Grant, GANNET’s former landlord—he owns the mooring on which she swung while in Opua—wrote after reading my last entry about his first visit to Whangamumu in 1975 and included a photo of Russell. Here is what it looked like then.
And here now.
I first sailed past the Bay of Islands the following year in a sinking EGREGIOUS. Not planning to go to New Zealand, I had no detailed chart, only one showing a third of the South Pacific Ocean. Had I entered the bay instead of continuing to Auckland, my life, and several others, would have been very different. Among other things I would never have met Suzanne.
The Bay of Islands still does not seem to me overdeveloped or overcrowded, except perhaps at the long Christmas and Easter holidays, and some of the development, particularly that in Opua is a decided improvement; but certainly it has changed.
Grant keeps his boat, KALAI, in a marina slip and will be back on board in the next few weeks, when he expects weather permitting to sail to Whangamumu, which he says “is a special place just to be.” Obviously I agree.
Here are some photos I took from THE HAWKE OF TUONELA and GANNET anchored there.
