Tucker-Thompson Sailing, Bay of Islands

Today was the day of our Tucker-Thompson tall ship sailing cruise around the Bay of Islands. Fortunately the cruise left from Russell so we just had a five-minute amble down to the harbor front to catch our boat. We decided to head down early so we could grab some breakfast from a café on the waterfront. We stopped at The Waterfront Café to have pancakes topped with butter, maple syrup and fruit, while sitting outside in the morning sun looking over the bay. We watched our ship sail in while finishing our pancakes and headed down to the wharf. We boarded the old-style wooden tall ship and headed out to sea. On the ship we were luck enough to see lots of different sea birds and we even saw a few penguins. We stopped at Motuarohia Island for lunch where we had the opportunity to swim, lounge on the beach and hike across the island. Stuart and I decided to take the hike across the island where we managed to get some fantastic lookouts. We even managed to make it all the way over to the other side where there was a second beach and gorgeous views over the outer islands of the bay. On the return journey we managed to spot the elusive kea, a small brightly coloured parrot, only found in New Zealand.
 
We swam back to the boat, which was anchored just offshore and had a BBQ lunch on deck in the brilliant sunshine. After lunch we got the opportunity to climb the rigging, which was fun. As we were sailing back to harbor the boat spotted a large group of bottlenose dolphins. The dolphins were great fun and you could tell they loved playing around the ships. The group even had a few juveniles with them, which jumped into the air and slapped their tails. During the day we met a pair of lovely girls, who were over in New Zealand for the year working and travelling. We got along well but sadly they left the bay that night to head to Auckland.
 

After the cruise we went back to the motel to wash and scrub up for dinner. We decided to eat at the Duke of Marlborough, a fancy restaurant on the shore. We braved the wind and ate outside watching the sunset over the bay.