What You Need To Know When Visiting New Zealand By Boat; A Boaters Guide to Aotearoa

What You Need To Know When Visiting New Zealand By Boat; A Boaters Guide to Aotearoa

Hello friends with my New Zealand adventures coming to a close after more than a year of cruising, uh I wanted to make one of these uh a boer’s guide to New Zealand videos. I’ve done these for a couple places that kind of just like outlines the ins and outs of a place like what to expect when you’re visiting boater so I thought I would go ahead and make one of these for New Zealand as well um I actually wrote an article that covers a lot of what I’m going to be talking about for yachting world that came out I think about a year ago now uh in their in print magazine. So we’re going to go over a lot of that stuff in this video so if you’re cruising through the South Pacific and you’re heading to New Zealand, this video might be helpful for you um or if you’re just starting to plan your route through the South Pacific and you’re trying to wonder if which way you want to go, um this will kind of lay out what to expect when sailing to New Zealand land as a foreign yacht. Most of the cruising Yachts who arrive to New Zealand arrive from either Tonga or Fiji and often times via manura Reef uh the closest part of Entry to the islands is opua. But you can also clear into Mars and Cove and I’m sure you can clear into Auckland as well but that’s so so far south most people don’t do their initial clearing in Auckland, the easiest and closest Port of Entry is opua in the Bay of islands and they have a very large quarantine dock that is isolated from the land so you can tie up there and Customs will come out and get you cleared in. It’s worth me telling you right now that they generally don’t allow people to spend the night on the quarantine dock even though it’s a very massive dock if you arrive in the middle of the night, they probably would let you spend the night until the next morning but I arrived to the quarantine dock in a building Gale without a working engine and they still didn’t let me stay on the dock. I was like can I just stay here until this weather blows over and then move tomorrow and they’re like no you got to go right away so that’s something to know that you can’t Linger on that Q do um uh bay of islands Marina is the marina Ino Pua and they have a large number of slips, they’re used to about 200 boats arriving from the islands, uh international boats arriving each year. So they’re well equipped to take a lot of boats. Um but it is good to plan ahead contact them if you have a rough idea about when you’re going to be there we all know that there’s no like setting an exact date on arrival when it comes to sailing but it’d be worth contacting them and seeing about getting a spot reserved if you can, um I showed up without having a spot reserved and they had plenty of spots so it wasn’t an issue for me. Um I arrived there in December I don’t remember what day December of 2022 and um yeah spent I spent like two weeks in the marina before heading out and um exploring the Bay of Island a lot, most of the Yachts arriving to New Zealand will have pushed through with a very heavy sailing season many all the way from Panama so the majority push from Panama to the maresis all the way through the South Pacific and then leave either Tonga or Fiji between mid November and the beginning of December for cyclone season. Anyone who’s done those kind of miles in a season knows how tired you are after that sort of push and um it’s we’re usually all in and due for a rest at that point um not to mention repairs and anything like that because there’s always stuff that breaks and there’s always stuff that you have to put off until the end of the sailing season like you know whether it’s small stuff or big stuff but there’s always stuff that has to be done opua does have mechanics and a Boatyard and all that stuff, um but I’ll say right now opua is probably twice more expensive than if you head further south so I would say unless it’s like a critical failure on your boat that doesn’t allow you to move forward which is what happened to me. I arrived from Fiji with no working engine and I had to have my boat uh I had to have my engine rebuilt in in opua and um it took two and a half

months

and I guess this is like a good time to mention that when you’re arriving to New Zealand at you know as Cyclone season’s about to start that’s the when the summer season is beginning for the Southern Hemisphere and for New Zealand so you might find that you can’t get any work done or get any parts shipped in or get anything for two 3 weeks a month maybe so that’s something to keep in mind when you’re approaching there, they’re all going on summer break they’re going sailing they’re taking time off with their families it’s their summer holiday and um that really affects what is possible as far as like repairs and replenishment of parts or anything like that. I would say your best bet is to arrive to AA spend a week or so getting rested up get some hot showers and then cruise the Bay of islands a little bit and then if you’re looking to like stop the boat and like put it somewhere for a couple months and maybe fly home or even just explore New Zealand not on the boat I would say go to Fung Town Basin, it is a much better Marina such better access to everything you know Pua there’s basically nothing there’s like two chandleries a very small little market um one like very overpriced Cafe and like fish and ships takeaway place and then like this opua cruising club which has like terrible food that’s really expensive that’s it there’s nothing in upua and it’s not an easy walk to Pia Pia is the next town down it’s not close um and there’s not like very easy bus system as well so opu is kind of in the middle of nowhere and it’s it feels like it’s almost set up just for the boats the international cruising boats that come in it kind of feels like that’s like its main sort of like thing why it exists to the scale it exists at um nearby is Pia as I just mentioned a little town and across from that is Russell which is a great town there’s good anchorages there fantastic food good shopping good Provisions all that stuff but in opua proper there’s very very little and um I would say it’s not a good place to base your operations uh as far as like spending some downtime and like I said I highly suggest fun Town Basin um again you want to call ahead and try to reserve a spot when you know you’re going to be down there if you just wanted to sail down to Mars and Cove to clear in, you could do that and then you’re in sort of and then you’re past Fung day heads so you’re within the sort of funga day Basin where then you could just go up the river to town Basin Marina um it’s through a drawbridge and it’s well far from the sea so it’s not a good place if you want to plan on getting out and doing a bunch of cruising cuz it takes a long time to get from Fun Town Basin out to go sailing, so if you’re looking to put the boat somewhere for a month or two while you like explore New Zealand or go home to see family or or handle business Town Basin is the way to go I left tra there for two and a half months while I flew back to the States and went sailing in Greenland and Iceland um and the staff there fantastic like I said the access to everything there’s like a big uh save save more or pack and sa oh pack and save I think is the name of it huge discount uh grocery store just across the wave there’s tons of cafes museums all this stuff and there’s a chander right there so funga day Town Basin is where I would say you should really look into for setting up like if you’re looking for a place to just like stop moving for a while that’s the spot, a lot lot of Cruisers International Cruisers will arrive to New Zealand put the boat in a marina or on a moing for a couple months and they’ll actually buy a cheap car you can buy like cheap used cars in New Zealand and they’ll go explore the North Island and even the south island and go camping and all that stuff or they’ll like rent a car or rent an RV or a caravan and really explore the islands interior like during Cyclone season and then get back to their boat, get the boat ready and a lot of people head back to the islands so if people only made it to Tonga a lot of times they’ll spend the Down Season the Cyclone season in New Zealand with the boat stationary and you know are doing little bitty cruises around the cruising grounds in New Zealand and they’ll explore New Zealand by car and then once cycling season’s over with, they’ll head back they’ll head up to Fiji or Batu or the Solomon Islands all that stuff so so that’s kind of like a common mode is to like explore Inland for me I ended up spending a year there because it took me two and a half months to get my engine rebuilt and by that time Cyclone season was getting close to coming to an end and I was like wow I’m only going to have like a month and a half to see New Zealand now that my engine’s rebuilt and I had planned, I wanted to see a lot so I decided to spend a year in New Zealand uh so I could really see a lot more than had I just stayed for a cycling season in the end I ended up visiting 70 different anchorages and harbors throughout New Zealand from the Bay of islands to the hoki gulf I made passage from the far north down to the South Island and I cruised in marbor sounds at the top of the South Island and then took my departure from Nelson um now one thing I want to point out is to if you do want to cruise New Zealand by boat which I, I highly advise people spend as much time as they can seeing New Zealand by boat you need to like take into consideration like what’s realistic as far as like distances go and weather so the year I was there it was like some of the worst weather they’ve had in like 20 years so it p played a huge factor in what was possible for me because it felt like, I don’t know every week or two I was like hunkering down for a tropical storm or I rode out two Cyclones there one I rode out under anchor and one I rote out yopa Marina um and I think I rote out four tropical storms under anchor um one benefit especially for the north island is that there’s a ton of good anchorages with good holding and shallow depths so it’s not hard to find a really well protected Anchorage in the Bay of islands or in the hoki Gulf, there’s endless amounts of good anchorages to choose from in those places if I was going to suggest to someone that was planning on seeing as much they could during the Cyclone season in New Zealand I would say spend you know a month cruising the Bay of islands um and make sure you get up to fonga which is an amazing Harbor and it’s not far so funga and Bay of islands see as much you can and then work your way down the coast there’s tons of good spots to stop into uh fanga Mumu Mimi fata um tudu Kaka there’s there’s like endless spots to stop all the way down and then you can visit uh Fung as I mentioned um and then push on down to cwow Island and then you’re into the hoki Gulf highlights of course are the Great Barrier Island uh with smoke C Bay being like easily the coolest Anchorage I’ve ever visited on a boat anywhere in the world that I’ve sailed really amazing spot that’s been set up since the 60s by other Cruisers so it’s like it’s like a there’s a an out building with like a a bath and a shower that you can Stoke a fire in a wood stove outside and it creates hot water so you can take a hot water shower hot water bath uh there’s a pizza oven there so you can make woodf Fired Pizza outside there’s Big Smoke houses if you want to smoke some fish there’s a fire pit fantastic spot really cool um and they’re having a lot of trouble at the moment as of when this video was recorded with this invasive seaweed so a number of the anchorages around Great Barrier are off limits to anchoring, you can only more so make sure you check on those restrictions before you head out to Great Barrier but Great Barrier is fantastic place um really really amazing then you can push on up around the peninsula hit the Ms and all that stuff so there’s a lot of options to explore near toland and Bay of islands if you’re only planning on staying there like four or five months um there’s tons to see by boat and um and you’re sailing in the summer season so depending on the weather, you should have the possibility of like a lot of great cruising to be had in New Zealand. So as soon as you arrive to New Zealand make sure you pick up copies of David Thatcher’s books these are the two cruising guids for the North Island um this is the haky golf and this is the Northland Coast these are fantastic cruising guards really great and lay out a lot of really amazing details and info about everywhere you’d want to go there’s also one for this I think it’s like central New Zealand or something which is like basically like Wellington and maror sounds and all that stff um, uh yachtsmen had a ring binder version someone gave me um but that one you can buy in print as well. So you can get these cruising guides at Burns Co is the chandlery, the common chandlery all over New Zealand like the like a mainstream chain Chandy for boat parts um you can buy these at all of those there’s also boat books in oand which is the coolest like Marine bookstore I’ve ever been to and they have carts, they have courtesy Flags they have um so many amazing books it’s a fantastic spot and then right around the corner from boat books is a place called sailor Supply or something like that which is a very large chandery and it it’s way more well stocked than burnsco and has like it’s a really fantastic chandel. So if you pay a visit to Auckland which I suggest everyone should, it’s right there in the CBD which is the central business District of Auckland um and then also make sure you visit the uh New Zealand Maritime Museum which is a fantastic Maritime Museum probably like the second best Maritime Museum I think I’ve ever been to I think the best one I’ve ever been to is St Petersburg Russia but this one the Auckland one New Zealand martime museum is fantastic and they have a number of ships you can go out on Day sales in Auckland Harbor on so make sure you stop in there when you visit Auckland um if you are visiting Auckland you can you can anchor at little sha which is pretty bumpy and you have to take your dingy across the busy Harbor to get into town uh or you can book a stay at West Haven is where I would suggest Marina. I spent a couple nights there once um you do have to have like pretty intense Insurance to get into marinas in New Zealand think you need like I think it was five or 10 million I think it’s $5 million coverage third party to stay at marinas in New Zealand so that’s something you want to sort out ahead of time um in Australia it’s $10 million third party to stay at any Marina so those are things you got to think about and if you have an old boat or a small boat it is very tricky to find Insurance uh I’ll put the name of the insurance company I have down in the description because I was denied insurance from 12 different places because my boat is 30 ft long and she’s from

1965

so kind of in their opinion my boat wasn’t worth uring um so I’ll include include all that info down in the description of the video for who I use for my insurance and uh they’ve been fantastic as far as distance goes in New Zealand it is a very large country um and I’ve mentioned several times in this video weather is a huge Factor so being able to make passage will be greatly determined on the weather and what’s possible. So obviously we’d all like to get down to fjordland and see that but very few people ever even get down to the South Island let alone the bottom of the south island fjordland, so if you’re there for cyclone season unless you’re super hardcore um I would say really look at the distances and look at the weather patterns before you start making some hard plans. Um the easiest way to get quickly down to the south island is on the west coast and a lot of people if you go to circumnavigate New Zealand sort of like the best way to go about it is you sail up around Cape Rango, you sail down the west coast to like Marbel sounds um do all of that cruise that and then go through cook straight by Wellington and then you sell down you do like a figure eight so you sell down the east coast of the South Island Christ Church get down to Stuart Island fjordland and then you sell up the west coast of the South Island and then back around to Wellington and then up the East Coast um that’s sort of the easiest way as far as the prevailing winds go for doing a circum navigation of the country if you’re if you’re feeling that wild that’s the way you want to go about it or at least look into it. Um there’s there’s like only one Safe Port down the entire west coast of North Island New Plymouth is the only Port you can call into so once you get around that Cape you have to be committed both passage wise and weatherwise to at least make it to New Plymouth so I sailed down to new plmouth and it’s not far it’s like 300 miles or something and you’re well offshore, you’re like 80 miles offshore so it’s just ocean sailing but the tasmin SE is like very very serious body of water so just be aware of all that um I had a pretty bumpy passage but I sail down on a low so I could use take advantage of the Winds so I ran with a low pressure system it was bumpy but I had great speeds and it was just ocean sailing and I was well off offshore so there was no risk to me as a ship uh because I was far enough offshore. And I held into New Plymouth, New Plymouth is a strange um I mean it’s a great little spot, but as far as like there’s a bunch of moing balls in there that aren’t taking um like no one’s on and very little room to Anchor so I would say just pick up a moring and then I was told there’s like the green and blue Moorings are first come first serve but I’ve never seen any info about that online. So I would just say pick up a moring and if someone yells at you, then you click off of the morning that’s kind of been um you know that’s kind of a go-to if you’re in a situation where you can’t anchor just do that and then play dumb after the fact but New Plymouth being the only stop on the west coast to the North Island um and then you cross cook straet. The most gnarly passage I’ve ever had since leaving Los Angeles was cook straight um and cook straight kind of kicked my ass three different times I think I had to cross either adjacent to or a cross cook straight, let’s see one two three four times I like skirted it and three of the four times it was brutal so realize that if the forecast says that the wind is going to be 15 knots in cook straight, it’s very likely it could be 40 or above and the the C’s are going to be very serious so if you can find a time to just motor across a dead C cook straight, that’s what I would advise doing. And that’s what I would do if I ever had to Transit that body of water again cuz it it is always more than double what is forecasted in my experience and um the waves they say that the waves are square waves because the water goes from great depths to like 300t in short order so the waves are pretty vicious um so just keep that in mind. Um Marell if you can make it down to Marbell sounds it’s fantastic, like incredible cruising ground really stunning um and if you do there’s three different boating clubs that you can join and you’ll get access to 100 moing uh I went with the Polaris Boating Club because they were the cheapest one um but you get access to the same ones. You just don’t get access to the same facility so I think WWA is one of them and then I can’t remember the name of the other one but I’ll put links to all of them in the description of this video but the plis Boating Club is the one I joined and I joined it just to you get a burgie and you get a map of all the Moorings and it was amazing because the sounds are so deep it is almost impossible to Anchor in the majority of the spots. So you want to have access to those Moorings um and it’s a great way to just like not have to think, all the mors are very very well maintained because they’re owned by three different clubs where people pay a lot of money to be part of these clubs and I saw them servicing the Mings when I was there and they’re they’re not like the moing in French Polynesia they’re like very wellmaintained really good moing so if you’re heading down to marel sounds that’s the way to go, join one of the Boating clubs and get access to all those sorings. When it comes time to clear out and leave uh you need to contact and kind of schedule your estimated clear out time with Customs um at least a day or two in advance um otherwise you might find yourself with a good weather window and if you haven’t talked to them they might force you to wait two days because you didn’t contact them. So just know that ahead of time um that you need to sort of schedule your clear out time and uh I cleared out a Nelson and um it was a very easy process, they were the dude was very friendly it was just like here’s some paperwork sign the paper stamp boom stamp you know he took down my passport info. I don’t they don’t even stamp passports anymore unfortunately but yeah it was a very quick process I think I was cleared out in less than 30 minutes but I did have to tell them this you know clear out at this time on this day roughly and then they’re pretty flexible about pushing it a day or here or there so um whether you’re clearing out to sell to Australia or you’re going to head up back up to the islands to do Fiji or even just like some people will cruise to New Zealand and and do back and forth from New Zealand to the islands several times before continuing on their circum navigation because it’s very easy to like spend a lot of time in Tonga Fiji banatu and whatnot there’s a lot to see a lot of magic to be had and New Zealand is a fantastic base to do that from. To hide during Cyclone season I had a fantastic time when I was in New Zealand, I met incredible people saw remarkable Beauty and it will always hold a very very special place in my heart. Um and I’ve told many people if I ever stopped wandering the world, New Zealand is where I would want to live. It’s kind of like a mecca for Cruisers there’s so many fantastic cruising grounds they treat you with respect unlike like um, I’m from the state where if you if you’re a liveaboard on a sailboat, you get treated like a criminal in New Zealand like there everyone has a relationship with the sea everyone has a relationship with water everyone grew up on boats whether it’s like power boats launches sailboats um so like boating is a very important part of the culture and there’s just endless beautiful anchorages all over New Zealand my buddy Keith is a kiwi and he’s 72, he’s been sailing his whole life and he was like I haven’t seen half the anchorages in New Zealand and he’s he’s been doing it his entire life so I definitely advise if you’re looking to go to New Zealand don’t just put the boat and fly home. If you can manage it take some time to cruise it and consider going back a couple times because there’s so much to see it’s an amazing place, really incredible people and I think you’re going to love it thanks for watching this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it was informative and um let me know down in the comments what you think if you have any additional questions I try to answer as many as I can um and I’ll try to put kind of every relevant link I can think of in the description down below so check that out um and I hope this helps if you enjoy the content on this channel and would like to contribute you can consider joining the patreon crew thanks for watching Fair Winds until next time.