Oneroa Bay, Waihekle Island - The Bay of a 1000 Boats

We decided to get away for the Easter long weekend.  The weather forecast for Thursday was terrible, and the weather WAS terrible so we decided to leave Friday.  A good thing too!  Thursday afternoon, there seemed to be a endless progression of fronts go through.  The worst of them saw winds to around 40 knots in the marina and a pretty impressive hail storm.  Enough hail came down to cover the decks in ice.  We are NOT amused!  The forecast for the weekend was for sun and light SW winds, perfect for a trip to the north side of Waiheke Island where we were told to check out Oneroa Bay.  We started to leave the dock just before 9 am and usually, that process would not be a problem.  This time however, we managed to screw it up completely.  We backed slowly out of the berth but the stern got pushed onto the finger and the bow swung out towards our neighbours boat.  We fended off and ended up pinned between two pilings, one on the port stern and one of the starboard bow.  They arrange the berths in New Zealand so that there is a piling between the two boats that each can tie off to so that you tie all four corners at dock.  Well we put on a show.  A kind dock mate ran down and helped us off, and we needed the help, and we got out.  No damage to anyone (I think).  The winds that they promised did not appear and we ended up motoring for 3 hours.  No problem, it was a beautiful day, sun, clear blue sky, you get the picture.  On the way out, it was amazing.  I don’t think I have ever seen so many boats heading the same direction.  It kind of reminded me of salmon spawning, everyone jockeying for position to get somewhere known only to them.  We arrived around noon and there were probably 20-30 boats already at anchor.  We took our normal position on the outside.  By the time we had gone to shore for a walk around the township and returned, there were well over 100 boats here.  By suppertime, I would put the number between 150-200 boats all told.  It was incredible.  We only had one boat that decided that they just had to anchor really, really close to us, within boathook length.  They were behind us and did not seem concerned so I said to hell with it, they are insured, if we hit them, they are at faulty as they anchored after us.  We had a nice dinner, watched a movie and were relaxing when we heard “ahoy”.  I stuck my head out and our too close neighbours were hanging onto our stern rail fending off.  There was no wind (an important point).  The female partner of the two declared that we MUST be dragging.  I calmly informed them (really, I was calm) that we had 40 meters of chain out and a 45 pound CQR anchor and were likely NOT dragging.  The male of the partnership wisely did not get involved in the discussion and suggested that the female partner return to the cockpit and, in his words, “just try and follow instructions”.  He proceeded to pull up their anchor, by hand and we (Cathy and I) kept him off Tarun.  He managed to pull in all 15 meters of his rope and chain and I gave him a good shove backwards.  The problem was the tide had come in and they were so short scoped that as they went up they moved forward by about the length of our boathook.  I mentioned this to the female partner and her reply was that surely you would have moved forward as well.  I went below at that point, deciding that I did not want to get into a discussion of physics and anchoring scope etc.  We had a gook night’s sleep.

We are actually not staying out for the weekend as Cathy has a job interview in Takapuna Sunday afternoon at a rather nice Café/Bistro.  We were going to go back Sunday morning but tides are wrong and the weather is not as nice as they said.  We’ll sail back later today.

Sun Swell and eWOF

We arrived at Bayswater last Sunday after spending a weekend away with Tarun on Waiheke.  We left Friday afternoon and after motoring out of the harbour we had enough wind to sail comfortably at 5-6 knots.  This was good, the prop was really fouled with barnacles and clams.  We had hoped to leave earlier in the day but due to circumstances beyond our control we were forced to wait around all bloody day.  The saga starts with the re wiring of Tarun to provide 220 volt power for connection to shore power.  I went to the local trade supply and the electrician there spent a lot of time with me going over what had to be done and what I would need.  The cost was reasonable as he did give be trade price which saved us over 300 dollars.  I spent a day and bit getting all the old out and the new in and was really happy with the job.  Now the fun begins.  In order to connect to shore power systems at many marinas in you need an eWOF no, not some strange Star Wars furry creature, an electrical Warrent Of Fitness.  IN order to obtain said document you have to have the system inspected by a certified electrical inspector.  IN order to get the system inspected by the certified electrical inspector, you have to have the work inspected by a licensed electrician, that is if you were silly enough to do the actual work yourself.  Well, I called the local marine electrical place, World Power, and explained what I had done and what I needed.  They said no worries, we’ll send an electrician down to look at the system and take it from there.  Well, Chris showed up, nice guy, we made a couple of small changes, took less than half an hour, and he went away to arrange to get the inspector down the next day.  Tony, the inspector, was supposed to show up early afternoon (12:30, 13:00).  He showed up at 15:00.  He proceeded to test the shore power cord, looked at the circuit breaker panel, tested the outlets.  He then informed me that I could not use black and white wires in New Zealand and I had to use red, blue wires (I made a couple of connections inside the panel with north American standard wire).  OK, I grabbed by bag of wire, found some suitable and changed the wire.  Well, he was NOT happy as I was now working on the CIRCUIT PANEL, only certified electricians can work on CIRCUIT PANELS.  He calls World Power and tells them (not me) that more conduit needs to be placed and the system must have a Certificate of Compliance signed by an electrician, before he will grant the eWOF.  What really pissed me off is he is talking to World Power about our boat, in front of me, without telling me any of this.  OK, we are subject to the rules, I get some conduit, etc and sort it all out.  I call World Power Friday morning and they say that yes, they can send an electrician to inspect the wiring and issue the CoC that day.  I suggest to them that I have ALREADY paid one of their electricians to do this and they say well he’s on holiday and never wrote one up.  OK, we wait around all day for this guy to show, no electrician.  We finally get a call at 15:45 saying that he got held up and wouldn’t be able to make it and that he would need 4 hours on the boat to do the inspection.  I politely thanked them hung up, turned the air blue about incompetent, ignorant people who don’t what they are talking about (it really only took about 4 hours to install the whole bloody system).  Anyhow, we got out for the weekend.

Monday roles around, we are now in Bayswater and can not connect to shore power, no eWOF, so I call World Power again.  They agree to send the electrician out and he says he will be here between 11 and 12.  He shows up at 15:00.  I have at this point taken the system to pieces to he can see everything.  He looks at the installation, congratulates me on doing a very tidy job, then informs me that the wire I have used is not low smoke halogen free oil resistant wire suitable for marine applications.  I suggest to him that this is a sailboat, we are not awash in oil and if the boat catches fire, the total of 15 meters of NZ certified residential grade wiring will NOT kill us, the exploding LPG tanks yes, the wires, no.  No, that will not do.  I can not issue the CoC without the correct wire.  OK, I hop in the car, head up to the wholesaler and purchase the correct wire, I tell them to give me the same price as World Power pays, and they do.  At this point I am not a real happy camper.  The first electrician (remember the first electrician) never mentioned anything about the wire type, he inspected the circuit panel and did not complain about black and white wires, and was happy with the work.  Tuesday I spend an hour and a half replacing the wire.  The electrician shows up at 15:30 (this time he showed up when he said he would), looked at it, signed the Certificate of Compliance and called tge inspector.  Tony, remember Tony, said he would be at the boat between 08:30 and 09:00 Wednesday.  Great, we will finally get this sorted out.  Wednesday, up early, get the boat cleaned up, and we wait.  09:30 comes, no Tony, I call and leave a message.  11:00, no Tony, I call and leave another message.  12:30, no Tony, I call but do not leave a message.  14:30, no Tony, I send him a text message.  16:00, no Tony, I call one last time and leave another message.  I get a text message from him at 19:00 that nigh saying he will be here Thursday morning at 09:30.  He did show up Thursday (10:15) with no explanation of why he did no show up Wednesday other than to say he could not come to circumstances beyond his control.  I will take the most positive view of this and hope that whatever family member he was visiting in the hospital is doing well.  We finally got the eWOF and are not legally plugged in to the world.  Next time I will settle for a fuzzy Star Wars animal!

The up side of the week is that the weather has been wonderful, lots of sun, nice daytime temps and cool evenings.  We are getting used to the swell in the marina generated by the ferry that runs from here to Auckland central.  The boat has a lovely “at anchor” feeling all the time.