Finally, a weather window appeared that allowed us to leave Oamaru and head to Akaroa. The window wasn’t great with light variable winds that threatened a good deal of motoring, but it was the best we’d seen and the best predicted to come. We left Oamaru on Friday 22nd September at about 10:30 am in…

The longed for day finally arrived and the house we had been building for about two and half years was finished, in our possession, and ready to be rented out. By this time we were living aboard in Deborah Bay, having given up our live aboard status at the Otago Yacht Club when we left…

Cara and I had met Dave and Jackie when visiting Oamaru in 2021. They were living aboard their Hanse 370e Hansel having been trapped by the Covid lockdowns. Dave was from Melbourne Australia, Jackie a Kiwi, but as the boat was registered in Australia the tax man decreed that they had to leave or import…

At the time of writing this blog our trip to Stewart Island is some eight months in the past. Cara and I had started the process of building a house in 2021 and, despite using a national company that advertises itself as “NZ’s most trusted builder”, the process had gone well and truly pear-shaped. Constant…

So, the big day was finally upon us. Cara had finished her last shift and December 31 2022 saw us throw off the lines and head up Otago Harbour. At the heads we turned right and enjoyed a northerly breeze of ten to fifteen knots. Our destination was Port Pegasus at the South East corner…

Hiatus We successfully sailed Taurus home to Dunedin in the month’s leave that we had before having to return to work. The trip was a mixed blessing: beautiful anchorages, stunning weather, and meeting all manner of friendly folk who went above and beyond to help us; on the negative side we found a number of issues with…

We travelled up to Opua in the Bay of Islands to take possession of ‘Taurus,’ a 12 metre steel Feltz Skorpion IIa, on the 10th of October, and spend a week getting to know her. This trip allowed us to take advantage of a friend’s local knowledge, as he and his partner had chartered a…

Having spent a little time living on board our current yacht, a C&C 34 called ‘Casino,’ Cara and I weren’t too worried about living on ‘Taurus,’ which is a little bigger at 39 feet long. We had applied for and gained ‘live aboard status’ at our local yacht club, the Otago Yacht Club, which was…

Having woken up to find the kids gone and the pets dead, Cara and I decided that we should buy a boat, live on her, and work towards cruising full time in a couple of years. This blog is an attempt to record our journey for our own benefit, so we don’t make too many…