The Poor Knights group of islands truly was a sight to behold, as we were greeted by a 270 degree view of the cliffs drenched in golden sunshine. The crew decided to go for a reconnaissance mission wth the tender, as I got my morning workout in by inflating the water toys onboard. We had managed to anchor barely fifty metres away from a massive, half-submerged cave, the biggest in the region. This cave had the unique history of being a hiding spot for a Japanese submarine undergoing at-sea repairs during  WWII. Recently, there were some whales known to have snuck into the cave to escape the peering gaze of us pesky humans. I imagined great wonders within this naturally formed marvel, as Te Kaihōpara and I awaited the return of our brave expeditioner’s.

The crew returned overjoyed and immediately rehydrated themselves as they prepared to attack the water toys. David and I took the tender out as we had decided to play with the giant drone he’d been carrying around for a week. The tender was pushed to its limits as we went through the giant cave, rock cut formations and heavy sea states. My experience as a tender driver for a video drone expedition, was going along quite well, up until David suddenly asked me to pluck the drone out of the air (as it landed) as he needed to swap batteries. Of course, as any Chief Mate worth his salt would do, I did exactly that. But just as I was about to make contact, David pointed out the importance of catching the drone at both its landing points with both my hands. This would not be the case on ground as my right hand got to the nearest part of the drone’s landing gear a fraction of a second faster than my other hand. At this point, the drone decided that it had enough of people’s hands touching it inappropriately and went into a ‘berserk’ mode (not mentioned in the manual). I held on to the infernal thing as David tried and spectacularly failed at turning the drone off. The machine was now firmly in control of proceedings, as both of us hung on to sideways, with blades running at top speed, just a few inches away from our eyeballs and the tender’s rubber body. Finally, the cursed object’s battery drained completely and David had to coax me out of wanting to throw it into the deep depths of the sea. A few more bits of drama followed as we came back onboard Te Kaihopara and I discovered a couple of cuts on my forearm and my forehead and had to steer clear of David who seemed to be hell bent on practicing his newly learnt stitching skills on my beautiful skin. No-way-Jose!

The high octane events of the afternoon seemed like a distant memory, as we began our overnight passage towards Tiritiri Matangi Island. Thick cloud cover meant that we missed out on the predicted meteor shower in the wee hours of the next morning, but Amanda’s chocolate cake (icing included!) definitely made up for it. I whipped up some Mediterranean-style eggs for our weary crew, before they set off to explore the island. On their return, we intercepted a ‘Mayday’ call on VHF from a Jet-ski rider not too far away from our anchorage spot. As all good seafarers do, we heeded the call of the hour and went to his aid. The poor fellow had been adrift for almost an hour in open waters, since his Jet ski had stopped working in the middle of his fishing trip when the sea drogue was sucked up the water intake. Te Kaihopara’s search and rescue abilities went up a notch, as we safely delivered him and his jet ski to Gulf Harbour’s boat ramp and finished up yet another fantastic adventure. The goodbyes were warm and swift as Te Kaihōpara and I hope to see Amanda, Michael and Aaron on yet another adventure in the future, hopefully, a longer one. I must now bid farewell to my precious Te Kaihopara for a few days as Mick and I sail Silver Fern to Whangarei for some much needed hardstand maintenance.

- Arjun Thimmaya, Chief Mate, Te Kaihopara