Boat Trip

Last weekend while I had been on my Coastguard shift, I'd been chatting to one of the guys about my desire to go out on a boat and try my hand at fishing. I got an e-mail from him on Thursday saying he'd checked the weather for tomorrow and it was looking good for a boat trip. Hannah and I got up early on Friday and she baked some scones while I went to the supermarket and purchased some jam and cream to drown them in. 

We got picked up at about midday and headed to the boat ramp. The boat is kept in the local boat park (Orams Boat Ramp), which is kind of similar to a multi storey car park for boats. Hannah was in awe of it as she had never seen anything quite like it. I guess I hadn't until I came to Auckland!

You just call the people at the boat ramp about 1 hour before you want to leave and they get the boat down for you and put it in the water. We boarded 'Triple Play' and made our way towards Rangitoto Island. It was a little rough on the water due to some easterly winds, but once we had made our way to Mckenzie bay, it was much more sheltered.

Triple Play was a pretty luxurious boat. It had a cabin with small kitchen, flushing toilet, and enough room to sleep 4-5 people. On top there was a little table and some seats for us to picnic on. There was also motorised dinghy at the back for emergencies. 

After managing to safely anchor (it took a few attempts as the sea floor was quite rocky), we cracked open the wine and brought out the scones. It was lovely to sit in the sun drinking wine, eating cream teas and enjoying the scenery.

Once we had eaten our fill it was getting quite late, and it was obvious there would not be much fishing time. The weather was also closing in and the wind was getting up. We decided to drop the line in the water with some squid on for 15 mins just to say we had done some fishing. Unfortunately we didn't catch anything, but after the scones we were pretty full anyway. On the way back to Auckland Hannah got to do some driving and managed to do an excellent job of avoiding all the crazy yacht people out on the water that evening. 

We arrived back at the boat ramp and both Hannah and I did our crew duties by grabbing the ropes on the marina and tying the boat up tightly..... at least I hope we did, or it won't be there any more! Once back in the apartment we defrosted some fish (since we didn't catch any) and made a delicious curry. We then watched some TV, ate some cake, and went to bed.