You don’t always get what you want, you get what you need

All he needs, is some fancy boots

Te Kaihōpara’s crew woke up to the sun beaming down on them, as the clouds had finally decided to part ways with us. Mansion House (strange name, either its a Mansion, or its a House. Make up your mind Sir George Grey!) was shining with a fresh coat of white paint as we approached it by tender. A walk around the gardens, with its lush green lawns and peckish peacocks and peahens did make it quite obvious why this would’ve been a great spot for victorian-era luncheons and skimpy ankle revealing-gowns, back in the day. A longer trek along the island revealed adorable Wallabies, giant aloe vera plants and a particularly cheeky mouse.

Aaron and Amanda doing their best ‘horror-movie-characters-that-don’t-make-it-to-the-end-of-the-movie’ impressions

On our return to Te Kaihōpara, a plan had been hatched to replace our wind sensor with the one I had taken off (borrowed) Silver Fern the other day. Mick Johns decided to remind us why he shares his initials with The Rolling Stones’s frontman, by volunteering to traverse up the mast and get the dirty deed done. However, his actions were in vain as the replacement wind sensor also refused to work (thanks B&G!)

We upped anchor and headed towards The Poor Knights groups of islands. The area was considered as one of ten the best dive sites in the world by Jacques Cousteau himself. As the passage was going to take us at least 8 hours, Aaron got into action in the galley and single handedly cooked up a absolute feast. Te Kaihōpara seemed to be enjoying herself, as we managed to get her sailing with all four sails up and gave the iron sail a rest. On arriving at our destination at around 1 am, precarious cliff tops surrounded us in the dark, as we settled in for the night at our anchorage spot. Let’s see what wonders the daylight reveals.

David struggling with the banality of common-folk everyday tasks