What if?

Paihia is a small place on the East coast of the Northland area of NZ, a place we would’ve liked to have spent more time at; loads of trips and things to see.  We arrived about midday, put our steaks away and headed down the short walk into town; we explored ‘town’ in no more than ½ hour it’s that small.  Paihia is so centred around tourist that there are hardly any shops, it’s all Motel, Hotel, B&B or Hostel.  We caught the ferry over to Russell in the hope it would be some more to see, but it was the same sort of thing; lovely place to spend an afternoon unless your into walking in which case you’ll be fine.  On the way back on the ferry to Paihia we did see an advert for a ‘Powerboat tour of the Bay of Islands’ Andy’s eyes lit up, ‘Powerboat’ around the bay; before we could even discuss it he was off to find the agent.  Within 5 minutes of landing we were booked on a full day trip, really good value we thought; 1030 hr’s leave on a Powerboat trip out to the ‘Hole in the Rock’ drop off at an Island resort and pick up at 1530 hr’s all for $69 Bargain.  The Powerboat had 2 800hp Cat Diesel engines on the back, and as it started up you wondered where all the power was; a lovely quite and smooth trip over to Russell to pick up the other passengers to make it about 40 people all in water proofs and life jackets.  The Skipper took this quite time to explain the boat and how she was owned, designed and built by his family; and then the speed restrictions in the Bay came to an end.  To the sounds of The Rolling Stones he cranked up the power and we were off, Andy has often mentioned a past work colleague Dan who was kind enough to take him and his Nephew out on his smaller Powerboat than this and how he enjoyed that day; BUT Andy’s first words were ‘Dan would love this’  This thing cruised over the waves without any effort and when it hit a swell you literally ‘took off’ out of your seat, and when it hit you felt the whole boat bounce and yet you felt safe due to it’s size; we now understood the safety briefing questions ‘Anyone Pregnant, anyone have a bad back, anyone had a operation recently?  I still have bruising on my arm from the ‘safety’ barriers where were sat.  It was well worth the bruising, we were lucky enough to be able to go through the ‘Hole in the rock’ and also venture into the ‘Cathedral cave’; after our trip around the Bay of Islands we were dropped off at a small tourist Island for the afternoon of walking and sight seeing.  When we were picked up we were more than ready for a shower and a relaxing evening with a glass of wine.  As we were leaving the hostel the next day, bound for a very nice hostel called Kahoe Farm the owner of our present hostel commented on the ‘Bug’ when we told her that it would soon be selling the ‘old girl’ she asked Andy to e-mail her as she would seriously be interested in buying her from us; to date that’s the third party we have come across that wants to buy her (but we’ll see?)