A grey morning, we are fortunate insomuch that Auckland lies on the east side of New Zealand’s  North Island; the west side is receiving a battering, a deep weather depression is causing high winds and very high seas.  We are just experiencing the wind and even that was manageable, 20 knots or so for our arrival.

As I write, we are snug alongside Queen’s Wharf, our bow almost in the centre of town and sheltered from the forecast higher winds, which are due later today.

We embarked our local pilot at 6:30 a.m. and proceeded along the buoyed channel towards the berth.  By 7:30 we were in the final stages of docking, easing alongside and gangway was in by 7:57, 3 minutes before our scheduled time of 8 a.m.

The “mob’ have gone into town and I have spent my day meeting various visitors and catching up with the weather forecasts.  It looks as if our luck may hold; our next port-of-call being Waitangi, Bay of Islands, which is also on the east coast.  The storm appears to have moved on by the time we have to ‘stick our head out’, over the top of North island, we will probably get the remnants of the swell, however that is nothing compared what it would have been like, had we had to head for Sydney earlier.  Nevertheless, I will continue to monitor it, mother nature can be a fickle creature…..

I will leave you with today’s photos; hopefully I will be able to post some more tomorrow, after (if) I have been ashore.

Early morning and the skyline of Auckland beckons

After navigating the channel, we near the berth

The container-ship berth and a car-carrier docked

Berthed, right in the city

looking west, foreground is the ferry terminal; behind the white buildings lie the waterfront cafes, restaurants abd bars.

Looking north-west, across the harbour.