Freewind

Stuart and I took a day trip on the beautiful 'Freewind', a three sail yacht.

We were taken out into the Bay of Islands for the day. There was a great wind so we were out with full sails, and pelting along. The yacht was tipping right up and dipping into the water. I had to hold on by bracing my feet on the side railings.

We anchored out in a bay for lunch, and Stuart and I took a dip. With wet suits, flippers and snorkels, we jumped off the back of the boat. I've only been out snorkeling twice so far, so jumping off the boat into 30ft deep water was pretty impressive for me :-) Only thing was there were no fish. We saw two little piddlers, silver and black, so not very exciting. Stuart spent the time teaching me how to surface dive. I'm not too bad.........the main problem is my big bum keeps trying to bring me back up to the surface. It's like I'm strapped to my own buoyancy aid! lol

The day we were out was also the race for the Tall Ship Regatta. Beautiful big sail ships racing from Paihia, out to the hole in the rock, then back in to the Russel port. On our way back to shore we in amongst the tall ships. It felt pretty good overtaking some of them, even though we weren't taking part. At one point I looked back to where we had been and it was as if a pirate ship was chasing us. It was a beautiful old ship.

Had an awesome day out on the boat, my dad would have absolutely loved it. When he come out this year I'll have to take him up for a look.