The ANZAC Ceremony - Kawau Boat Club and...

After some very heavy rain yesterday, today was brilliant, which also meant there were a lot of boats on the water.

Our weekend started a little early, when a launch went aground last night leaving the Matakana River, on a falling tide, and they thought the problems were worse than turned out to be the case. (Nothing like some Friday night stress to think the worst)

We arrived once the tide had re-floated it, around 2130, and after checking that the engine and cooling system was OK, our boatie made his own way down the river and and away to have the planned weekend fishing.

At 11am we headed over to Kawau Boat Club, with a boat load of crew and family members to attend the ANZAC Service - always a friendly and special event. Len and Sean performed the dipping of the flag on the wharf.

We'd also like to thank the Warkworth Floral Art club, who made us two stunning wreaths for this event. Unfortunately, before I could grab any photos, we received a callout - back to Sandspit. With my phone on silent for the service, I found I had quite the list of missed calls and messages.

So we beat a hasty retreat and our team didn't get to socialise or partake of the yummy refreshments.

Back at Sandspit, a launch was semi-submerged at the SYC haul-out ramp, with one of the local barges trying to pump and move it into the grid.

At this stage, we found our salvage pump had a hole in the case, so wasn't working properly. Also the 35ft vessel was sitting on the bottom, with water coming over the stern, so the tide needed to drop before any progress could be made.

While we moved to our berth to clean up received another couple of taskings.

The (Off Duty) ANZAC team beat a hasty retreat and the Duty crew arrived, full of beans.

The next venue was back to the Kawau Boat Club, for a runabout with a flat battery. As soon as we came around the corner it miraculously started, without our help.

We were starting to feel a little unwanted!

The next task was a longer trip to another 6,5m runabout , about 5 miles north of Cape Rodney, with a "fuel problem". They didn't have any.

After tracking down the drifting boat, we transferred 40 litres of "go juice" across and after a fair amount of pumping and motor winding, these guys were on their way back to Leigh.

We had a pleasant trip back with a setting sun, a quick pause to retrieve a drifting mussel float and the last leg back in the dark.

We have seen a lot of logs and debris in the water after the heavy rain and high tides, including logs many miles offshore, so remember to keep a good lookout and try to avoid travel at night.