Happy Kiwi Easter!

Safely arrived in Hamburg

Or Tauranga... :-)

Harbour works

Ships in the harbour...

Arriving in Tauranga harbour

Tauranga harbour is the biggest "trading harbour", it has the most traffic of trading ships. Almost all of NZ's exported Kiwi-fruits leave from here, to give an example. We just arrived at the river entrance, one more hour to go til we can put the anchor down and get a rest. Lots of traffic here, always exciting to arrive at night. A good watch (look out) is important!

White Island

4hrs ago we were sailing past the "White Island", the active volcano, its activity currently rated "category 1", which means that right now it's just sending off lots of sulfur steam. Boy it smells.
We're slowly making our way past the island hardly beating into the waves with saltwater constantly washing over our deck. The waves work against us and slow us down drastically. We expect to land in Tauranga somewhere around 6pm, we're motoring in the meantime.

Burning volcano

This sunset of the easternmost part of NZ lets the island appear like a bug active volcano. And that's basically what it is, especially here at the central part of NZ. Tomorrow we'll pass by the active volcano on a little island called White Island. It is the last one on a ridge of volcanos which also the ones we visited this week and Mt Egmont in New Plymouth belong to. So it comes at no surprise that the sunset reflects the volcanos.