Is New Zealand for you?

This is a taste of Morgan's blog. New Zealand Adventures.

"The next evening I left on an overnight cruise in the Bay of Islands. The name of the boat was The Rock. The crew was great - 6 people from different places - England, Argentina, Germany, New Zealand. The owners worked on the boat too. They were a pretty young couple (probably in their early 30's) and had come up with the whole idea on their own. They bought an old barge ship and built it up to be an overnight cruise ship. We cruised out into the Bay of Islands, anchored and fished (I caught a little one) and then ate dinner. The bottom of teh boat was a bar down the center, lounging areas and a pool table at the front and tables with chairs down one side. We all sat on one long table for dinner with candle lanterns down the center. I had met 2 woman from Canada who were really nice - Diane and Carol. I also met Anna, from Sweden, and Graham, from South Africa, who had met in Australia and were traveling together. After dinner we went night kayaking and saw the phosphorescent photo plankton in the water. It sparkled like tiny stars everytime you touched the water. After kayaking I sat around the fireplace with some people and talked. The next morning I got up to see the sunrise, slept another hour then went down for breakfast. We cruised to a good snorkeling spot and jumped in. It felt like we were in the middle of the ocean, but I guess it was a little sheltered. There was a big rock that the waves were crashing up against. The crew members who were snorkeling with us dove down to the rock and pulled big greeen mussels off. They cracked the mussels open and gave them to us. When you held the mussel under the water the fish would swim up to you and eat the mussel right out of your hand! There were some big fish too! Probably some at least a foot and a half long. I made it over to the rock and dove down to see the green mussels, but I couldn't pull them off the rock before I ran out of breath. After snorkeling we cruised to an island where we went on a hike up to a great overlook and then we ate lunch on the beach. During the cruise I had talked with Anna and Graham about riding with them to Auckland instead of taking a bus. When we got back to Paihia I canceled my bus ticket for the next day and got a refund. I watched Anna and Graham skydive before we left Paihia. I really wanted to do it too, but it was too expensive! I'm definitely going to skydive someday! We left Paihia to drive to a campground they had stayed at before near Goat Island. We got lost on the way on a bunch of dirt roads and Graham ended up going up to this house out in the country to get directions. Then we were worried that everything would be closed for dinner because it was pretty late at this point. It reminded me of many Willis family vacations from my past! Ha ha. We finally made it to the campground where we stayed in an old camper (they call them caravans). The next morning Anna cooked us pancakes on the grill (they call them bbq's) then we drove over to Goat Island. It's supposed to be one of the best snorkeling spots in NZ. It was awesome! We had a sunny day and the water was a pretty shade of blue. We snorkeled and saw lots of neat fish and plants growing on the rocks. After Goat Island we went to a bigger, sandier beach where we could relax and swim in the waves. We left the beach to get lunch and drive back to Auckland. It's so weird saying bye to people you travel with knowing that you'll probably never see them again, especally because you get close to people you travel with so fast."