Yesterday was River Cruise Day on Orcinius, and a great day it was! (If you haven’t already read all this on Charisma’s blog….) We started out the day by having Ann and Bob over for breakfast as it was their One Year Anniversary!

Starting the day off with Bloody Mary's!
John cooked up his delicious quiche, and I mixed up the Bloody Mary’s using Mr. & Mrs. T’s Bold and Spicy Bloody Mary Mix, found only at Martha’s Backyard! (The US store we shopped at last week). Then the rest of the gang showed up at 11 – Janette & Alistair who adopted us this past year while staying at their B&B, and Helen & Fraser who took terrific care of Orcinius in their boatyard for over a year.
The weather turned out perfect. We had been keeping close tabs on the weather as the weekend approached, and Sunday was calling for a cloudy day with maybe a bit of rain. But we lucked out and had blue skies and perfect wind.

Fraser, Helen, and Janette scoping out the bay

Bob, Lisa, Alistair and Janette overseeing the helm

A beautiful day for a river cruise

Everybody up top at the helm!
We motored down river for about 1 ½ hours, then tucked into a little bay recommended by Fraser and threw out the hook (put the anchor down for all you landlubbers). First on the agenda – popping open a few bottles of champagne and making a toast to our friends that have taken such good care of us this past year.

Popping open some bubbly!

John making a toast to our great friends!

Cheers!!!
Then John fired up the barby and cooked up 8 maga-hamburgers, along with John’s potato salad, we had a great lunch.
After lunch we pulled out my Ugly Stick – my pint-sized fishing pole. No one believed you could catch fish with it. So Bob put a chunk of left over hamburger on the hook and tossed it overboard. A few minutes later – fish on! He landed a red snapper!

Bob's catch of the day

Yummm!

Hmmmm - toss or keep?
Granted – it was a pint-sized snapper to go with the pint-sized pole, but fish were biting! After he caught and released a few more, I had to give it a try. I landed at least a 3 ouncer, and I swear Ann’s fish was pushing close to 4! Too fun!

Setting the sails
We had perfect 12 knot winds from our starboard back quarter for the return sail to the dock. It was a perfect way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Today we are finally starting to see gray skies and on/off rain, which looks like it will last through the rest of the week – with some heavy stuff coming on Thursday. We have lots of indoor boat projects still to be completed, so until we get a stretch of good weather to take us down to the Auckland area, looks like we will be in Whangarei!
Enjoy the rest of the pictures below.

Lisa and John enjoying a well deserved outing on Orcinius!

The Gang!

Bottle Number 2!