Torries

january/february 2017

cruisingworld.com

66

After a long

day of playing

the shifting

breezes, Gannet

approaches

the entrance to

Whangamumu

Harbor (top). The

journey began

a day earlier in

Opua (above).

to myself — Paradise Bay, specifi cally, on the west

side of Urupukapuka Island, in New Zealand’s Bay

of Islands.

In 2014, I crossed the Pacifi c Ocean on Gannet, my

Moore 24, sailing 7,000 miles. We had some 1,000-

mile weeks and several 150-plus-mile days. Now I was

trying merely to sail 25 miles from our mooring off

Opua to Whangamumu Harbor, and there were times

I didn’t think we’d make it.

Earlier that day, on a sunny, pleasant but windless

morning, I had Gannet ready to sail, except for raising

the mainsail and dropping the

mooring, at 1000. I fi nally did

drop the mooring at noon.

The tide was coming in, keep-

ing our bow to the north, and

an almost imperceptible wind

was from the south, so I raised

the main with the wind behind

us, went forward and released

the mooring, and we headed

north, slowly, on a dead run.

After a half-hour, I was able

to raise the jib, and a few min-

utes later, the wind swung

from south to north, heading

us and increasing slightly.

I tacked and tacked Gannet,

at one point almost running

over another gannet pre-

occupied with preening

his feathers. It took us an

hour and 45 minutes to be

off Russell — a straight-line

distance of less than 4 nau-

tical miles. Then the wind

increased again for a while,

and we sometimes saw boat

speeds of 5 knots.

As I sailed past Roberton Island, I considered call-

ing it a day and going in, but glided on and got the

anchor down at Paradise at 1600. Four hours to make

10 miles. On the next day, I would dare to try for 16.

I watched the sunset over the islands to the west,

eating a freeze-dried Back Country Cuisine roast

chicken dinner with mashed potatoes on deck, a

plastic tumbler of red wine at hand and Pablo Casals

playing Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6 in stereo on the two

Megabooms, by far the best-sounding waterproof

Bluetooth speakers I’ve found.

I was awake the following morning at fi rst light, ONE SHOT/PNZ/TUAN NGUYEN (OPPOSITE TOP); WEBB CHILES

CRW0217_FEA3_Whanga (outlines).indd 66 11/21/16 12:35 PM