Whangaroa Harbour

Hi everyone,

We've now been in Whangaroa Harbour for three weeks.  How time flies!  We're waiting for a good weather window to sail 'over the top' and south to South Island.  Sadly the weather is remaining spring-like with no sign of a summer pattern emerging.  But the harbour offers many nice anchorages plus a marina.  Adjacent to the marina is the Whangaroa Big Game Fishing Club with great food and drink.

Sunset in Touwai Bay

Here are our tracks within the harbour so far...

Tracks

Initially, with SE winds, we anchored in Owhatanga Bay in the Eastern Arm.  5m over mud.  On arrival we dinked over to the water buoy on the N side of the bay to fill our water jerries.  The buoy is run by the Whangaroa Coastguard.  It is fed from a stream ashore.  Very handy.

In Owhatanga Bay

On 13th we motored over to the Western Arm and into Rere Bay.  We anchored in 5m over mud.  The next day we dinked ashore in Lane Cove and walked up to the Duke's Nose.  The 750m path ascends over 200m with two stages clambering up near vertical rock faces with steel rods attached to the rock.

In the Western Arm

Passing the Duke's Nose

Anchored in Rere Bay

Ascending

Zen Again from halfway up

Final climb

Zen Again and Rere Bay from the Duke's Nose

Sunrise in Rere Bay

We spent five nights in Rere Bay, including two with strong NE winds.  The bay is open to the NE-E and we had 0.5m seas and gusty winds.  We re-anchored a little further into the bay in 4m since the anchor chain was rattling over a rocky patch.  The holding was good in mud.

On the 18th we motored to Ratcliffe Bay, 0.5nm N of the marina, via the water buoy.  We were unsure of the water situation in the marina and the water buoy provides nice filtered stream water.  We anchored in 7m over mud, just outside the moorings.  The following day we moved into the marina for a three night stay.

Rewatering

In Whangaroa Marina

The marina has good showers and laundry.  Day one was laundry and shower day followed by dinner at the Whangaroa Big Game Fishing Club.  Great food and beer.  Visitors need to each buy a temporary (2 week) membership for $5.  Draft beers are $7 for a pint so the membership fee is good value.  We watched part of the third Ashes test in Adelaide on their big screen.

Whangaroa Big Game Fishing Club

On day 2 we taxied to Kerikeri to the 70th birthday party of a friend.  I worked with Ian in Perth and contracted for him in the US.  He recently returned to his home country and has a very nice property outside the town of Kerikeri.

On day 3 we walked up to St Paul's Rock which overlooks the marina.  Not as strenuous as Duke's Nose but wonderful views from the top.

Start of footpath to St Paul's Rock

Last stage assisted by chain

View W from St Paul's Rock

View N from St Paul's Rock

Atop St Paul's Rock

On the 22nd we motored the short distance W from the marina to Okura Bay.  We anchored in 6m over mud outside the moorings.  One day we dinked ashore to the wharf which has a dinghy dock.  There are public toilets nearby and nice walks around the two bays.

Okura Bay

Okura Bay wharf and dinghy dock

On Christmas Day we motored back to Rere Bay to join friends on SVs Lady Annabelle and Masterplan.  The Lady Annabelles are from Perth and we discovered we have several mutual friends.  The Masterplans are originally from Zimbabwe and now living in New Zealand.  Having spent several years in Zambia we also had plenty to talk about!

Heading back into Rere Bay

We spent a nice Christmas Day aboard Zen Again.  Our only outing was to deliver mince pies to our pals nearby.  It was a cloudy day but we had a great day.

Mince pie deliveries around the anchorage on Christmas Day

Christmas duck dinner

Flaming the Christmas Pud

On Boxing Day we all met up on sv Masterplan for coffee and Christmas treats.  Christmas cakes, mince pies and more.

Boxing Day get-together aboard sv Masterplan with sv Lady Annabelle

On the 27th everyone visited Zen Again for morning coffee and more treats.  That afternoon we all motored to Whangaroa, anchoring off the marina.  We all dinked ashore to the public dinghy dock for dinner at the WBGFC.  We watched the end of the fourth Ashes test.

Yesterday we motored N and into the Eastern Arm, anchoring in Touwai Bay.  This bay offered good protection from the approaching SE backing N winds overnight and for the next day or two.  We got together on Lady Annabelle for a sundowner.  The sunset was spectacular.

Zen Again in Touwai Bay

Spending so long here waiting for summer to arrive has given us a nice holiday.  We've caught up on a lot of low-priority boat jobs.  Nic has been working on our YouTube videos and I created a set of videos showing our tracks in GoogleEarth over nearly 15 years.

Trust all's well where you are!

New Zealand GoogleEarth KML File

Hi everyone,

This is a technical post.   It follows posts on a set of New Zealand OpenCPN waypoints and another on an associated set of KAP 'charts'.  Here we put the waypoints in GoogleEarth itself, providing another means of visualising the places and their surroundings.

Overview

Here are links to the preceding posts:

• New Zealand Anchorages
• New Zealand GoogleEarth KAP Charts

Here are links to the three folders holding this data on our Dropbox site:

• GPXlibrary
• KAPlibrary
• KMLlibrary

None of this information is for use in navigation!

To use GoogleEarth you can either install the Google Earth Pro app or run Google Earth in your browser.  In either you can load our KMZ file.  Then you can explore the ~550 anchorages, moorings and marinas in our set.

The screenshots below show the waypoints in various popular cruising areas.

Northland

Hauraki Gulf

Abel Tasman and Marlborough Sound

Fiordland

Stewart Island

The GoogleEarth Tour below gives an idea of the detail available, moving from Three Kings Islands in the north to Stewart Island's Port Pegasus in the south via Opua, Auckland, Nelson, Milford Sound and Preservation Inlet.

If you find our KML library useful consider donating using the button at the top of this page.  Alternately Buy Us A Coffee.

Trust all's well where you are!

New Zealand GoogleEarth KAP Charts

Hi everyone,

This is another technical post.  Last week I created a set of about 400 New Zealand anchorage, mooring and marina waypoints, primarily for use in OpenCPN.  They're publicly available and described here.  This week's task was to create GoogleEarth KAP satellite image 'charts' for them all.  KAP charts can be displayed in OpenCPN.

Viewing Zen Again's location in OpenCPN using KAP charts

Many sailors using satellite imagery in OpenCPN have abandoned KAP charts in favour of MBTILES charts.  The latter allow one to zoom in and out, viewing varying levels of detail while doing so.  I prefer to only use satellite imagery when zoomed in on a small area, for example a narrow pass or a small bay.  KAP files are also much smaller, for example MBTILES for all New Zealand is about 6GB while my KAP files are about 400MB.  Both formats have their uses.

Read this post to learn about our KAP library and how to use satellite imagery.

The KAP library is on Dropbox here and the new file is NewZealand.zip.

The quality of satellite imagery varies enormously - regardless of format.  Below are a series of KAP charts in OpenCPN.  They range from very clear to 'clear as mud'.  Many of the Fiordland images are very dark due to poor light in the fiords - they're surrounded by tall mountains after all!

Napier Harbour

Sailor's Rest on Stewart Island

Kelly's in Fiordland

Alice Falls in Fiordland - note the water course

Harrison Cove in Fiordland

If you look carefully at the image below you'll see lots of small red 'dots'.  They're actually rectangles showing the location of each chart.  The set includes all main cruising areas, but of course no set is exhaustive.

All of these KAP charts were created using the VFKaps OpenCPN plugin.  This fantastic tool makes the process very easy.  The 'VF" in VFKaps refers to VentureFarther, a web site setup to assist cruisers.  To create KAP files using the plugin you need to pay a US$20 subscription to VentureFarther.  This buys you the API key required by the plugin.  Worth every cent!

If you find our KAP file library useful consider donating using the button at the top of this page.  Alternately Buy Us A Coffee.

Trust all's well where you are!

New Zealand Anchorages

Hi everyone,

This is a technical post!  It describes a GPX file downloadable from our public Dropbox site.  The file contains about 550 New Zealand anchorages, moorings and marinas.  I expect it to grow over time.  It has been compiled primarily from cruising guides.

Overview

The accuracy of these waypoints has NOT been verified. 

NOT for use in navigation.

GPX files can be loaded into many chartplotters.  This file was constructed in OpenCPN v5.  We have not tried other chartplotters and welcome feedback advising success/failure.

Four main symbols are used:

 Swing anchorage or anchor and rig own shore line(s)

 Anchor and use provided shore line(s)

 Swing mooring or side-moor hawser

 Marina

The GPX file may be downloaded from our Dropbox GPXlibrary folder here.

The filename is 'ZenAgain_NZ_Waypoints.gpx'.

Other files in this folder are zip files of our tracks in various parts of the world.

Most of the marks/waypoints have the ScaleMin parameter set.  This prevents densely packed waypoints obscuring the under-lying chart.  Only those in the screenshot above don't.  For example here is a screenshot showing Northlands overall, including the Bay of Islands.  Only a few are visible in the Bay of Islands.

Northlands Overview

And here's the full set in the Bay of Islands.  They emerge as you zoom in.

Bay of Islands Detail

Another example is Fiordland where only one is visible in the top screenshot above.  Zoom in to see them all.  The screenshot below shows most but not all.

Fiordland Detail

And finally here's a screenshot of Port Pegasus, Stewart Island.

Port Pegasus Detail

Sources include:

• Boaties Guide to Fiordland (BG2F)
• Coastal Cruising Handbook (CCH)
• Destination NZ - Bluewater Cruisers Guide to Northern Waters (BCGNW)
• Fiordland by Sea (FbS)
• New Zealand Cruising Guide Central Area (NZCGCA)
• Northland Coast Boaties Atlas (NCBA)
• Stewart Island Cruising Guide (SICG)
• Island Cruising South Island Rally yearbook (SIR)
• NoForeignLand

Some of the marks/waypoints provide a NoForeignLand URL and/or cruising guide pages using the acronym shown in () above.  Here's an example's Properties in OpenCPN.  It has three separate sources and ScaleMin is enabled and set to 2000000.

 

All names (but not the example above) start with 'ZA_'.  This allows easy sorting and deletion.

The file will be updated occasionally as our New Zealand cruise progresses.

Here's hoping cruisers will find the file useful.  If you do feel free to buy us a beer - link at top-level!