The Bay of Islands is beautiful. I sailed just about all the way in to the customs dock. I cleared customs and bio-hazards stuff with flying colors (the officer's word!) and I've been docked at the Bay Of Islands Marine (hence BOI marina) since. You'd love it here. Opua is really tiny but the boats stuff is great. The chandlery is just like Alibaba cavern's! I went to a small general store and got some fresh food since I had to throw away anything I had that was remotely fresh. I have a beautiful organic lettuce! And tomatoes and some Greek yogurt (and some chips...) . Tomorrow is a national holiday so everything is closed (I seem to often come in port on the eve of holidays).
I'll write more tomorrow when I have explored a bit.