Ale (Alessandra) and Chris are the electrical engineering couple who installed the new lithium battery system on our boat. They have been amazingly helpful and now have a long list of additional projects to improve our electrical systems. They are both sailors and divers so we had promised them a weekend away whenever their schedules and the weather gods made it possible.

In a previous life Ale had been a dive instructor (and boat’s master) on dive boats to the Poor Knights so we were keen to tap into her expertise to find out where we could anchor and dive on these very exposed islands.

With one very favourable forecast from the long list of forecast models that we can choose from we set off north along the coast. We had our best days sailing yet, managing 12 knots in a 20 knot downwind breeze with a single reef in the mainsail. The only break to the fast sailing came each time we hooked a skipjack tuna. After losing the first, we realised that we could not land the fish without slowing down. Once we had two on board we put the rods away and focused on the sailing.

The fast trip meant we could get all the way to Mimiwhangata Bay for a wonderfully sheltered evening enjoying the sunset while cooking steak on the barbecue. Steak and tuna! Our guests obviously had no faith in our fishing prowess – neither did we, there was back-up fish in the freezer!

Our selected forecast remained accurate the next day and so with flat calm seas we motored the 12 miles offshore to the Poor Knights. Perfect conditions for diving.

Sue’s first dive since we were in the Maldives a lifetime ago was definitely good enough to re-enthuse and get us planning more dive trips in the near future. Maybe we will get a compressor on board after all …

We had over 20 metre visibility as we swam along a near vertical cliff face on Motu Kapiti Island that disappeared down to about 50 metres. Large snapper followed us around, obviously aware that they we were living in a marine reserve, and large mosaic moray eel revealed itself at the end of the dive. We saw no sign of the manta rays that have had all the dive charter boats buzzing in the last few weeks but were still happy to be here and experiencing the spectacular underwater scenery for which the Poor Knights is famous.

As it had promised, our selected forecast delivered a light northerly breeze to blow us most of the way home under the spinnaker. Despite perfect conditions, the light winds meant we could only manage 6-7 knots and so it was well and truly dark as we rounded Bream Head and we had the new experience of navigating by radar through the channel, and finding and picking up the mooring buoy in complete darkness. Not too hard at all with Ale and Chris operating high powered torches, Nigel in charge of the boat hook and Sue manoeuvring the boat. We were safely moored by about 9:30pm. A very long day but one that we would be happy to repeat any time.

And yes, Nigel has had a hair cut!