Now that we have internet again, here's the posts from the last few days :)

Tuesday.
No fish played the game last night, although we did see some rat kingies mooching around the boat the next day. In order to try to bring in at least some income, Steve went off and did some work on an aquaculture farm in the Coromandel Harbour. After a long walk and run around on shore, me and the dogs met back up with him and we headed back out of the harbour. It was blowing a bit, so we made a short run back to Waimate Island. We did our usual anchoring method, which is coming to a complete stop, slowly reversing while lowering the anchor and chain, then straightening the chain and giving it a good burst in reverse to make sure it's dug in well, usually with a 5-1 scope. After getting ourselves settled, we watched in amusement as some other plonker stormed in, dropped his anchor while still going forward, then disappeared below very quickly. As he started getting closer and closer, we kept an eye on him and he finally noticed and came to ask us if we'd finished dragging. A few choice words and advising him how much anchor and chain we had out, he said we needed more training back on land and implied he'd sailed around the world. Luckily he eventually decided to move. After lifting a surprisingly small amount of chain, his anchor came out and he drifted around aimlessly. We then proceeded to watch him try to re-anchor 3 times before he was successful - all of which was quite amusing. I guess for the land lubbers benefit, it's a bit like someone running a red light, cutting you off, parking on a slope and leaving their handbrake off, then moving to another park and taking 3 goes to get into a simple angle parking, then claiming they are some sort of driving god, taught Schumacher everything he knows, and that you shouldn't have a licence :) ;)

Wednesday
After an early morning run on the beach (past Schumacher's mentor on the way and heard his halyard clanging against his mast - another rookie mistake), we pulled up our well dug in anchor and headed north. It was blowing about 15 knots, so we had a nice motor sail up the eastern coromandel coast, although the swell was a bit of a pain. Unfortunately Twink wasn't that happy about the swell either, and we've always known this may be a problem as he's not happy when things get rough and the boat gets a bit rollie pollie (that's not a technical term, but maybe it should be ;). Pip on the other hand just goes to sleep - go figure :\

We stopped in at Port Jackson for a walk on the beach, and found a nice little stream for the dogs to have a swim in. The forecast was to get a bit blowy in the avo (25 knots), so we decided to make a run for either Stony Bay or Port Charles. We're now anchored up in Port Charles, which is nice enough, although the gradual slope means we're a little way off shore, and there's a bit of a roll here. No cell phone coverage means I'm writing these blogs to upload at a later date when we get back to civilisation. The forecast is not sounding great for tomorrow, Friday will be ok, but then another blow coming through on Sat and Sun, so we might not make it down to Tga for Monday (and my mother's 70th) at this rate . I guess it can't be all plain sailing, and sitting in a bit of a rollie bay is payback for the last 4 days of great cruising.


Thursday - it's a dogs life
We always knew cruising with dogs would be a pain at times - and today is the day. If it's fine, it's no big deal to go shore 3-4 times a day for them to go to the toilet and have a run around and explore. If fact, it's actually good to have an excuse to get off the boat, otherwise I'm sure we'd just lie around all day doing nothing ;). But when it's a bit blowie, rough or raining, it's not so much fun. We have managed to get Twink to pee on deck and he'll do that quite happily if he needs to, but Pip is stubborn and still refuses to follow suit. Then there's the issue of them getting salty and sandy - both of which are things we try to avoid getting down below. We seem to be managing well with those and have developed ways of either keeping those things to a minimum, and using a wash-down hose of fresh water to clean them before going back inside the boat. After good run around, they don't seem to mind having a snooze in the sun in the cockpit or on deck while drying off ;)

It does raise the question of what we'll do when it does get really nasty, and the easiest answer is to find a marina and stay put for a while. The wind is suppose to be up again this afternoon, but dropping tomorrow, so we'll high tail it outta here and head to Whitianga where we can hopefully stay in the marina for a few days as the next lot of crap comes thru, and maybe just hire a car to get down to Tauranga. In the mean time, it'll be another night in rollie bay. Oh, we also saw a pod of dolphins frolicking and jumping out of the water further out of the bay :)


Friday
It's official - cruising with dogs sucks. Actually, no, let me rephrase that - cruising with dogs you care about sucks. If it was just us, it's uncomfortable to be stuck in a rollie bay, or have to make a dash in less than ideal conditions to find better shelter, but we wouldn't have to go ashore and we know what's going on and know that it's not forever. The dogs don't know that and their obvious distress is distressing to us. We have a fairly good system worked out for getting them into the dingy, but when the boat is rocking and rolling up and down, it can get a bit hairy. The dogs have harnesses on for easy retrieval if they did ever go over, but still ..... The added complication of Twink's arthritis and sometimes lack of strength in his hind legs and ability to jump is a problem as well. We always knew we might have to move back to land when they got older and were struggling to get around on the boat, but we thought that wouldn't be for a while yet. Add to that the problem that there's so many places where we are not allowed to take them ashore cos DOC (Department of Conservation) think all dogs are kiwi killers, and once you do get to a beach, there's no nearby parks to have a good run around :( All up, we've feeling pretty bad about the whole situation we have put them in.

To top it off, we managed to get hold of Whitianga marina and they have no berths available for us - just as well we hadn't set off for there before checking! That really does put paid to plans for going to Tauranga for my mother's 70th. The option we're now looking at is to wait for the wind to ease later today to a forecast 15 knots and make a dash to great barrier where there's lots of good anchorages and protection in Port Fitzroy. Of course, every other man and his dog will be there too - oh well. Having an internet connection would be nice so we could check the long term forecasts, and let people know where we are, but I guess we can hang out there until all this shit blows through.