Twilight rescue

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As a skipper, your number one concern is safey,  thinking always of saftey makes you think about others in distress, especially others on the water. 

We have just made a monthly berth booking in Whangarei, New Zealand, and we didn't really expect to be doing any more boating adventures. When we were cruising, we often wound up in unexpected situations, but we thought this was all over after signing up for a long term berth.

We decided it would be nice to go for a sail over the weekend and planed to go to Munro Bay, a favourite local anchorage, pretty and remote. There are hills, a farm, a reserve, and a couple of houses. Its shallow, good holding, muddy bottom, and good protection from North - NothEast winds. Also scallops and good fishing if you're a Kiwi. 

Anyway, an hour out we heard a distress call from a boat in Paura Bay. This was sort of on the way, well its actually out of the way, but we did have to go passed the entrance. There's usually tons of boats there. There's a boat ramp, a sailing club, and over 50 moorings, so we felt pretty sure the call would be answered. We heard a relay from the coastgaurd and started to think about going in to help out, but surely there were many boats closer. We didn't have to decide anything yet because we were still on the way, and a couple of miles out, and they didn't sound too distressed anyway. 

We imagined a 15m motoryacht, with 4 people onboard, I was wondering why they didn't just stay on the boat - we stay aboard all the time, its no big deal for us, but they were a motoryacht, and maybe it's too rolly and they couldn't move without an engine. At the last minute, we passed the isolated danger mark at the entrance to Paura bay. 

Decision: They need help, we're 15 minutes out, lets go take a look. 

There was no GPS position only a vauge reference to other boats nearby, and a green mark. But nevermind we would figure this out when we got closer, they could see us, even though we couldn't see them. 

Eventually we spot them. Not a 15m motoryacht, 15ft motorboat, 4 onboard, two adults two kids, and 40 minutes to sunset. The boat is anchored in moderate swell, think 12kts with a decent fetch, in 2m of water and right next to a big rock!

Seeing the family, we were both so glad we could help, what was the alernative for them? A coastgaurd rescure or a very uncomfortable night. 

We got closer and closer checking our depth on  the way in. We circled and pulled ahead of them. Fung threw a line, cleated it to our stern, and I slowly towed them through the mooring field. Getting out of the swell we brought them alongside our boat then docked them onto a handy pontoon, right next to the boat ramp. 

Job done.  Can't imagine, or rather, we can imagine the night they were in for.

We didn't take any photos - not sure they would have appreciated that, but here is one of the entrance to Paura bay - 10 minutes after getting them on the dock. Doesn't look like much, but we anchored to avoid the swell, it was much worse on the unprotected side of the bay as the fetch is much longer.

30 minutes later and I can't say we would have gone. Doing this in the dark is not something you want to experience.

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