Hello my love,

I cant believe that just spent 5 hours on a boat… It was as usual – and I sound like a broken record – but such a wonderful day.

It started at my usual breakfast place: The little kitchen with my eggs Benedict which I cant get enough of, they poached the eggs perfectly and the Hollandaise is like a Dijon mustardy one. Absolutely fantastic. The water was quiet and the sky had a few clouds…

After lolly gagging there for about an hour, I made my way slowly to Paihia where I was to board at 2pm… I wanted to get there as early as needed to walk around the town and eat lunch without being in a hurry… Perfectly timed, I parked where they recommended so I avoided paying to park my car (total waste of money to pay a street to park your car – a way to make revenue I guess)… any who – I digress…

Buying my ticket I had a couple hours to walk around and eat… So after about 30 min of walking around a town that looks like every tourist trap in the world, I went into a restaurant and ordered lunch… They had this bacon wrapped chicken breast salad that was perfect and it went even better with my Prosecco(s)…

Time came to get on the boat, secure my hat (my all blacks hat I bought here about 15 years ago when I first came here) and enjoy being on the water…

There is something to say about how I am always drawn to the water, the calmness, roughness, knowing that world that is underneath the surface… I don’t think I could ever live where I am land locked. With the wind through my pony tail I find my sea legs… 🙂

On the way to the hole in the rock, there were a school of dolphins playing, it was hard to get a picture of them, shoot it I was hard to get a video of them quick little buggers. Since I was at the back of the boat and didn’t run to the front of the boat where everyone was, I was satisfied with watching them, I tried a couple videos, will have to see them on my laptop when I can stop and start the video to see if I was able to get one “good” picture.

The Hole in the Rock is one of the only islands that you can ride a medium size boat though (60m high)… it was pretty cool, there are many holes in the rocks that I have been through (that doesn’t sound right – but innocently — you should know what I mean)…

It was really fun to ride through, meeting some of the interesting families there, they were amazed and almost funny when you watch the kids look in awe about 5 feet from the edge afraid they will fall off, and other kids leaning over where the parents have to hold on to them fearing they would fall over… all these distractions from the ability to get my pictures… ARGH!!! LMAO…

After the trip from there, we went to another island where they let us relax for an hour and eat dinner. It was ok, I could have easily just stayed on the boat and head back however the “Haydee” in me said, you paid for dinner with this tour, we aren’t going to waste that money and besides “Chrissy” you have been wanting to sit on a beach and read for a while, this is your hour… so reading for the hour was wonderful, had the breeze going and just relaxed.

For my re-iteration of my relationship with myself, I have what I would call – two people living in this head of mine… Might be a reason having a relationship sounds exhausting knowing what I – I mean we have to deal with… There is the “Haydee” side, she is responsible and the planner… Doesn’t like change much, well doesn’t mind it as long as she can reassess and do about 3 risk assessments to make sure what “Chrissy” is getting herself into will not mame or kill or get me to the brink of hunger or exhaustion where all I will end up doing is argue with each other. That is Haydee… Chrissy on the other hand, she is carefree, adventurous, doesn’t always take their safety into consideration when she should (she considers it then thinks that it would be more fun and exciting if they did it anyway)… Chrissy is the one that booked this trip with the hopes that we would camp the whole time and have no plans and let the wind take us where it takes us… Haydee obviously let her have that fantasy and in the end, all the hotels/vrbo’s were reserved, rough plan of where to drive and made sure I stayed safe.

Back to Otheia Bay and reading on the beach – relaxing finally as every day even though it seems like all I am doing is resting, I am not staying put… I hope Coromandel Bay will be that for me. I need that chill time.

Arriving safely back to Paihia, the drive home was going to be nice and easy… There was this falls I wanted to check out and it was only 7 pm so I went. It wasn’t flowing like crazy which was good cause at this point, I was tired and these flip flops should have been shoes since I almost ate it a couple times trying to take the picture… Sigh!!! Good lord Christina!

Back home, I wasn’t hungry and it was about 8:35 pm when I arrived, hence why I didn’t journal. I pretty much just went to sleep.. That was it there was time for.

It was a great day at the Bay of Islands…

Tomorrow I say goodbye to the northend of North Island of New Zealand and make my way to Coromandel Beach…

Night Love.