Shortly after breakfast, we heard Al from Ten Gauge hailing us. He told us that there were gale warnings on the radio, and they were moving to a more secure bay. Our plan was to move to the yacht anchorage south of Russell, which should be secure in an easterly blow. But Al said people had dragged there.

We missed the radio weather forecast, but managed to get a NZ met marine forecast with a cell phone internet connection. High wind warning indeed - gusts to 34 kts (just gale force) tonight! So I called the marina to see if they had space for us a day early. Bay of Islands Marina is super-helpful - they always seem to be able to make things work. So we had C15 for the night, and we could stay there until 1 Dec., or move to our assigned monthly slip tomorrow,

So we hauled up the anchor, by hand, while the stocky old salt on the stocky wooden sloop next to us gammed about hauling anchors by hand, which was fine until you were seventy or so. I said I had five years before an electric windlass then, and he let on he was well over seventy and still hauling his anchor by hand. The wind carried off the rest of the conversation.

We had a fine sail back across the bay under Genoa alone, as the wind held steady from the east in the 25 - 30 knot range. Whitecaps smothered the bay, but hardly bothered the Mabel Rose on a broad reach. When it came time to gybe, we rolled the sail up to make it easier, and only rolled out part of the jib on the port tack, so we could take it easy sailing back into Opua’s inlet.

The wind grew puffy and variable in the protected waters, and we ended up having little trouble docking even with the tide behind us

CHECK OUT THE GALLERY FOR SOME PICTURES OF TONGA and BAY OF ISLANDS!