Day 3, happy to be, out here sailing on the Northland sea! Some chores, a primo breakfast, and we upped anchor to head back to Army Bay, Moturua Island for our collaboration with project island song. We saw stingray in the beautiful clear water on our way over to meet Kirsty and the other volunteer weed busters.
Kirsty gave us a great talk on the history and the ongoing work and dreams of Project Island Song. The trainees asked some great questions and were particularly interested in all the different pest monitoring dogs that they use every few months to check for any pest invasions. After being instructed on how to remove it properly, we launched into removing Mexican Devil Weed. The island team were stoked at how much area we covered – some of our team were particularly hardworking and got invited back by Kirsty!
Back on the Tucker, we quickly set sail for the Cavalli Islands, a mixture of sailing and motor sailing out of the Bay as the afternoon breeze faded (into perfect diving conditions). Underway we enjoyed Rachel’s awesome quiche lunch while admiring the beautiful coastline and the clifftop mansions!
We saw penguins, jellyfish (one came aboard briefly as a pet 🪼☺️) and gannets and we all got a bit better at working the ropes!
On arrival to the Cavalli’s we enjoyed Tom’s fab caramel slice then jumped in our wetsuits and headed on to the beach to start our eagerly awaited dive. We collected kina, crayfish and rock collections and had a rock skimming comp. Connor even managed to fit in a last minute fishing trip so everybody was kept happy, even if no fish were caught!
Dinner was an epic creamy mustard chicken bake by Skipper Magnus and the dishes were done swiftly and happily with the team keeping each other on task.
Beautifully calm anchorage tonight, we’ll check in again next time. Thanks for reading, have a great night!
