Monday Jan 19, 2025 Bay of Islands

It is a drizzly, windy day but a nice temperature. We anchored in the bay and the tenders started running first thing. The tender ride today was much calmer than two days ago so no free roller coaster ride. Once off the tender we took the short shuttle across the bridge and across the bay into the closest town, Piahia. We found a coffee shop and walked around town. We took the ferry to Russell across the bay. The ferry boat is a one man operation with the pilot, a young guy, doing all the lines and driving the boat. 

Russell is an old whaling town and had a reputation of being a rough place back in the day. Now there is a nice promenade along the shore and various holiday homes rising from the brown sand/gravel beach up the nearby hills. Nobody was swimming as it’s a miserable day. The water temperature is probably 70-72 degrees.

We toured the very tidy and organized (and small) museum ($10) which was well done. Everywhere we go Captain Cook pops up but this museum also discussed the French history here as well who first came a few years after Cook. More research required…

We then went to the Duck of Marlborough Hotel for a pint in their gorgeous bar. The place is beautiful but the beer and cider were so so.

Then back on the one man ferry to Piahia where the shuttle was waiting to take us back to the dock where the tender was loading and back to the ship. We split a lunch near the pool and then hopped in the hot tub one last time. At 4 we attended a great Q and A session with the captain and the hotel manager.

Then dinner at 6:00 with our friends Bob and Stacy and their friends Richard and Sherri and Jenny and Jerry.

After dinner we went to Tom Sartori’s country music show, the only country music we have heard in two weeks. The seas are the roughest we have seen so far on this trip so the poor musicians had their hands full playing and standing. Then off to bed. Tomorrow we leave the ship and we’d packed our bags earlier today so not much to do but try and sleep with the ship tossing around.