Waiheke Island, New Zealand

By: Kerry

I hope this finds you soaking in the Christmas cheer (though if you’re literally soaking in it, then I’m afraid you’ve peaked too early).

We are anchored off Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf, near Auckland. We’re in a little bay called Owhanake and there isn’t a breath of wind at the moment. Very peaceful.

We sailed down from Whangarei last Saturday, in company with the Kiapas, the friends with whom we buddy-boated from Fiji.

Our plans for Christmas are, at this point, a little loose and weather-dependent. We’ll spend the day with the Kiapas (plus Suzie), and we are all in full-on hunter-gatherer mode as we’re hoping to catch a seafood feast for Christmas Day. Yesterday we gathered a pile of huge green lip mussels (turned into delicious bouillabaisse last night, with the addition of some kingfish caught by Damian the day before) and tonight we’re doing mussel fritters. The fishing lines have been out at every opportunity, but so far not much luck: we’re hoping to hook into a few snapper sometime in the next 24 hours.
The pressure is on, and the fishing comp points tally stands at Salty Lemons: 6 (1 for a hookup plus 5 for the Kingfish), Kiapas: 0.

Oh, and a warning… Damian is having an op on his schnoz in early February (he’s been looking through the catalogue, thinking something pert and upturned might be nice) so we’ll be in Oz from then until around the end of Feb and we’re looking forward to seeing as many friends as possible!

Meanwhile, we’re sending Christmas cheers and best wishes for the coming year.

Love from Kerry and Damian.

PS I was just joking about pert and up-turned. His op isn’t going to be quite so glamorous!

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