Good Friday 2013

Good Friday in New Zealand starts a very busy holiday weekend here in the Bay of Islands. Lots and lots of people flood into town to spend the long weekend. Many bring boats and spend it on the water, while others just come to spend time on the beach and bar-b-que with family and friends. School's out, works out, and lots of businesses are closed. There's no alcohol to be sold, so planning ahead is essential. We chose to spend the day on the water fishing. 

Before we started our fishing, we made a pit stop on the boat at JB and Max's house on the water. JB, one of the owners of Libertas, and his wife Max have a great secluded vacation spot in the bay, accessible by boat, with a private beach and beautiful land. They had just arrived from Auckland on Thursday, and had some guests visiting as well. We visited there for a bit, then got going on our way to a great fishing spot. We went out to Bird Rock in the Pacific Ocean, about a 45 minute boat ride from Opua. We did several drifts around the rock with a sea anchor out to slow our drift. Dave caught 1 and 1/2 kingfish, as one was attacked by a bronze whaler shark just as he was getting it close to the boat. We saw the whole thing unfold, which was pretty awesome even though we lost half the fish. Jill, Barnaby, and Miranda didn't catch any keeper kingfish, but they did all get some keeper snappers along with Dave. The final keep was 10 snapper and 1 1/2 kingfish. We had an amazing time and even had a beautiful pink sunset on the run home!