It is worth remembering the Bay of Islands is only three and a half hours from Auckland. Whenever I do, I find sunshine, sandy beaches and the sea rushing up to greet me.

I charted a boat with some friends a couple of years ago to sail around the Bay of Islands. A 'bare boat charter' I think it is called - where you take the whole boat and are responsible for it. I hadn't done that much sailing before and nor had the others, but we managed to navigate our way around for the week of our charter.

We started out from Opua. I was a little bit cautious to begin with, because of our lack of sailing experience, but the boat performed beautifully. It was easy sailing and by the end of the week, I felt I had the hang of it.

The boat was really well set up for us. There were five or six of us but we had plenty of space. We had a few adventures, mostly to do with anchoring the boat at the end of the day which I think this is a typical challenge to most inexperienced sailors. It was a bit of an adventure and always seemed to involve a bit of shouting but it was fun.

I think there are something like 86 different islands but I quickly gave up counting. One morning off Robertson Island we saw dolphins riding the bow. Some of us dived in to join them but they were feeling rather shy and vanished as quickly as they had appeared. Well, we were disappointed but at least we had the consolation that one of us had taken a picture.

The charter didn't allow us to go any further than the lighthouse at Cape Brett, but we didn't need to. Either out on the water or back on shore, the Bay provided everything we wanted. One particularly successful day, we went diving and returned with two snapper and some scallops for dinner. Our attempts at diving for crayfish were less successful, but it hardly mattered. Next time I'm sure I'll be luckier.

We had fantastic weather and it really is a beautiful area. It was the perfect way to refresh our batteries. It was so easy and relaxing that by the end I understood the phrase 'pleasure cruise'. In fact, I think its about time we did something like it again.

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