Simon's despatch: The great trek to Piahia for tall ship sailing in the bay of islands.

On the 25th we spent most of the day driving up north from the coromandel all the way to the bay of islands, via Auckland, a community renovated botanical quarry and the most ornate public toilets you'll ever see (they even get their own brown tourist sign on the highway).

All this travelling was for one reason - to fulfil a boyhood dream of mine and crew a proper tall ship, climbing the rigging and everything!

The R Tucker Thompson, is a trust owned tall ship that takes kids on week long training voyages in winter and pays for it by taking tourists on day long cruises during the summer. It's a beautiful schooner with two masts capable of deploying up to 8 sails.

Beth was a bit worried that as tourists they wouldn't let us do that much crewing and I was worried because there was literally not a breath of wind. As it turned out neither of us needed to worry.

Right from the off captain Steve marched us "scurvy lot" onto the ship, enforcing discipline with the threat of his truncheon (no not that one). Some sails needed hoisting so volunteers were sort and Beth had to apologise for my enthusiasm as I almost knocked people out of the way to help.

Next they asked if anybody wanted to climb the rigging and it took all my self restraint and reminding myself I'm 32 to stop myself from putting my hand up as high into the air as it could go and shouting "me! me!". As it was I managed a nonchalant "yeah ok" whilst speed walking to the rigging.

I discovered two things climbing the rigging. 1: pretending to be a pirate and going barefoot is all good fun until you have to put all your weight on a piece of 8mm rope. 2: I'm slightly more competitive than Beth, as she was on the opposite rigging so a race situation naturally developed. I won because she temporarily stalled about halfway up due to it being so painful on bare feet.

We were lucky it was so calm as the pitch & roll of the ship is magnified about 6 times at the height of the crows nest and the rigging becomes a lot less stable as it narrows near the top! Climbing out and over the crows nest overhang was particularly exciting!

Before lunch we dropped anchor by a tiny island and most people went ashore to explore whilst Beth and I stayed on board to play on a massive rope swing they'd rigged up.

Up until this point there had been no wind and just beautiful blue skies, the sails had been for show only as we motored along. After the lunch time BBQ and cream tea and right on queue it clouded over and the wind picked up a lot!

We managed to get 7 sails out and cut through the water at up to 12 knots, before it got even windier and we had rapidly pull in the main gaff topsail as it was threatening to capsize us. It seemed like a lesson in the winds power as myself and a male crew member's combined weight couldn't pull the sail in as it was so full of wind. Then it turned out Beth still had hold of the opposing rope on the other side of the ship & when the captain finally told her to drop it everything got a lot easier!

Beth & I got fully trained up as head sails men & gained a new found respect for the sailors who sailed the world and fought battles on tall ships with no recourse to a motor... It's hard work!

By the end of the day my hands were rubbed red from pulling on ropes but I was one very happy little boy. It was one of the best days I'd had in NZ!