10 August 2026 Lake Taupō Run
I must say — the run I just did in Auckland was spectacular. As in: the views, the speed, but far more, the fact that I now knew I had to brush up on my navigation knowledge. Far East wisdom states — To know that you do not know is the highest wisdom; to think you know when you do not know is a sickness.
Fully aware of this, I finished and passed NASBLA and PCOC licensing/certification. None were straight passes: frustratingly, my first shot at Canada’s PCOC had me missing by just 1%, whilst the US NASBLA (Florida) marked me down a few more points. I admit, this being new to me, some of this was guesswork to start with, but I redid it and gave far more attention to the details. My second go for the NASBLA ‘ticket’ (licence) was higher, and for PCOC, visibly higher. The courses finally fulfilled my RTFM need — for once, I knew what I was supposed to do. Hitherto alien to me, Colregs and basic navigational rules were a breath of fresh air. And the one rule I remembered now — the water was deceivingly similar to Swiss roads — give way to what’s to your right!
We arrived at LAKeFUN in Taupō to absolutely glorious views from the approach road in our vehicle, with me having done my homework — I was well aware that there was a part to the southeast of the lake which was certainly not built for “sending it” at high speed, and where you had to be super alert! After everyone had their life vests fitted, a brief briefing on land and on the hull, and final pre-departure checks and procedures completed, we were good to go. 5 knots on the way out — increased, of course, I’d always do like a good HSR train — progressively to 10 knots and beyond.
The boat in Auckland had pretty much “the works” — the GPS gave us a good view of how fast we were going. The Kiwi, as we took it out, had something different — a windscreen wiper! It would actually be put into frequent use as the waves were actually choppier than we thought — but the good thing was we piloted from inside the vessel. Any lack of speedometers was fixed by me using my iPhone, and thanks to a bit of conversion utilities, I was able to max out my run at 18.4 knots, although we usually hovered more around 15 knots. We didn’t intentionally try to force it to “plane” — the water was not hugely optimised for that, as I saw, and we were mostly trying to locate the Māori Rock Carvings nearby.
Lake Taupō was very different from Auckland. There, you were never too far from the city. Here, there were parts of nature that were far more quiet. Lake Taupō threw us some confusing curveballs, such as when I though I was headed back to the town, whereas I actually went pretty deep into Whakaipo Bay (I was ‘seeing land’ too soon!). Finally, after around ten rather nerve-wracking minutes (when Google Maps didn’t do its best), we were finally back in Tapuaehauru Bay — which led us back to Central Taupō.
Having been passed in Auckland by another boat, I defensively executed a “wave chop”; in Taupō, I mandated a minimum distance of 250 metres between me and the other boat and dipped speeds so to generate as little wake as possible. My wife took pictures of the lake as we were cruising by — these were awe-inspiring. One of our goals was to see the Ngātoroirangi Mine Bay Māori Rock Carvings — we’re still a little in dispute if we saw it, with me aware we caught sight of something like that, but the wife not too certain.
Still, it was a refreshing cruise — the helm was inside, so our boat was able to handle some visible chop, but it was always manageable — Jr was even able to have some fun with his dominoes inside! I was able to best my Auckland speed record with a new one. When we returned the vessel, as per instructions at launch, I completed the U-turn, gave the throttle a brief roar, then dipped back down, and we touched land far smoother than I thought I would.
I have to say, getting a licence is a big thing — especially when you’re focused and crash through two in a short period of time. Some things become baked into you right when you learn — such as red for port, green for starboard, the five short horn ‘toots’ for a, well, salty maritime “WTF DUDE!?”. It made me visibly more confident taking the helm, now for the first time as a ‘licensed transport amphibian’ over land and sea. Both launch and return were optimal, a good run before we headed later in the day over Desert Road. And, of course, Cappuccino right by State Highway 1 as we headed towards Palmerston North…
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