The Bay of Islands has an air of impossibility about it. Here in Paihia, the late afternoon is impossibly tranquil, the sky impossibly blue and the Pacific Ocean, gently bobbing with the tide, is impossibly sparkling.

From the top deck of the multi-storey catamaran Tangaroa (named after the Maori god of the sea) I can see couples wandering hand in hand on the beach wearing shorts and t-shirts. Seagulls freewheel carelessly above while kayakers paddle in perfect sync below.

Gliding regally out of Paihia's picturesque jetty, Tangaroa sets out across the sheltered harbour where we are encircled, near and far, by shimmering sapphire ocean and lush, scrubby green land.

"Welcome aboard the Sunset Cruise," booms our Fullers Bay of Islands skipper, Basil, through a speaker.

"We're not going to follow any set pattern this evening, but we are going to take to you to some of the bays that aren't normally visited by other cruises. I'll be giving you a bit of a commentary as we go so all you need to do is sit back, grab yourselves a drink from the bar if you're so inclined, and relax."

'I'm way ahead of you Basil', I think as I nestle into a comfy corner seat, sunglasses on, camera at the ready, wondering whether it's a beer or a wine kind of afternoon.

Up ahead I spot the hell-hole of the Pacific, or Russell as it is known today. The unfavourable moniker was once attached to this historic settlement thanks to the debauchery of the whalers that set up shop here in the 1800s. Whaling crews on 'shore leave' would run riot in the bars and brothels, drinking, fighting and causing general mayhem. In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed nearby, bringing with it British rule. Two years later New Zealand's first Roman Catholic Mission was established - one of a handful of buildings spared when Russell was later razed by displaced and dissatisfied local Maori.

As we cruise past the town with its tiny ochre-sanded bay, lapping turquoise water and smattering of tidy buildings as white as sun-dried linen, Russell looks decidedly more heavenly than hellish.

Edging its way around the heads and curves of the shoreline, Tangaroa takes us past Assassination Cove. The unoriginal name of this bay stems from the 1772 massacre by local Maori of French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne and 26 of his associates. Marion du Fresne's remaining crew retaliated by assassinating 250 Maori before naming the bay 'Ance des Assasinats' and promptly leaving.

The bloody violence of the past is near impossible to picture as we take in our idyllic surrounds: a stretch of burnished brown rocks on which a father and tiny son pick out shellfish in the pink dusky light. All around, petite, private U-shaped bays embrace million dollar homes.

"Multi-million dollar holiday homes," clarifies Basil.

"These are the playgrounds of New Zealand's rich and famous. Holiday homes that they use maybe for a few weeks a year."

The wind whipping the top deck fills my mouth - agape at the opulence hidden away in these isolated bays. Every cove reveals another elaborate construction. We breeze past one sleek, hidden architectural design after another. There are crystal floor-to-ceiling windows, floodlit tennis courts, even his 'n' hers helicopter hangars. The lawns - manicured as if blade by blade - are enormous squares of glowing green bordering plush groundskeepers' accommodation the size of your average home. Every property is empty, waiting patiently for its summer occupants.

Heading back out into open waters we glide past verdant Moturua Island. Now a scenic reserve abundant with native bird life, Moturua was the site where, in 1772, the French - not knowing that Captain James Cook had already charted the area - tried to claim New Zealand (or 'France Australe' as they dubbed it) via a message in a buried bottle. The message, said to have been buried 'on the left bank of the stream where we obtained our water at fifty seven paces from the place the sea comes up at the new and full moons, in rising, and ten paces distance from the said stream, at four feet depth' announced that Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne's surviving crew had 'taken possession' of this, 'the continent eastward of New Zealand'.

You can't blame them for trying - emerging from a scurvy-ridden whaling boat into a vibrant inlet full of bountiful islands, I'm sure most of us would have done the same. But their bid for possession was unsuccessful (not least because nobody could follow their directions to the bottle!) and Maori continued to reign supreme on the islands until the arrival of the infamously wanton whalers in the 1800s.

"And the rest," announces Basil, turning to a fitting cliche as we near the end of our impossibly perfect sunset cruise, "is history".

Amelia experienced the Fullers Bay of Islands Sunset Cruise courtesy of Fullers Bay of Islands and Tourism Holdings Ltd.

Amelia is Content Editor for the New Zealand travel and tourism website www.fourcorners.co.nz.