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After about a week back in New Zealand following my return from Fiji, we set sail in one of the most prestigious south pacific races, the PIC Coastal Classic race from Auckland to Russell in the Bay of Islands. This is a 119NM (straight line) race in which many top line racing machines compete in. We entered Thistle into this race and what you are about to watch is some of the action that took place on this grueling upwind overnight race.

In this episode I fly up to Fiji to meet with Cyrus from Flying cloud, a 47 foot cutter that I help crew back to New Zealand.

Just a quick video showing some drone shots of Elephant Cove over on the inside of the Coromandel peninsula.

In this episode we have Bow Thruster failure and Marcus troubleshoots the issue and repairs it. We have a big announcement at the end of the video also!

A little video of a recent overnight sail we did to Waiheke Island (Hooks Bay).

We decide to sail a little further south down to Whitianga to get some diesel and more supplies.

We sail Thistle further south to Great Mercury Island. you don't want to miss this episode!

We again head out from the marina to sail off to Great Barrier Island and South to Great Mercury Island.

Some drone footage from Man-O- War bay, Waiheke Island

in this short video, we had back to Auckland and do some clay bird shooting from the yacht.

We sail Thistle from Tutukaka down to Kauwau Island and go for an explore on the island. we see some whales en route.

we spend the last night with the Civas Regal and Aliseo crew and head back south

In this video, we take the dinghy up the creek to the fresh water swimming hole.

we take a little hike up to the top of zst Paul's Rock at whangaparoa

Here I am explaining (trying to) why I've been so slack at getting any videos up onto YouTube. we've decided to upload the videos I made on the go when we were sailing this summer just been (2024). I made these videos on my phone and uploaded them to my Facebook page for our friends to see our adventures. we've decided to upload them on our channel as well so you can see a little of what we've been upto. enjoy!

In this episode we explore the Bay of islands some more, "Snurkel" in a lagoon, hunker down for a cyclone, and have some mechanical issues we need to sort out on anchor.

Its been a while between videos, and some of what you see in this video is the reason. We made it up to Bay Of Islands over January 2023 and this is some of the footage of getting there.

We continue our long weekend away sailing by heading to Waiheke Island for a night. Then we sail across the Hauraki Gulf where we catch a Kawhai from the yacht.

This labour day long weekend we take Thistle to Rangitoto island for an explore through lava caves and walk to the summit and around the rim of the caldera. We hope you enjoy the fottage as much as we enjoyed the trip! #walkingonavolcano #Rangitoto #sailing #newzealandsailing #livingaboard