A belated christmas update! Christmas eve saw us heading off to Great Barrier Island, we left work early and after a patchy start we had a good sail across to Barrier, motoring in through Man O War passage and we were anchored in Kaiarara Bay by 2300 ( that's 11 pm) and there we pretty much stayed! Some friends were there on their yacht so we enjoyed spending christmas evening with them. We did some diving and dinghied into Fitzroy but in general we just chilled out! Lots of boats in the bay - more than we've ever seen in this bay before (previously even when there has been lots of boat around they have mostly been in other anchorages). For New Years Eve we went to the Boat Club at Fitzroy with some friends. Not many people there at all but a really good band -well couple of guys playing a mix of music really well including some really good celtic stuff. Mostly good weather with a couple of windy days. Eventually we tore ourselves away to head back to Auckland. Stopped off for a dive at Horn Rock in calm conditions and then sailed in a nice sea breeze to Bon Accord in Kawau where some of Jim's workmates were staying a bach, his boss was also anchored behind us. Got our limit of scallops (and no cat to share them with!) unlike at Barrier where we managed 3 (but made up for it with a successful cray dive). Unfortunately we then had to motor back to Auckland for work on Wednesday. Although I made a short week of it and took Friday off to head up to tthe Bay of Islands to sail on Breeze in the Tallships race on the weekend.

Pohutukawa in Kaiarara (if you lean your head to the side!)

Kaiarara -note all the dinghies on the beach -must've been the day to go for a walk!

'Gosi' heading for Kawau with the Grey Group and Great Barrier in the background