Tag Archives: the mercs

A Hidden Bay at Mercury Island

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We had a beautiful day on our trip from Great Barrier Island to Mercury Island.  We had hoped to sail, but alas Mother Nature had other plans.  With less than 5kts of wind we could not fill the sails so we ended up motoring.

But the day was so pretty, the waters calm, and the skies clear. Nothing else mattered.

A Hidden Bay 

A few years ago our friend Leigh took us on a helicopter ride over Mercury Island (read blog post).  Matt spotted this gorgeous bay that could fit 1-2 boats.  We marked the location of the bay and told ourselves that we would come anchor there someday.  

Fast forward to today!  We happened to pull up to the very same anchorage  with no boats. 

This is a shallow bay so we cautiously nosed our boat into the bay using our forward sonar, Project X, and satellite charts.

Absolutely as stunning from the water as it was from the sky!

We had this beautiful bay all to ourselves for a few days.  It was so beautiful that we decided to stay longer.

What did we do?

However, when Saturday arrived so did the Auckland launches.  The day trippers arrived in full force to enjoy the beautiful weather and pretty sandy beaches.

Then our friends on Moon Shadow, Leigh and Linda Hopper, came in their 70′ Maritimo. 

Leigh expertly maneuvered his yacht next to us.  And to our surprise he wanted to raft up.  His magnificent Maritimo 70′ yacht to our 47′ catamaran.  

Ok…we dug out the fenders and tied up.

Not 30 minutes later their friends on a 60′ Maritimo arrived and rafted up next to them. 

So, we now have a 70′ Martimo and a 60′ Maritimo rafted up to Sugar Shack.  

All I can say is our 30kg Spade anchor is AMAZING!  Granted we had little wind, but still we had two gigantic boats rafted up to us!

Yes, the smallest boat, Sugar Shack is holding the two larger boats 🙂

While we were here we had our friend John stopped by with some snapper on Friday.

Then Leigh and Linda served up some delicious pack horse lobster on Saturday.

Yes, we are living like royalty.

After our early lobster dinner both Maritimos left to a larger anchorage where they could drop the hook safely.

A Return to Mercury Island

We left Tauranga with two buddy boats: Purr and Go Baby Go.  John on Go Baby Go captured a few shots of Sugar Shack as we were underway.

And then John took a drone shot of all three of us at South Bay on Slipper Island.

We left Slipper Island and headed to Mercury Island again.  While our friends headed to Great Barrier Island. 

We wanted to go back to Little Bay but \a launch anchored right in the middle of the bay preventing us from anchoring  So we went next door to Mamona Bay which was almost as beautiful!

Sugar Shack had this beautiful spot all to ourselves.

Matt got the drone out and captured the beauty from the sky.  Check out the gorgeous waters!

Our blog posts run 4-5 weeks behind actual live events. 

We were at the Mercury Island in early March 2026 and returned mid-March 2026.

Find this bay on No Foreign Land.

Mercury Island

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Mercury Island, also known as The Mercs has been on our destination wish list for over a year!  There are 7 islands that make up the Mercury island group including: Great Mercury, Red Mercury, Korapuki, Green, Atiu/Middle, Kawhitu/Stanley and Moturehu/Double Islands).  

Great Mercury Island, which is where we explored, is the only inhabited island.  The rest of the Mercs are managed by DOC (Department of Conservation) and are preserves.

We see some of the other islands as we sail around Great Mercury.

Coralie Bay

Our first anchorage is on the east side of Great Barrier and it is called Coralie Bay.  We decided to go to this bay because we had really light winds and typically this is not very protected.  This is a pretty large bay with lots of places for anchoring.

We happened to visit Mercury Island during a 4-day weekend so there were lots of local boats out at all of the anchorages.  At dusk we counted 23 boats which is a lot to us, but evidently not very many to others.

We met our friends Mirko and Daniela from Yum Yum and Leigh and Linda from Moon Shadow.  The next morning, Leigh picked us up and we did a quick hike up to the top of one of the many beautiful mountain tops.  

Peachgrove Bay

We decide to continue our exploring while the weather is calm so we head to Peachgrove Bay.  This is another bay that is typically exposed to the weather, but our calm conditions it is perfect.

There is a lovely walk to a set of waterfalls here in Peachgrove Bay.  Find it on No Foreign Land.

Sunsets are stunning.

And Sugar Shack is so happy in this beautiful water.

Bumper Bay

This is truly a beautiful bay!  The water colors are stunning, the beach is long and there is only one other boat here, our friends, Yum Yum (Daniela and Mirko).

The winds were predicted to shift so we had leave Mercury Island.  We motored across to Coral Mandel, Matarangi Bay to do some provisioning.  It was not a pleasant anchorage and the dinghy landing was even worse.  We got drenched by waves and almost flipped the dinghy.  Gesh!

Afterwards we had a lovely sail, with lots of tacks, to get to Little Bay where we stayed for the night.  We arrived at 1800 and left in the morning so not much to say other than it was pretty.

Our blogs run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog occurred during the first of February.  Hope you didn’t miss the absolutely gorgeous Rakitu Island in our last blog?