Some Voyages Around New Zealand & Elsewhere

SOME VOYAGES

AROUND NEW ZEALAND & ELSEWHERE

by Perce Harpham

Written just after my eightieth birthday by collecting prior accounts, memories and photos etc.

For my wife, Myra,

together with

Moyra, David, Keith

Brian, Sheryn, Lianne, Peter and

our grandchildren - Tui, Brook, Fern, Blair

Brett, Storm, Scott & Mala

And Great Grandson ARI

Copyright 2013 by Perce Harpham

ISBN: 978-0-473-23834-6

Smashwords Edition

Published by: Perce Harpham

Apt D46, 25 Graham Street,

Petone, Lower Hutt

New Zealand 5012.

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Table of Contents

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Chapter 1 The Beginning

Chapter 2 Stepping Up

Chapter 3 Longer Coastal Trips

Chapter 4 Getting Ambitious

Chapter 5 Blue Water At Last

Chapter 6 More Of Island Time

Chapter 7 A Big Solo

Chapter 8 Mana To Sydney & Back

Chapter 9 Fiordland 2005

Chapter 10 Voyages With Oxygene

Chapter 11 More Voyages As Crew

Chapter 12 Less Pleasant

Chapter 13Rakoa To Fiji May 2012

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Chapter 1 The beginning

I was born some eighty years ago in Tauranga. I could hardly have chosen a better place because Tauranga is in what the discoverer Captain Cook called the Bay of Plenty on the East coast of New Zealand.

The Tauranga harbour is about 17 nautical miles long with two entrances and large tidal flats between them which dry out at low tide. The green colour on the chart shows the extent of these tidal flats. With a two meter tidal range and a number of rivers draining into the harbour the tidal currents at the entrances are often some five knots or more

.

Tauranga Harbour

My home for the first sixteen years of my life was roughly where the arrow points on the chart. It was ideally situated between the front beach and the back beach. As the youngest of five children I was free to range with my friends from an early age. The only restriction I recall was that we must be home on time for meals or the threat was that we would miss out. It was a threat that was effective. It was never tested and was never applied but we children became very good at estimating time without watches.

The front beach had nice sand and was good for swimming but the back beach was somewhat muddy and harder to reach as the roads mostly stopped at the top of the ridge above the beach. Few children and fewer people went there. It was a great place to build a sand boat when the tide was out and to try to prevent the boat leaking as the tide came in and waves eroded the sides of the boat.

There were many attractions at the back beach. There was a grassy slope where two or three together could toboggan on a sheet of corrugated iron with one end curved up. There was a good orchard with the thrill of an irascible owner. As the tide rose there would be shoals of herring which we could attempt to spear. But best of all was the chance to sail various model boats in shallow water where we could keep pace with them.

One of the easiest craft to make required only a pocket knife and a handkerchief or rag. The plentiful flax bushes had dried stems from which flowers had bloomed. These stems were three or four centimetres in diameter and two metres long. They had a tough outer layer and a highly porous inside. With sticks pushed into two short lengths of sharpened flax stem a catamaran was made. Then with two more sticks for masts and a handkerchief tied on as a square sail one had a sailing catamaran which would sail as fast as we could trot in the shallow water. Various elaborations developed with mussel shells for rudders and the masts in different places on the two hulls so as to sail with the wind abeam.Further north on the back beach was the fish-works with its wharf and the fishermen who were always slightly fearsome but rough and kindly. Apart from some masterly use of words we never heard or uttered at home they supervised all the urchins who fished from the wharf. They taught us how to put on hooks and how to rig our lines. It was a happy place. We mostly caught herring and the occasional Kahawai as we got older.

Proud Boy

To this day I recall with joy the occasion when I rode my bike down to the wharf carrying a harpoon my oldest brother had made from a length of half inch black iron with a pivoted barb and a cord attached. I parked my bike and walked out to the end of the wharf to look over. Then I put my fishing bag down and dropped the harpoon straight down onto a fifteen pound (well twelve anyway) kingfish. I pulled it up, collected my fishing bag and walked back down the wharf as if this was what I did every day. Some of the kids were gob-smacked (to use that horrible modern word).

Tauranga had a population of about 9,000 at that time but it was a place of boats. Its development as an important port was well in the future but there were commercial and tourist fishing boats, coastal trading ships, pleasure yachts and hosts of small craft. Among these was the ubiquitous Tauranga Class - the 7foot, gaff-rigged, centreboard yacht - in which generations of children learned to sail and race. There was a tiny cockpit with enclosed bulkheads all around so that the boats were unsinkable. The capsize races were great for giving children confidence in their craft. In these races the boats had to be rolled through 360 degrees three times between marks. The experts could do this at speed without getting wet.

I aspired to a seven footer but never made it. Fortunately I had friends with seven footers and sometimes borrowed them or sailed with them. One such memorable occasion was on a day with a westerly gale when two of my friends invited myself and another boy to help them try out spinnakers that their mothers had made for them. Spinnakers were not normal on these tiny boats and nor was it usual to have two crammed into the tiny cockpits. But we fairly tore through the water and rapidly got beyond the shelter of the Tauranga peninsular. We were into the big waves and approaching Mount Maunganui when Peter Southey and I capsized. This would not have been a problem but the spinnaker was sticking up in the air and the boat was speeding away from us leaving us floating in our lifejackets and a long way from shore. In a fine piece of seamanship Bob Brockway and Peter Johnson retrieved their spinnaker and sailed back to our boat. Peter Johnson jumped into the sea downwind of the Southey boat, dowsed the spinnaker, righted the boat and they both sailed back and picked us up.

Tauranga Voyaging

It may seem strange to speak of voyages when sailing within a harbour but many of the same experiences as on ocean crossings were to be had within the harbour – enhanced by the liveliness of youth and first experience. They started in late 1943 when I was eleven.

My brother Henry had a 10 foot sailing dinghy built for him. It was to be five feet wide. The ancient boat builder cursed every plank he bent but instead of his standard five foot beam it turned out to be five foot ten inches wide. It was clinker built with a great bluff bow and quarter decked at the front. A drum was built in at the front to give buoyancy if ever that was required. Side decks were added later.

The Bantam was never going to sail well with just the gaff rigged mainsail. It was really slow until Mum made a jib out of calico.

This was so successful that Mum later made a spinnaker also. It was cut very flat and we could use it with the wind abeam.

These sails made a huge difference but the local racing boys in the yacht club made fun of the Bantam - likening it to a coracle or a barge. Their time would come.

The Bantam

The Bantam was certainly no racer but she turned out to be a great cruiser, well suited to the waters we had available for cruising. She was magnificently stable because of her great width. There was no problem about standing by the mast for example. A popular sailing dinghy at the time, the frostbite, would capsize if you did that. With the blade of the rudder tilted up then, in gentle conditions with little heel, we could sail in about 20cm of water. We could even make progress to windward because of the clinker resistance to side motion. The flat bottomed, fixed rudder, racing craft could not function in such shallow water. And at full tide much of the middle of the harbour had less than a meter of water.

Our first ventures were simply a means to get to fishing spots. That was not hard as, at that time, schnapper, kahawai, kingfish, gurnard and numerous other fish could be caught almost anywhere there was water. But with our braided cotton lines we could catch enough fish in an evening to supply our family and sell some to the fish-shop. Whole schnapper went for 8cents a kilogram. Actually, four pence a pound in the measures of the day.

Top speed for the Bantam was about five knots and possibly two knots made good to windward under the best possible conditions. With the prevailing westerly winds we needed the tide with us to make progress up the harbour as we called going to the west. So one of our favourite fishing spots was in the closest harbour entrance. With the wind abeam and an outgoing tide we could get there in a couple of hours, spend maybe six hours fishing and sail home on the incoming tide. Occasionally we would see another boat fishing there also. The last time I was there some twenty years ago I counted 54 boats fishing in the entrance. All trying to catch some of the few fish that are left.

Our first overnight ventures were to the first island up the harbour, Motuhoa. Here there was a nice sandy beach, a choice of camp sites amongst the trees, plentiful firewood and easy access from the boat as the beach was fairly steep-to. No one lived on the island so we could pitch our tent and feel that we were real explorers. With deep water right around the island we could circumnavigate it easily and choose where we wanted to fish.

Another favourite trip was to go up Hunters Creek (see the earlier chart). We were a bit concerned by signs warning against landing on Matakana island as it was a pine plantation which formed the northern side of Hunters Creek. But we took some fish to the caretaker, Ross Faulkner and his wife, and they made us very welcome. They gave us tea and biscuits and said to use their old house instead of pitching our tent. We stayed there many times. One rainy day when we did not want to sail we managed to catch half a billy full of shrimps using some wire gauze that we found. When we heated the billy on our primus stove and it started to steam a great noise came from the billy. We took the lid off and there was an explosion of shrimps jumping out of the hot water. They had been banging on the lid trying to escape – poor things. We got the water boiling before putting them back.

The urge to go where no one (well, hardly anyone) had gone before led us to explore almost all of the harbour and its navigable rivers. The top of Hunters Creek was one of our first triumphs. We were told that it was not navigable and that was very nearly right. At the top of high water we managed to go right around the island which formed the south side of the creek but we left a few marks in the sand and even had to cheat a bit by getting out and walking the Bantam along.

We rapidly became more ambitious. I realise now that Mum was checking us out when she came on a three day cruise up the harbour with us - camping on shore overnight. She was born in TePuke in 1887 (a year after the Tarawera eruption) and grew up on what is now known as Plummers Point - half way along the harbour. In those days sailing to Tauranga was much better than riding a horse. We were astonished at her knowledge of the harbour – particularly where people had drowned and where their bodies had been recovered. But she also knew the channels and sand banks which had changed little since her early days. She also told us many stories about the people who had settled along the harbours edges and their various vicissitudes.

However, that cruise was the last where we regularly camped ashore. Mum made another calico creation to cover the front part of the boat and Henry had a heavy canvas cover made to go over the boom which was supported on cross trees. Even under stormy conditions we were then astonishingly snug inside. We had headroom to sit on the middle seat and could stretch out full length to sleep under the seat. There was a bit of a problem in turning over but we soon got used to that. The Bantam never leaked so, as long as we mopped out the bilge first, our sleeping bags did not get wet even if we dislodged the oilcloths under them. Our food was stored under the back seat and our primus could be set up on the floor. The old paint tin we used as a bailer could be used as a toilet if the weather was too miserable for us to extend ourselves over the side of the boat.

Henry had developed diabetes in his early teens and was one of the first users of insulin. He had to inject himself night and morning (later long lasting versions reduced this to once a day). Injections were one of the housekeeping chores usually performed while I was dealing with the dishes from breakfast or dinner. Henry never let the disease hold him back. He worked, hunted and fished as if there were no problem until he became one of the first people to have diabetic retinitis which eventually led to blindness. He had given himself over 10,000 injections long before he died at age 43.

In the middle of the World War ll years we talked seriously about whether, if the Japanese invaded, we could sail to Australia ignoring the fact that Australia would by then be in Japanese hands. Having done that trip since I doubt that we would have made it in the Bantam but........?

In any case we developed enormous confidence in our boat. In gale conditions, in the channels, with wind against the tide waves of well over a meter were normal. We became used to them. Bantam was very stable and secure. We only once had solid water over the side deck in a severe knock down. Of course she was usually heavily laden with cans of water, food, clothes in waterproof bags and the like. Several years after we started cruising - every weekend in the summer and over the Christmas period- this all led to a reversal of our standing in the Yacht Club.

The occasion was an Easter Cruise. It had become traditional for the club to sail en masse to Katikati, at the other end of the harbour at Easter. We left at about the same time as 13 of the other centerboard fleet on Good Friday and arrived long after them at Omokoroa, roughly half-way to Katikati. It was a good evening around the camp fire. There were a number of stories of mistaking the channel, someone forgetting to tie their anchor on and the boat having to be recovered and so on. It was all a great adventure even for those who had done the cruise before. We were the only ones to sleep aboard and left early. The other boats soon passed us and we diverted to our destination in Blue Gum Bay. We rejoined the returning fleet at Omokoroa on the Sunday evening and shared out some of the fish we had as supplies on some of the boats were running low. It was clear that a storm was brewing.

In the morning a full-fledged Easterly gale had washed several boats ashore and the rain was pouring down. We had a good meal, fried several fillets of fish in butter and left them in the pan so that we could pick out bits for lunch even if they got wet. We also dressed for wetness, double reefed the mainsail and made sure that everything was well stowed.

Only three others of the fleet followed us. The others all hauled their boats ashore and got transported home. Of the three which accompanied us one turned back, one sprang a plank and leaked so badly they had to go ashore after a few miles and the third landed on the Otumaitai beach about halfway home. We only had the help of the tide part way and took nearly twelve somewhat miserable hours to beat our way to windward and get home. However some of the other cruisers turned up at the yacht club about 7.30pm and found us in dry clothes cooking a meal before going home because we were hungry. Strangely, I don't think anyone ever made another disparaging remark about the Bantam.

At Christmas time we would have ten days on the Bantam. Usually we would visit the Turner family (my sister, Rose, eventually married Jack Turner) but we once had ten days without calling in anywhere. We caught plenty of fish, replenished our water cans and enjoyed our independence. We twice sailed up to Katikati, tacking right up the river, and several times went beyond Katikati to the furthest entrance to the harbour at Bowentown. We fished at Kauri Point and various other places. We became quite expert at sailing in shallow water but in the great area which dried out at low tide it was inevitable that we would spend quite a lot of time aground in the course of going from one end of the harbour to another. People would walk from the mainland to Matakana Island without getting their feet wet.

My brothers with stingrays.

Shallow water with a muddy sand bottom is a different environment and it is interesting to watch the progression of life as the tide goes in and out. When the tide is out the crabs come out to play, Then, as the tide rises, the fish come looking for the crabs. We discovered Blue Gum Bay. This really was the other side of the moon. Here there was only a little water in the channels for fish at low tide. The channels are not shown on the charts. But as the tide rose schnapper would forage over the tidal banks as soon as there was enough water. Their fins and tails would stick out of the shallow water and if you disturbed them when the water was calm and still there would be a bump moving at speed on the surface of the water as the schnapper headed back to deeper water.

I don't know why it was called Blue Gum Bay. I never saw a Blue Gum there. But it was quite a magical place with its solitude and difference if one observed closely. It seemed to be a favourite dwelling place for Stingrays. They were up to a meter or more across, mostly black with just a few brown ones. The latter were hard to see on the muddy bottom but we made something of a speciality of stalking the black ones in the Bantam. If we could get close enough we could harpoon them with the trusty black iron harpoon and then with one or two shots from our .303 rifle finish them off so that we could handle them with safety. It never occurred to us to eat them and it was years before I saw wings in the shops. We did use them for bait.

Some fish stories

One occasion when the stingray bait was very useful was when we were returning from Blue Gum Bay to go fishing for schnapper in deeper water. We had a ray straddling the foredeck and several ray livers in the bailing tin when we came to some friends on their 22 foot mullet boat. They were waiting for the tide to rise enough for them to get through the tidal flats and were anchored about where we wanted to fish anyway. We stopped for lunch with them and put out the shark line which was already baited and ready to go. We did not use rods in those days and the line was of heavy hemp about 5mm in diameter with a huge hook and a wire trace.

Henry with the 8 footer.

We also crumpled some liver into the water. One does not often see a shark fin above the water and most people would think that there are no sharks in the Tauranga harbour. But we had found otherwise and on this occasion there were suddenly five sharks cutting around the liver . One could imagine what they might do to a person.

Suddenly the shark line started to scream out. Three of us got rope burns trying to stop it. The line was tied to the mast of the mullet boat. When the line was at its fullest extent one could see the line get thinner as it took the strain. Then the shark headed back to us. This was repeated a number of times until we got the shark close enough to the boat and the surface to put a bullet in its head from the trusty .303. This just had the effect of sending the shark into action again. Once more we got it closer and once again it took off. But the next time, with three holes in the shark's head streaming blood, was the end. Not only was it a great piece of excitement but we sold the 8 foot shark to the fish-shop for $3 ( more than a tradesman's wages for a day). Incidentally, people seem to be averse to eating shark but there is nothing wrong with it. The flesh has fibrous membranes through it but these disappear on cooking.

When I was a small boy I spent my money to enter the tent at a show where the sproiker was extolling Man eating shark alive alive-O. I was greatly disappointed to find a smallish shark swimming in a tank instead of the vicious battle that I expected for a man to eat a shark. So it is with some satisfaction that I say I am a shark-eater. Cooked of course.

Henry & I with the night's catch

On another occasion we were sleeping soundly when the shark line, which was left out astern, started to run. We threw back the cover and started to play the shark in the darkness. We soon had a mess of line, wet sleeping bags and general disorder.

The anchor line was buoyed in case we had to cut it but clearly this was not a monster. We eventually got the shark aboard or partly aboard. Henry held it in his arms while I slammed it on the head with a heavy fish scaler. Then we got a rope around the sharks tail and put it over the side with its head held out of the water by the line. The shark had been rotating in Henry's arms as he held it to him. The rough skin had done a great job of sandpapering a lot of skin off his tummy. He had to be anointed before we started to clean up the mess. It was some time before we got back to sleep.

There were other sharks, including the one that got away by breaking the line. I still wonder how big it was. There have never been any shark attacks reported in the Tauranga harbour even though it is a big game fishing centre with marlin, mako and hammerhead sharks etc caught regularly offshore. As a small boy fishing from one of the town wharfs I remember the catches being hoisted up at the wharf so that the proud tourists could be photographed with them. Somehow, on one occasion, a marlin was left hoisted up and the boat crew went off to the pub while the others went to find a photographer. All the kids got to work with their pocket knives to get a bit of good bait. The Angler was surprised when he came back, but more surprised than pleased.

We are not kind to fish and other things that we catch or hunt. This is particularly so with fish because they make no sound. Although I am not sure whether it is kinder to push a spike into their heads to kill them or to let them expire quietly out of the water. The gurnard is the only fish I know which makes a noise as it expires and it gives loud grunts. But the mammals, such as dolphins and whales, make a lot of different noises in the water and we are slowly beginning to understand that they have languages.

We regularly caught several sugar bags full of schnapper and the fish shop generally paid the cost of the other food we ate. The freshest fish I ever had was one morning when Henry had just started the primus for breakfast when I pulled up a double header of nice sized schnapper. We whipped the fillets off them and when they went into the pan, greased with butter, the fillets started to flip. Great with tomato sauce and slabs of bread and butter.

A totally different form of fishing was with