On Friday morning the easterly wind, that had gusted to 40 knots, eased and we extracted our anchor from the clay seabed where it had been deeply embedded. A similarly strong southwesterly was forecast for the weekend so we crossed Fitzroy Harbour and dug the anchor into Smokehouse Bay in readiness for the windshift.
Many boats had the same plan and soon 18 sail boats and local motorboats were swinging gently at anchor in the warm autumn sun. Smokehouse Bay was gifted to cruisers by a sailing philanthropist decades ago and is the perfect rendezvous for sailors and fishermen on New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island.
Generations of boat-bound visitors have constructed a dock for dinghies, plumbed in a bath house with water from a well that is heated by a log burner, built a pizza oven, added a laundry, a smokehouse for the catch of the day and surrounded a fire pit with enough benches to seat 30 folk.
With a little help from our French friends, Sally soon mastered the pizza oven and, after a haircut on the beach, we kicked off the shoreside festivities with lunch with our OCC friends. Soon S/V Waterdogs arrived and, being a catamaran from Newfoundland, they carried a petrol chainsaw and it wasn’t long before the abundant driftwood was neatly chopped and the fire pit was ablaze. We had last met Gavin (from Waterdogs) when he came to our house in Scotland for a BBQ in 2017 making this seem an exceedingly small world!
As the afternoon wore on the fireside conversations began in this amazing, off-grid meeting place. Kiwis, Swedes, Brits, French, Canadians, Americans and the odd Australian. Recreational fisherman brought freshly caught smoked snapper to the feast and spun their fishy stories alongside our sailor’s yarns whilst we were bathed in wood smoke and toasted by the glowing logs.
Afternoon turned into evening and the cooler southerly wind change sent us scurrying back to our boats to enjoy the starry night and reflect on a fantastic day with friends, old and new, in the unique and incredible Smokehouse Bay.
