Day 6: Saturday 14 August

Sunset in Boat Cove (Photo: Gerry Kelly)

Still on 2 hour watches last night and by morning we were ready to tack again. Still struggling to make way into the wind, sailing close hauled. My home-made muesli again for breakfast and more time on deck looking for birds. No-ones had much sleep, and looking forward to resting up.

Now seeing Kermadec birds constantly, small groups of juvenile Tasman booby’s cruising in to check us out and we liked to think guide us to a safe anchorage. Lots more Kermadec petrels coming around the boat, which should be clearing out their burrows for nesting about now. We were now heading straight towards Nash Point the headland bounding the north of Boat Cove our anchorage destination. The first recorded return breeding of the Kermadec Petrels is from here. A squall hit as we were heading in so we let it pass so that we could have as good a visibility as possible coming into Boat Cove. Anchoring at Raoul is tricky there is no shelter from all directions, so you need to be ready to move at any time if the wind changes.

Five or six of the dainty white terns could be seen against the backdrop of the pohutukawa covered hills, there are just a handful breeding on Raoul though they are widespread in the tropics. They lay their cone shaped eggs on a bare limb of a pohutukawa tree, amazingly they don’t fall off!

Finally set anchor and breathed a collective sigh of relief – would be great to be able to walk around upright instead of at a 15 degree angle for a while. Later in the afternoon we went for a snorkel around Boat Cove – very clear straight to the sandy bottom under the boat. Could see a spotted black grouper sitting on the sand under the boat, these fantastic animals are a feature of the marine reserve here, friendly and curious they often come and investigate divers. This one was very pale against the sand, they change colour depending on the background. Swum in closer to shore and began to see the tremendous variety of fish found in the Kermadecs. Most spectacular in the fading light were the large bright blue fish – called blue fish! Completely fearless they approach a snorkeler and swim in large schools around them.  But of course the fish that caused the most excitement were the Galapagos sharks. Several approached us and followed us snorkelling, more curious than threatening, and magnificent to watch gliding effortlessly through the water.

A day on Raoul tomorrow and catch up with the Raoul team!

Galapagos shark (Photo: Gerry Kelly)