in the south we are now back in the North Island. In Mana marina to be precise. After leaving Nelson we spent a couple of days in Greville Harbour in d'Urville island. We arrived in blue skies listening to the bird song and spent the next day with 50 knots going past watching the williwaws and sea 'smoking' from the comparative shelter of our anchorage. We went back through French Pass and after a night in Catherine's Cove we headed for Port Gore to dive on the wreck of the 'Mikhail Lermentov'. Unfortunately the visibility wasn't great (or have we been spoilt by Fiordland?!) but we could still make out various bits including the wheelhouse, funnel, gangway, restaurant area and engine room etc but the scale was lost in the murk. The next day we contemplated another dive but the weather looked good for a crossing of Cook Strait. We had our best ever crossing of the ditch, previously we have either got snotted or motored across in flat calm! A pleasant sail was a nice change! We had to anchor until the tide was high enough to get across the bar and arrived later that night after a quick trip ashore to have coffee at a friend's place while we waited.