The back of Barrier

At the beginning of our holiday we did hardly any sailing, instead just hanging about in the safe calm waters of the western side of Barrier. The 8 children played constantly and the adults sat on the beach reading books.

It was lovely, but I was starting to feel itchy for sailing. So a few days ago we said goodbye to our companions and set off on our own for the north of Barrier, in order to "go around the back". We had never been there before.

The first day we encountered an unexpected good easterly which took us up to the Needles at the north tip of Barrier and then south to Arid Island (Rakitu). We anchored in a tiny bay on the northwest tip of Arid Island. It was a very calm night and the next morning we rowed in the dinghy into the cave on the east side of the island, which was a really cool cave. One of us found it terrifying but the mother couldn't resist swimming in it. There were heaps of jellyfish - like swimming in jelly almost - but they're the non-stinging kind.

The wind backed to the northwest which meant it was coming right in the narrow mouth of the bay, so we motored across to beautiful Whangapoua Beach on the eastern side of Barrier, and spent the afternoon there. It was one of those truly amazing white sand beaches that you hear about on the east side of Barrier. The next morning the wind changed again - sou'east this time - so we went to Harotaonga Bay, three miles south, which was also beautiful. The next day the wind was forecast to change to nor'east, which was perfect for our planned sail to Great Mercury Island, thirty miles south. However, the forecast wind didn't come till 4pm. We set off at 10am and sailed on a southerly - quite a faint one. We sailed around the outside of Cuvier Island, which was really cool. Lighthouse and everything. By the time we got to Great Mercury, we had put out our headsail and wound it back in 3 times! The whole passage took nearly 8 hours. We did have some nice sailing though.

Now that we're here, I'm surprised how close the Mercs are to the mainland. It's nice to be in a new place, and it's nice to have done some sailing.