After three years of Adam’s hard work, the day had finally come for us to let go the dock lines and set sail from New Zealand to Fiji. A passage of approximately 1,200 nautical miles taking between 6 – 10 days.
Continue readingA view of the anchorage from the walking track above Smokehouse Bay. This is where we saw a stingray swimming in the shallow water. Smokehouse Bay is an anchorage situated in Port Fitzroy, Aotea (Great Barrier Island) and is a popular anchorage for boaties.
Continue readingLifelines have an important role on a sailboat because their purpose is to stop people falling overboard. Therefore, inspecting them regularly and making sure that they are fit for purpose, is crucial.
Continue readingI've been living in New Zealand 21 years and we've been sailing New Zealand's northern coastline for over two years and we thought we knew what was in New Zealand's coastal waters. Imagine our surprise when one flew past Tāiko and we were to see two more.
Continue readingLearning to manage our water, power and food supply since living aboard our sailboat has been three of our biggest challenges. When we lived at home, it was so easy to just turn the tap on and get water. If we're in a marina, water supply is no issue.
Continue readingThe start of 2023 brought many adverse weather events to the upper North Island of New Zealand with Cyclone Gabrielle causing widespread devastation along the northern east coast of New Zealand in February 2023.
Continue readingReefing lines are important on a sailboat because they enable us to reef down the main sail (reduce sail area) when in strong winds. We had accidentally crossed two of our reefing lines when we rerouted them to make place for our new staysail halyard.
Continue readingOn Tāiko, we can usually provision for at least 6 weeks, which means we don't need to go to supermarkets or shops for 6 weeks when we are planning to be off grid.
Continue readingDeep Water Cove (Maunganui Bay) in the Bay of Islands is well. . . as the name says. . . a deep water cove. It's the closest anchorage on the western side of Cape Brett and is open to the open ocean.
Continue readingWhen we were thinking about living a life afloat, we imagined the places that we would get to explore. Beautiful, exotic, and remote places where few get to venture or where getting there by land can be expensive and time consuming.
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