Pirates in the Bay of Islands

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We picked up a leaflet at the local tourist information centre about sailing in the 'Bay of Islands'. We were informed about the Bay of Islands from a couple we met whilst visiting the Similan Islands in Thailand. They had retired and had a catamaran moored in one of the bay's.
There were many excellent tours you could go on but by far the best was a day's sail around the Bay of Islands aboard the 'Schooner' the 'R. Tucker Thompson'. This tall ship was spectacular and we were told that you could help out aboard and learn to sail it. We jumped at the chance to be aboard such a magnificent ship. As you can see from the photos it truly was a great day and fantastic experience. We never really learnt much though. We were to busy climbing the rigging up to the top of the mast, or sitting out looking for dolphins on the stern. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of when the sails were up because we were onboard. However we have taken a photo off the website.

This traditional tall ship was built by Northlanders, here in New Zealand, a working replica of a Halibut Schooner. She has been operating from Opua since 1985 and is one of the foremost established working ships in the Bay of Islands. With her own special history, she epitomises the New Zealand way of creating living a dream. She has undertaken many sailing adventures, including round the world, to Japan and Korea , to Canada , the USA and to Britain , as well as a number of Pacific voyages. She was gifted by her owner and Master, Russell Harris, to the people of Te Tai Tokerau Northland on 4th June 2006.

If you want to know more you can read up on the ship you can do by following this link -

http://www.tucker.co.nz

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Il se trouve que le pote de James qui se marie fin fevrier dans le sud du pays est sur Auckland ces jours-ci et a une tente a nous depanner. En attendant on se trouve une auberge de jeunesse pour notre premiere nuit dans la Baie aux isles. Ma foi j'aurais 100 fois prefere passer la nuit dans un camping que dans cette auberge. Sans rire l'odeur du dortoire de 8 etait a la limte du supportable. James n'arretait pas de dire que c'etait l'humidite mais on a bien vu que ca n'etait pas ca du tout quand l'un de nos 'compagnon' de chambre s'est pointe dans la cuisine le lendemain matin. Incroyable, pas etonnant que les voyageurs ont une reputation de pueurs! Bref on passe la journee du lendemain a bord du Tucker-Thompson, un grand 2 mats style armada. C'est une association qui a construit ce voilier et propose des croisieres decouvertes au public et passe ainsi leur passion pour ce type de bateau. On a pu escalader le grand mat et avoir ainsi une vue imprenable sur la baie. Il y a une sensation de liberte la haut qui est presque comparable a celle de conduire une moto en Asie! Journee plutot detente.
La soiree l'a ete un peu moins. On decide de changer d'auberge, mais ne trouvant rien de libre on decide de coucher dans la voiture (c'est un break). Et on se trouve meme un super spot pres d'un lac, tellement mieux qu'a l'auberge. Pour moi ca allait niveau longueur mais pour James c'etait vraiment trop juste le pauvre. En plus on s'est fait reveiller a 2h du mat' par un agent de la securite et on a du bouger.
On trouve la Nouvelle-Zelande magnifique pour l'instant et on se demande si on a bien choisi notre destination finale!

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Photos

R.Tucker Thompson
Photo courtesy from website.

Art
Trying to get a little arty with the photos.

Lower Sails
The tucker coming into the harbour lowering the sails.

Stern and a stern look from the captain
This is the life!

James 'Cook' Rich
Sitting just under the top of the mast. The view was outstanding.

One of the Islands
We took this on a short walk around one of the islands before we had lunch.