Sailing on the R Tucker Thompson

January 13^th, 2020

Even though the night before turned out to be a later one than I had planned (thanks to my new Kiwi friends at the Pagoda), I was up fairly early to head to the small but busy tourist town Paihia on the Bay of Islands.  There I would hop on a ferry to get to a dock where a schooner named the R Tucker Thompson would be waiting.  I had booked a day trip on the sailboat that was built in the 1980s is operated as a non-profit charitable trust.  During the summer it takes tourists on day trips and afternoon sailings and the money earned is used to take local teens on weeklong trips in the winter where the youth learn how to sail the ship while building teamwork and individual skills.

Disembarking from the ferry at an even smaller town called Russell, it was pretty obvious the R Tucker Thompson was moored at the far end of the dock as she stood tall compared to the other boats in the area.  A bearded Maori man sporting dreadlocks that were spilling out of the top of his straw hat was taking tickets and providing instructions on boarding the ship.  Turns out he was the man in charge, Captain Wayne, and he was fantastic.  His passion for his role was obvious and he combined some humour with his depth of knowledge of both the sailing of the schooner and explaining some of the local history.

It was a fairly full boat with over 40 people sitting around on the 65’ long deck.  Ironically, after many windy days in New Zealand during my trip, today was fairly calm on the ocean so Captain Wayne motored us north from Russell towards more exposed water to see if there might be some more wind out there.  We were setting off at 10 am so there was a good chance that the winds might pick up in the afternoon.

While cruising out, passengers were allowed to don a harness and either scramble out onto the bowsprit (the spar extending out from the bow, or front of the ship) or climb up the rigging of the main mast.  Only a few people could ascend the rigging at a time, so I hung out near the back of the ship where I had first sat down as we set sail.  Next to me were Joanne and Charlie, a nice couple from Canada, specifically Alberta where I grew up, and I chatted with them throughout the day.  Charlie and I happened to climb up the rigging at the same time, but on opposite sides of the mast.  I thoroughly enjoyed clambering up the ropes and checking out the views from up top…well not quite the top but pretty high up there.

Ready to climb.

Charlie on the left, me on the right.

Some of the sails were set but really the engine was doing the lion’s share of the work as we arrived at our lunchtime spot at Moturua Island.  We were given some options of things to do, either head to shore for a short hike or hang out on the ship, swim and even swing into the water from the yard arm.  I opted to go ashore but probably 3/4s of the boat had the same idea so it took 3-4 runs in the inflatable tender to get everyone onto the island.  I waited around and was on the last trip as I was enjoying watching some guys diving off the ship or swinging from the yardarm, including Charlie who had to do one or two extra jumps as Joanne kept missing him with her camera!

Nice Charlie!

I took the helm for a bit, while we were anchored...

Heading to shore.

Captain Wayne had mentioned that there was an archaeological dig on the other side of the island, about a 10-15 minute hike along the trail.  He also mentioned that the bird life was thriving on the island as there are no non-indigenous mammals killing birds or eating eggs.  If you’re not aware, New Zealand has been overrun by mammals that were introduced by foreigners, primarily European sailors from a few hundred years ago.  Public enemy number one is the cute and cuddly possum…yup, the possum.  People will swerve their car to run over one at night if they can and the government has invested a lot of money to try and rid the country of these invaders and others, such as rabbits, stoats, rats and many others.  The trouble is that there are no natural predators so their numbers are not kept in check and they are causing devastating effects to the local fauna.

The trail:

The hike was relatively easy, a slight uphill and then down to the other beach.  It was definitely a happy place for birds as they were singing, chirping and fluttering about.  Reaching the other beach, I could see a variety of tents and tarp coverings and even some rectangular holes in the ground where active archaeological digs were in motion, well…until I showed up.  I heard someone call out “Lunch!” so the digging, brushing and cataloging of artefacts came to a halt.  There was one nice archaeologist who asked me if I was going to be around for a while but I mentioned I had to return to my ship shortly so he gave me a five minute run through of what was happening at this site.  I have to admit that by minute 2 my eyes were probably starting to glaze over as I didn’t recognize most of the names of places or ancient people that he was describing.  They had been “digging” in this spot for 3-5 seasons (can’t remember the exact number) and he was quite excited about the work but I couldn’t help but think that I was glad that I didn’t become an archaeologist, this was hardly Indiana Jones type stuff!

The dig.

Reminded me of my days kayaking around Vancouver Island.

The tools of choice:

A "poupou", like a totem pole of native indians back in Canada.

Returning to the other side of the island, there were a number of people from our ship waiting for their turn to board the tender and get back to the boat.  Since I left the Thompson on the last run, I’d be on the last run back.  By this time lunch had been served and I was the last one to approach the deck where all the pre-served plates of tasty chicken & potatoes had been laid out…and there were none left!  The crew quickly got another serving prepped for me and they figured that likely someone who had said they were vegetarian had taken the wrong plate.  No biggie…however if you know me personally, you’ll know that I’m not the speediest eater and sure enough, we pulled anchor and started off before I’d finished my lunch.

Returning to the ship:

Joanne took this picture before I was back on the boat...as I mentioned, the food was all gone when I got there...

There was a bit more wind than earlier so the captain ordered the crew to set more sail and he turned off the engine.  We were cruising between 5-6 knots and it was a pleasant afternoon, not too hot and sunny but comfortable.   At the start of the day, we saw a boat towing up a parasail but now, Joanne and I spotted some paragliders flying along a ridge in the distance.  I asked Captain Wayne where they were flying but he didn’t know and expressed how he’d much prefer to be on the water than in the air…fair enough, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

Captain Wayne:

We pulled back into the dock at Russell just before 4 pm, pretty much on schedule.  The crew shook hands with everyone as we disembarked the ship and there were smiles all around.  It was a fantastic day in the Bay of Islands…thanks Captain Wayne & crew!  I bid goodbye to Joanne and Charlie and hopped on the next ferry back to Paihia.

Back in the campervan, I searched on my phone as to where to camp for the night.  I checked out a campsite that was just a kilometer away but it turned out to be just a parking lot by a busy road and it was still fairly hot with the sun beating down, so I decided to press on.  I drove close to an hour south and pulled into Otamure Bay campsite near Whananaki (remember, that’s pronounced: “fa-na-na-kee”…fun name!).  It was packed with tents, lined up from one end to the other with only a foot or two between them.  No thanks. 

I had passed a sign for a private campsite a few kilometers back so I went to check that out.  I pulled into the driveway and walked into the office which was just a front room of a house.  A campervan pull out just as I arrived and when I asked the man in the office whether there was a site available I got the impression that they were full and he had probably just turned away that other guy but I was in luck as he mentioned that there was one spot left, only available for one night which was all I needed.  The manager pulled out a map and showed me where my spot was and I was shocked that there were 100+ sites, all of which were out of view from the road.  He told me that I lucked out and had spot #2, which had a view of the ocean and was close to the beach.

I passed through an automatic gate and down a long road towards the sea.  Wow, there were a lot of people here…pretty much all Kiwis on their summer holidays.  It took me a while to locate site #2 which wasn’t surprising as it was already occupied so the sign was blocked by some vehicles.  Turns out that 5-6 sites were occupied by an extended family and site 2 had just become available that morning and they were already in number 1, 3, 4 & 5 so they had planned to go up to the office to ask if they could have #2 but one of the dads hadn’t gotten around to it.  There was already a trailer all set up in the site and I didn’t want to make them have to move it.  They offered that I could go in spot 5 where a couple of teenage girls in the family were just starting to set up tents but they could move.  It didn’t have a view of the ocean but I said I didn’t care.  They seemed to feel bad about it with one guy offering to pay for my night but I declined.  Another guy offered moving one car by site 3 and I could park in front of a few of their sites with a view of the ocean and that seemed like the best option. 

The view from the campsite:

They were super friendly people and in fact I was invited for dinner by a Kiwi family for the second time in two nights!  It wasn’t quite the entertaining atmosphere like the previous night at the Pagoda as they were a fairly religious family so let’s just say that the drinks weren’t flowing but it was still a nice evening and a fantastic day.

The view in the morning:

You can see Betty 2.0 in the middle.