Category: Boat

Christmas at Sea

As you can probably tell by the title of this blog, we didn’t manage to make it home for Christmas day.  The original title was ‘Weather Forecasters are Lying Bastards Part 3’ – but after the lovely Christmas day we had on the water I decided that was far too negative.

When we were finally able to leave Auckland it looked as though our biggest problem would be not enough wind – and for the first couple of days that was pretty much true to form. When the wind did blow from the South (the direction we were trying to travel in) there was so little of it that it was inconsequential – which was why the 30 knot Southerlies we got in the middle of the Bay of Plenty came as such a rude shock.

We’ve been in stronger winds and much more uncomfortable conditions in Wildflower before and coped fine, but I think that must have been the last straw for me, because I kinda lost it. I was still able to do everything I needed to, including clambering up on deck in the howling wind (with a harness on Mummy!) to reef the mainsail and frantically pulling on ropes while the poor boat’s sails crashed and banged, but once all that was done I am ashamed to admit that I hunkered down on the floor of the cockpit and bawled like an angry kitten. I had had enough, I wanted off the boat, I wanted out of these shitty conditions and most of all – I just wanted to get home.  It felt like we had been trying to get down south forever. We had already planned to have a belated Christmas with my family in Christchurch, but I was really missing them and was just a teensy bit over it all.

Paddy handled it like a champ. He held my hand and let me rant and rave, which was exactly what I needed. In the end we tacked out to sea for most of the night to keep us clear of the land and tacked back in again in the morning so we could round East Cape. It meant we lost about a day going out of our way but by the time we got round East Cape (which has a reputation for being a little windy) conditions had settled down and it was pretty uneventful.

Unfortunately for Paddy my next attack of Neurotic Crew Syndrome came the following day when we finally got the chance to check our Winlink radio email. Paddy came up to the cockpit, gave me a hug and said “there’s been a couple more quakes in Christchurch, but everybody’s okay.” Dad had emailed us to let us know because he had assumed we would have heard something on the news and been worried, which was absolutely the right thing to do. Unfortunately we hadn’t had any traditional radio access for a while so I didn’t really know the extent of what had happened – though I had figured if Dad was able to email then things must have been alright. I replied straight away and then checked our email before I went on my first night watch. We hadn’t had a response (though it turned out Mum, Dad and little sis had all taken turns writing in an email but for some reason it hadn’t gone through then). This meant I had spent a large chunk of my first watch glaring at my celphone and waiting for some sort of reception and when I got it – at 1am – I immediately woke my poor parents up to make them tell me they were okay. After hearing their voices everything was so much better and when the email came through in the morning it really made me smile.

So when Christmas day dawned, I was in a much better headspace. It helped that it was a lovely, calm, sunny day. Sure, we had to burn some diesel because there wasn’t much wind, but at that point I was okay with that!

Neptune started giving us our Christmas presents at first light, when the fishing rod started going nuts. We caught three decent sized tuna in quick succession before I made Paddy put the fishing rod away (we hadn’t managed to get anything done that morning because we were constantly running to the fishing rod, and there’s no point in being greedy!) We had a couple of albatross fly around us for a bit after that and, no sooner had I started thinking ‘the only thing that would make this more perfect would be dolphins’, they started to turn up.

First it was just a little guy on his own who jumped out of the water a couple of times and then disappeared but he must have got some of his mates because the next thing we knew we had a couple of pods of them hanging out with us for the rest of the day. It was really lovely.

Paddy and I and the goodluck trolls pulled Christmas crackers, wore silly hats, told awful jokes and ate scorched almonds – so all in all it was a pretty awesome day.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful and we even got a bit of good sailing in and were able to give poor old Big Red the engine a bit of a rest. We got a classic Wellington welcome home this morning though, with a couple of knots of tide against us going up Cook Strait. It was reasonably comfortable though, just made the going a little slower. The wind pretty much dropped off completely until we hit the South coast of Wellington, which decided to remind us what city we were heading towards by cranking things up from about 2.5 to 35 knots in rather quick succession. There is a bit of a wind funnel effect there with the land but, because there is such little sea room between the land and you, there is very little swell. So you have a lot of wind but the boat isn’t bashing around. It is a little surreal.

Once we got into Wellington Harbour though everything had settled down and we were able to enjoy watching home appear over the horizon (in between the ferries and mad buggers kite surfing). Once we had managed to get the boat docked at Chaffers Marina we jumped off and hugged each other. We’d made it! Around the South Pacific and back all in one piece and without killing each other. It has been an incredible experience and one I will not forget in a hurry.

I also – despite the way I felt in the Bay of Plenty – definitely want to do it again. There is a line in an Irene Quinn song about a rotten sail in wretched weather that says ” it’s a good thing sailors have got short memories” and I think that’s pretty much it. The rubbish stuff feels like it is going on forever while it is happening, but it is only a tiny part of it. A chap we met in Opua before we left summed it up pretty well too, while climbing soaked out of a dinghy in rough weather, “sailing – the good stuff outweighs the bad stuff” he said, before shaking himself dry and heading towards the yacht club. And, having now experienced it, I couldn’t agree more!

We are headed to Christchurch (on a plane!!!) tomorrow to spend Christmas with the whanau and will be back in Welly early Jan when I will be forced to get used to being back in the real world again by starting back at work. I am actually really looking forward to catching up with my friends and workmates, so it should all be good.

I still have a couple of retrospective blogs to write when I get the chance – so don’t think this is the last you will be hearing from us! I am also working on converting this blog into a book (with lots of extras of course!) so I will keep you posted. If you love me, you will buy it 😉 xxx

In Limbo (and more dolphins!)

 “It’ll be great, we’ll get three summers in a row!” –  This was one of Paddy’s selling points when trying to lure me into running away to sea

After several days of listening to rain pounding on the roof and wind shrieking in the shrouds though – I have been given cause to doubt the wisdom of that particular statement. It seems we have been waiting on the weather in some form or another since we have been back in New Zealand.

It’s a strange kind of limbo – we’re home but we’re not really home. We still have quite a bit of sailing to do before we get back to Wellington.

The plan was to sail around the Bay of Islands for a bit before heading to the Hauraki Gulf where our friends Fergus and Diane would show us around their cruising ground. The one flaw in the plan however was the sodding weather.

We had some lovely days up North (in between the grungy ones) and we did manage to get out and about in the Bay of Islands for a bit – but our plans to head further South have pretty much been thwarted at every turn.

It got to the point that – should we have any chance of getting home for Christmas – we simply had to go as soon as we safely could. The day we left the Bay of Islands was grey and pouring with rain. The conditions weren’t dangerous, the wind wasn’t even blowing that hard – it was just cold and wet. (I did get the chance to wear the funky orange hat I picked up at the boatie swapmeet in Opua though, and it was brilliant!) It took us longer than expected to get out of the Bay of Islands because we did had the wind and swell against us a bit – but nothing compared to what we’ve had on previous trips.

For some reason though, I started getting jittery – which is strange because it was the first time I had felt that way sailing for ages. I think part of it was the fact that, other than puttering around the bay, we haven’t really been out for quite a while. The other part probably had something to do with the weather. Even when the conditions are fine, if it’s cold and grey everything just seems scarier.

So I tried to imagine that the sea and sky were a beautiful Pacific blue instead of grungy New Zealand grey – that helped a little. Then I started trying to think of things that made me happy and I hit upon the dolphins that came to play with us at Robertson Island. Just as I’d finished talking about them with Paddy, I saw a splash out of the corner of my eye and, sure enough, it was a dolphin – I couldn’t believe it! There was a wee pod of them – they were smaller than the last ones we saw (maybe bottlenose?) – and they played around in our bow wave, leaping over the top of each other, diving under the boat and popping up out the other side. There was one that particularly liked leaping out of the bigger waves and slapping them with its tail when it came down – they were just having a good old play. Of course that completely cheered me up – it’s hard to feel bad when you are surrounded by creatures that are having so much fun.

In the Hauraki Gulf they have a bylaw that states boats cannot be within so many metres of dolphins and that you should not disrupt their path. That’s kind of hard when they decide they want to play with you and start swimming around and under your boat (clever critters though – they know to stay away from the propeller). If we tried to stay out of their path we’d have been weaving all over the show, and they probably would have thought it was part of the game! I have a sneaking suspicion that the person who wrote the dolphin bylaw hadn’t actually spent much time on a boat around dolphins.

Once we were out of the Bay of Islands we decided to overnight in a little place called Whangaruru Harbour and leave first thing in the morning, that way we wouldn’t be trying to get to our original destination, Tutukaka, in the dark. The next day we headed for Great Barrier Island. We actually had a pretty good sail, with about 18 knots on the beam we managed to make about 70 miles in 12 hours. I felt much better about things too – I even managed to relax enough to have a wee snooze in the cockpit. I felt a bit silly about getting butterflies the day before, but I think I am just one of those people who have to keep doing things or they create all sorts of silly fears and blocks in their head. I guess it was just high time I got back on the horse.

The plan was to overnight in Great Barrier and then head for Auckland where we would wait out a forecast Southerly but, in keeping with the theme of our previous plans, the weather put paid to this too. The wind was forecast to get up pretty high for a day, which is why we headed for Great Barrier, but then it decided to stick around. We were lucky though because we were tucked up nice and sheltered while the rain and wind walloped the rest of the country. It is rather unusual to have the low pressure systems that are this aggressive at this time of year – but it just seems to be the theme of things at the moment. The spot we were in, Port Fitzroy, was lovely and I’m sure is even lovelier when Mother Nature isn’t throwing a tantrum.

I do admit I started to lose my sense of humour a little though (read had a minor meltdown). This feels like the longest, slowest limp home ever and it’s just frustrating to be so close to home but have it take so long to get there. I am used to a world where, if you need to be somewhere, you just jump on a plane and you are there in an hour. Technically we could do that from Auckland, but it wouldn’t solve any problems because we’d still have to get the boat back to Wellington. Leaving the boat in Auckland over Christmas isn’t really an option because its pretty much impossible to find a berth or a mooring at this time of year and those that are available will be hideously expensive. We could leave the boat at anchor, but that is dodgy in itself. If something happens – someone hits it, the weather packs up or the anchor drags and there isn’t anyone on board to do anything about it then the boat isn’t insured (not to mention we don’t want our baby getting hurt!)

The biggest issue for me is that I’m determined to be home at Mum and Dad’s in Christchurch for Christmas (we will be flying from Welly now, not sailing) and at this stage it looks like we will be cutting it pretty close. I got pretty upset about it initially but then Paddy got me to realise that getting upset at the weather wont change anything – the weather will do what the weather will do and I’ll just be upset. So we’ll wait for the Southerly to go through and then we’ll go from there. There is a big high lurking around the corner and if we can hook on to the back of that then we stand a reasonable chance of getting to Wellington on or around Christmas (though it’s hard to predict what the weather is going to do so many days in advance) – wish us luck!

 

 

Parking woes and playing with dolphins

So we’re still sitting in Opua. The weather has been rubbish so Paddy decided it would be a good time to get some rigging work done on the boat (it is much cheaper here than inWellington).

Unfortunately what we thought would be a one-day job hit a couple of snags and it looks like it won’t be finished until Monday. The tricky part of the whole performance is that we are not staying in the marina anymore – being so close to the yacht club bar and the chandleries (shops that sell boat stuff) was proving a little expensive, so we decided to go live on the pick outside the marina.

This was fine until we needed to get work done on the boat. The rigging company we were using had the use of a marina berth that belonged to one of the ferries though, so we were allowed to stay there while our rigging was being worked on. That too was fine – until the ferry returned and wanted its berth back. It left at 6am and returned at 11pm so we were okay to stay there during the day, but had to clear out by the evening. That also would have been fine, except that it has been blowing like a bastard for the past few days and anchoring and berthing the boat has been a little challenging to say the least!

Each morning we have had to up anchor and maneuver Wildflower into the berth. This can be tricky at the best of times but, with the wind howling and current ripping through the marina, squeezing 18 tonnes of steel into a space between two other boats can be pretty interesting!

It became even more interesting the other morning when our engine decided it was going to die at the most inopportune moment. We were heading into the marina, there were boats everywhere, the wind was blowing and I was standing at the bow of the boat ready to throw a line to friends of ours who have been helping us park over the past few days.

Paddy popped his head out the cockpit and very calmly said “we’ve lost the engine. I’m going to try to get us into that empty berth (luckily there was one nearby) but there’s a chance we might run into it, so make sure you don’t get hurt. I’m going to jump off (the boat) and you are going to have to throw the lines to me – but you’re going to have to be quick.”

The funny thing was, I didn’t panic. When we were out at sea sometimes I freaked myself out thinking of all the things that could go wrong, but when we were facing an impending crash landing I was reasonably calm. I figured there was nothing we could do to change the situation we were in so we had to do the best we could to get ourselves out of it. I guess taking the choice out of the matter kind of took away the fear.

Paddy managed to coast the boat into the empty berth and leap off the side, while I threw him the ropes. I’m afraid all the excitement may have affected my throwing technique a little (read I flailed ineffectually) but I got the ropes to him and that’s all that really matters! Paddy tied us up to the dock and someone from a boat nearby ran over to give us a hand. I noticed he adhered to the marina code of helping us out, checking that we were okay and buggering off before it got too embarrassing – well done that man!

I was really impressed with the way Paddy calmly assessed the situation, worked out what needed to be done and did it with the minimum of drama. Had I been on the helm I would have been more likely to wave my arms in the air like Kermit the Frog on a bad day and go hide under something.

The most likely culprit was an air bubble in our fuel (I’m sure there is a more technical explanation but that will do for now) caused by all the jostling round we were doing out at anchor. We are now making sure there is a lot more fuel in our tanks just in case – and so far haven’t had any more problems (touch wood!)

Once the day’s work on the boat has been done we then have to back out of the berth in a slightly nerve-wracking three-point turn (which Paddy executes like a pro) and head back out to the anchorage. Anchoring can also be quite fun when you are trying to do it in 25 knots of wind. There comes a point when you stop looking around thinking ‘that’s a nice boat’ and start thinking ‘that looks expensive!’

At one point we were trying to do this at the same time that the cruising club was running its weekly yacht race. I don’t know whether the racers recognized that we were trying to anchor, but it was certainly rather unnerving trying to steer the boat into the wind while race boats zipped right behind us.  You can honk your horn to signal if you are turning to port, starboard or reversing, but as far as I am aware there is no signal for ‘piss off we’re trying to anchor’ – please feel free to correct me if I am wrong though!  If there isn’t then there jolly well should be and I shall be campaigning vigorously for it to be included in future Boat masters training!

We did get to escape for a couple of days though, before the work on the boat started. We headed out to the Bay of Islands and anchored up at a little place called Robertson Island. It’s a nature reserve with lots of birdies and stuff and a snorkeling trail that I am sure will be a lot more appealing when the water is a little warmer than 10 squillion degrees below zero! We did see a couple of terribly hopeful looking girls lying on the beach in bikinis – we on the other hand were rugged up in jackets and jumpers.

The highlight of that trip came on the first afternoon we were there. I was cleaning up below deck when Paddy called me up to say there were dolphins in the bay. We watched them leaping around the bow of a large boat that was anchored there (which was strange in itself because dolphins tend to hang around moving boats and disappear when they get bored.) I suggested we take the dinghy over but Paddy reckoned that might spook them, so we watched from the boat for a while. Then I spotted a couple of kayakers heading out and was amazed at how close the dolphins got to them.

When somebody else turned up in a dinghy and it didn’t scare them off I started doing my best annoying little girl impression “Can we? Can we? Can we??!!!” Paddy eventually caved and we headed out towards the pod. It was the most amazing experience. The dolphins were huge (common dolphins we think) and had no problems with us being there. They swum under the dinghy and leapt out of the water right in front of us, doing flips and generally showing off. They were having a great time – and so were we! The funny thing about dolphins is that, no matter how many times you see them, you still get a buzz out of it. They are just stunning, sleek and shiny and joyful, and all the people out there with them were clapping their hands and letting out involuntary squeals of delight. I’ve seen dolphins from the boat a few times now, but that was the closest I had ever been to them. You could have reached out and touched them – if they had stayed still long enough!

Its funny – other than swimming with turtles and snorkeling with tropical fish – I didn’t actually have much luck when it came to spotting sea critters during our Pacific trip. We left Tonga before the whales turned up (though we did see some from a distance while we were traveling), we waited two days in a place called Manta-ray Bay for the mantas to turn up – only to have them arrive the day after we left, and don’t even get me started on dugongs – I swear they are a mythical creature!  It wasn’t until we got home that I got to get up close and personal with sea creatures! I know there is a whole debate about whether you should get up close to dolphins and whales, but these guys had no issues with us being there – if there was even the slightest sign that they were distressed we would have been out of there. We didn’t feed them and we didn’t go out on a trip to hunt them out – they came to visit us! So I figure that’s okay.

Below is a public link to a Facebook album with dolphin pics (I tried to upload them to WordPress but the wifi here didn’t like that). They were taken from the boat because our camera isn’t waterproof (that’s definitely on the list for the next trip!) so they aren’t as great as they would have been had we taken the camera in the dinghy – but you get the picture!

Floating trailer trash

Grotty yachties, crusty cruisers, floating trailer trash – boat people are known by many names.

They are also known for being a bit tight (everything about sailing is expensive), wearing the same clothes for several days running (wouldn’t you if you had to wash in a bucket?) and committing some serious fashion crimes (Crocs and socks anyone?)  – And after six months, I am proud to say I consider myself one of them.

 The cruisers I have met on this trip have been many and varied, but they all have one thing in common, they all know the value of looking out for fellow sailors.

 They know that it is a special type of nutter who goes to sea when they could arrive at the same destination by plane in a matter of hours, and that nutters like us need to stick together.

 Throughout our Pacific trip I have watched people share experience, spare parts, tools and expertise. I’ve seen people work together to fix each other’s engines, radios and refrigerators. I’ve seen people get in their dinghies and tow boats out of harm’s way when their engines have stopped working, and do the same for people who have run aground. Advice on dealing with fear, sleeplessness and seasickness – particularly from fellow women cruisers – was much appreciated by me, and I hate to admit that I may have even swapped a recipe or two.

 And that is just within the fleet – pretty much anyone out there on a boat will help another on theirs. Complete strangers will look out for each other – kind of like a floating neighbourhood watch. Just the other day I was told about a boat that ran into trouble heading in toTonga. They had lost their mainsail, their headsail and – just as they were nearing land – their engine. Basically they had no real way of controlling their boat. They got in touch with the Tongan authorities and requested a tow only to be told that, yes they would tow them in, but they would have to pay for the privilege. When they asked how much, they were told they would only find out after the deed was done. This was a young couple with a limited budget for cruising and it was obvious they were worried that they couldn’t afford it. In steps the floating neighbourhood watch – another boat, which had only just arrived inTonga, got on the radio and told them not to worry, they would come out and tow them in. The boat had just reached the end of a long passage, they were a few miles out, but they picked up the hook, turned around and helped the other boat in – you hear stories like that all the time.

 The same thing goes for people living in marinas. There is a kind of unspoken code if someone is having difficulty getting in or out of their berth. You help them, make sure they are okay and then bugger off and let them lick their wounds – because you just know that next time it is going to be you.

 Paddy and I officially joined the grotty yachtie ranks the other day when we joined a fellow sailor pawing through the rubbish at Opua marina. It was the day after a boatie garage sale of sorts that marked the end of the All Points Rally (a series of activities and seminars held for sailors and those new to NZ). We’d already picked up a couple of bargains (a pair of boat fans for $10 – they retail at $100 and Paddy just had to do a little tweaking to fix them – and a funky orange waterproof sailing hat, that I wish I’d had on the way back home!) I guess what didn’t sell ended up in the rubbish/recycling corner at the marina, because, when we went to drop off our rubbish, we spotted a fellow sailor furtively sifting through the rubbish, grabbing a cast-off floatation device to use as a dinghy cushion. We thought that was a great idea and grabbed one for ourselves. Then both he and Paddy fossicked through the rest, pulling out bits and pieces that could be of use on our respective boats. It may sound like penny pinching, but when it comes to sailing – those pennies really need to be squeezed. For most people sailing isn’t a discretionary activity, it’s a lifestyle. They have made the decision that, instead of putting money in the bank or into investments, they are going to pour it into a thirsty tub and float it about the place. That is why sailors get tonne of quotes from a tonne of different places before they get any work done on anything. We ourselves have discovered that we need quite a bit of work done on Wildflower’s sails for us to travel quickly and comfortably in certain conditions, and are waiting to find out how much that is likely to hurt. Paddy has also managed to save about $1000 on a second furler to help us travel better downwind by sourcing a second-hand, never used one from TradeMe, much to the chagrin of the local rigger. We will be using local tradespeople to install the thing though, which I think is a pretty good compromise.

 The All Points Rally was a little therapeutic for me too. A lot of the people on the rally stuck around for this and that meant I didn’t have to say goodbye to everyone all at once. By the end of our sojourn around the Pacific our little group of floating trailer trash began to feel like a family of sorts, so it has been hard to say goodbye. Particularly since, in the cruising world, goodbye is a kind of amorphous concept. Goodbye could mean you’ll see them in the next anchorage, but it could just as equally mean you will never see them again. The nature of cruising means that people scatter in different directions. You can spend months living in each other’s pockets and then wind up on opposite sides of the globe.

 Of course the internet makes the world a lot smaller. You may not see each other in person, but you can keep in touch electronically – and there is always the chance of running in to people when you least expect it. There have been several occasions on this trip where people have managed to catch up with people they met while cruising years ago, without even knowing they were in the area. Even here at Opua Paddy ran into a chap who was his neighbour at Chaffers Marina inWellingtonabout 10 years ago. A sailing phrase which sums it up pretty well is “I’ll see you out there.” There are only so many oceans in the world and only so many crazies in boats, so it stands to reason you are likely to bump into eachother again.

 So to everyone we have met on this trip, both in and out of the rally, thank you for making it so memorable – and we’ll see you out there!

PS – the weather forecast is rubbish for going up North at the moment so we are still lurking around Opua. We are hoping to be on the move by the weekend though, so we’ll keep you posted.

Dodgy neighbours, shipping containers and getting our land-legs back

A couple of days ago one of our ICA friends – a commander in the Royal Australian Navy who has already headed home – got in touch to let us know the Australian authorities might want speak with us.

Don’t worry Mum, we haven’t done anything dodgy, but it turns out our neighbours at Port Vila may have been very naughty indeed! It seems we were unwittingly parked up next to $80 million worth of cocaine the whole time we were tied up at the dock there. The boat next door to us – called Friday Freedom – was intercepted on it’s way to Queensland from Vanuatu with  300 kilograms of Peruvian dancing dust (Paddy’s term) hidden in it’s hull. It was the fifth largest cocaine bust in Australian history and is all over the news there.

It’s funny, we would never have known. They seemed like quite a nice young Spanish couple. Their English wasn’t that great, but they did manage to tell us that they had just bought the boat. It seemed to be their pride and joy and they were out every day scrubbing and washing it down. One of them even helped fish Paddy out of the water after his rigging mishap! They and a friend of theirs came and went but never caused any problems – the crying baby on the boat on the other side of us was much more irritating! Apparently they had also won a Best Dressed Pirates competition at a welcome BBQ at the port and played with all the kids there. I guess it goes to show that sort of thing isn’t easy to spot. They were allegedly part of a big international crime syndicate the Australian authorities had been keeping an eye on for a while, but I have a feeling they weren’t particularly high up the chain. Apparently the police will be trying to trace their movements so we may very well end up hearing from them.

For those interested here’s the link to a news story about them: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-14/300kg-drug-bust-in-queensland/3664164

The other news we are keeping an eye on is the wreck of the container ship Rena. For those of you not from NZ, this accident has been dubbed the worst maritime environmental disaster the country has seen. Basically a chartered container ship – ran aground on Astrolabe reef off Tauranga, spewing hundreds of tonnes oil all over the area and dropping shipping containers into the sea.

There are so many theories about how it happened, who should pay and how to deal with the cleanup, I could write a blog on that alone. The mess it has made of a wonderful diving spot, the huge amount of wildlife killed and the impact on those who make their living there is absolutely tragic –  and although they have managed to clean up most of the oil, weather is still hampering proceedings. What  yachties are keeping an eye on though are the 1200 shipping containers on the back of the thing. Most of them are still on the ship but a fair few have also fallen in to the water. There is an exclusion zone around Tauranga and a good chunk of the containers have been located, but there are still a few that haven’t been. Most of these won’t be a problem because they are vented and designed to sink, but any refrigerated containers (or reefers) are sealed and will float.

There is a regular maritime safety warning that goes out over the radio daily which I have to admit makes me smile a bit. It says “if you see a shipping container in the water in the Tauranga area please do not touch or attempt to intercept it. Just take down its GPS coordinates and any details you can.”  What do they think we are going to try to do? Lasso the thing! Paddy reckons it’s to stop people trying to salvage them themselves – but that would take some serious determination!

We are keeping an eye on things before we head back down south. At this stage it looks like we will still go down the east coast of New Zealand, but will try to do it as day sails. They are already hard at work removing containers now and there shouldn’t be too many floating by the time we leave.  In such a big ocean the risk should be pretty minimal as long as we keep our eyes peeled. If the ship breaks up before they get the rest of the containers off it will be a different story though. If hundreds of containers end up dumped in the sea, we’ll definitely look at heading round the west coast. Basically we’re just going to be pretty careful and keep an eye on what’s happening.

Drugs and shipping containers aside, we are starting to settle back into life in New Zealand. It’s a strange feeling being back home and for the first week or so I found myself feeling a little displaced, like the whole trip away was just some sort of strange dream. Before we left, six months seemed like forever. I had never had that much time when I wasn’t either working or studying and I was actually afraid I might get bored with all the downtime. On the contrary, it seemed like we were always doing something and those months disappeared in the blink of an eye.

At first it took a little while to get used to not living life on an angle. When we first arrived at Opua marina, I was in the process of making a coffee when Mike politely said “Anna, you are still holding on!”  When I queried this he informed me that I had not let go of the stove until I had one hand on the pantry shelf and didn’t let go of the pantry until I had reached the galley bench. And it really did take a while for my brain to register that I could move from one end of the boat to the other without having to hang on for grim death!

After the initial excitement of remaining upright, guilt free hot showers and being able to use the marina washing machines instead of a bucket, things did start to feel a little flat. People we had been cruising around with for half a year started disappearing in dribs and drabs and we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves. We were suddenly bombarded by newspapers, advertisements, election coverage and bank balances – all those things that remind you that the real world awaits. The world we only managed to get a glimpse of through dodgy internet connections is suddenly there in all its glory. It seems almost indecent to just be able to walk into a supermarket and have everything on your shopping list in stock, and to have several different varieties available instead of having to hunt for substitutes. Everything is the same as it was before we left – but we’re not.

On the other hand we are hearing from friends, we’re able to talk to our family on the phone and I am getting updates on my much missed moggy. We are making plans to catch up with people when we head to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch for Christmas and I’m really looking forward to that. I’m even looking forward to heading back to work and seeing everybody there. And there are all the little things I have missed –meeting up with friends for coffee, seeing a movie in English (or at least with English subtitles), wasting time in a book store and gardening. So I am sure I will settle back in again fine.

It’s been quite good staying here in Opua for the past week too because there is a yachting ‘rally’ on (essentially a bunch of boating seminars and pot luck dinners) and a lot of the ICA cruisers have decided to stay for a bit to check it out, so we haven’t had to say goodbye to all our friends just yet.

On Sunday, weather permitting, we will be out of here for a bit though. We are heading up North to Houhora harbour where my Dad grew up and where we used to visit my Grandpop when we were kids. I haven’t been there since I was little, but I loved it then, so I’m really looking forward to it. Dad’s filled us in on all the good fishing spots too, so it should be good fun!

PS – I am slowly getting all my photos up on facebook and volcano videos on youtube. Once that’s all sorted I will put up a blog with public links to them so you can check them out

Invasion of the Jellyfish!!

Jelly baby!

Move over locusts, triffids and body-snatchers, Opua marina is experiencing a plague of jellyfish.

Over the past few days large pink gelatinous blobs have been oozing around the boats. I find them fascinating – I could watch them gloop
their way around for hours, but the swarm seems to be causing a few issues with some of the boats.

What for me are a pretty pink distraction have been a slimy nuisance for others, clogging up water cooled fridges and gunking up generators. I quite liked the idea of a somewhat bemused jellyfish looking up at you from inside the fridge, but the stories I have been hearing about having
to remove them have kind of destroyed that image. Paddy has had it happen to himself on previous occasions and tells me it is a rather messy and unpleasant process. It’s certainly not an issue I would have ever thought of!

This particular breed of jellyfish has long flowing tendrils. Paddy reckons the ones with the dangly bits are the ones that do the stinging, but we are not 100% sure what breed these ones are. Needless to say, neither of us has volunteered to jump in and find out!

A fellow cruiser told us about an unidentified sea critter that got into the boat when it was a baby and wasn’t discovered until it outgrew
its hidey-hole. This can be a problem on a more expensive scale in Wellington when it comes to mussels. These guys enter the boat as microscopic spores, find a good place to cling and then grow until they start to clog stuff up. Paddy learned this the hard way when he discovered a crop of them growing on the refridgerator condenser.  He figured such a bizarre thing couldn’t happen more than once and replaced the offending condenser, only to have the green-lipped hitchhikers turn up again 12 months later. He managed to solve the problem by changing to a keel cooler  –  a closed circuit cooling unit mounted on a vessel’s hull  beneath the waterline (I had to google that!), but it certainly was an expensive exercise!

Below are a few gratuitous jelly fish shots. I got a few odd looks while kneeling down taking pictures, but I just think they’re awesome!

Gloop gloop
Gloopy gloop
Speeding gloop
Pretty pink gloop

Gloop conversation

A love/hate relationship

After my first six months cruising I have discovered that sailing holds a unique place in my heart.

Because of the places it has taken me, the confidence it has given me and the amazing people we have met along the way, it has become
something that I love more than anything else.

On the flip side – when the weather and the swells aren’t co-operating – I hate the walls I am slamming into, I hate the cupboards that
disgorge their contents on me if I open them at the wrong time, I want to get off the bloody boat and I want to go home. Those moments feel like forever when you are in the middle of them but turn into great war-stories when you arrive safely on dry land.

I have heard passage making likened to giving birth in that nature makes you forget what it actually feels like so you keep on doing it.
Paddy reckons long ocean crossings are like going to the dentist. Few people actually enjoy it, but they do it because they have to – they just hope it isn’t too painful or expensive. Often it’s not much fun at the time, but at least we can smile afterwards!

Our passage from Noumea to New Zealand, up until the last couple of days, was actually pretty good. We managed to do it in exactly seven days and, when the weather and wind direction was on our side, we were doing between 7 to 8 knots – which is a bit of a speed record for us! We
got kicked about a bit in the last couple of days heading in to New Zealand (which I shall go into later), but overall it was a pretty good trip.

The day we left started ridiculously early, which was kind of my fault. The pattern for the previous couple of days was for a calm start
and then the wind to build up and get quite blustery as the day went on. Because of this we decided we were going to leave fuelling up until first thing in the morning on the day we left, before the wind got up. I set the alarm on my celphone so we didn’t sleep in but, because it had been flat for so long, I readjusted the time on it using the boat clock. When the alarm went off I was rather puzzled that it was still dark (usually it got light at about 5am) but I dutifully prodded Paddy until he woke up. It was then I discovered I had forgotten that Paddy had changed our clock to New Zealand time so we could keep up with our nightly ‘skeds’ with Russell Radio and that I had actually woken us up at 4am – not the most auspicious start!

After a bit of a catch up snooze we headed over to the diesel dock. Because it was so early in the morning there was nobody about to
catch our lines – a fact I was more than a little apprehensive about. Paddy managed to arrange things so that all I really had to do was run up to the bow of the boat, throw a line over a bollard and pull it back up on to the boat. Unfortunately I discovered that, while my throwing technique is much better, my aim is still rubbish. It took me three attempts but I managed to lasso the bollard before we ended up sailing past it – so all’s well that ends well I suppose!

Paddy then went to pick up our crew member Mike to do the Immigration dance. He had already had his share of fun with the Noumea Customs
department the day before and was hoping for an easier time of it. We’d deliberately arrived at the Customs office after the standard Noumean lunch break (11 till 1pm) only to discover that the chap we were looking would not be back until 3.30pm. Later that afternoon the customs official arrived at the same as Paddy, but failed to inform his staff who grew rather flustered explaining that they still couldn’t find him. Once that was sorted they were then faced with a serious technical difficulty. The customs officer had lost his stamp. He was actually really worried he wouldn’t
be able to check us out without it but managed at the last minute to find it under a large pile of paper on his desk. (It was a little less unnerving than checking out in Vanuatu though, where there was woman in a business suit whose sole job appeared to be pacing up and down the office casually swinging a machete!)

Any hope of an easy Immigration clearance was dashed however after about 30 people descended on one overworked immigration official. Most
people’s crew had all arrived on the same flight and all wanted to leave at about the same time. Things were a little rowdy in the waiting room until the nice man with a gun came and kicked them all out, only allowing two in at a time.

The final hurdle was the port captain, whose job was to take the documents from Customs and Immigration and give us an outward clearance. He however had decided to take his lunch break half an hour early and nobody knew when he would be getting back. Things got a little tense as most of the yachties needed to leave that day to catch the weather window for New Zealand and after a bit of pressure was applied a policeman was found, deputized as a port captain and outward clearance achieved.

The whole performance was a stark reminder that, although New Caledonia is a French protectorate, it’s still part of the Pacific!

Unfortunately for poor Mike this was pretty much all he got to see of Noumea before we piled him on the boat and packed him off to sea. To his credit he was very good humoured about it! He and his wife Danica plan to take their own boat across the Pacific next year (we met when Dani and I did our Boatmasters course together and discovered they lived aboard their boat just down the pier from us at Chaffers Marina) so it was all good experience for him.

We were fully expecting the first two days to be rubbish, because you can’t really avoid bashing in to the wind when you first leave New Caledonia for New Zealand, and the first day/night was true to form. We hadn’t even managed to get out of the lagoon surrounding Noumea before we were bashing into 20-30 knots pretty much coming from the direction we were wanting to go in.

I have to admit to being a little concerned that we were seeing that before we had even hit the open ocean, but it actually dropped off a bit once we got out there. We still had the wind on the nose, but it wasn’t too horrendous which helped. We were still quite well heeled over and it was a
little exciting, but it was vastly different from leaving New Zealand for Tonga. First of all I knew what to expect. I knew what all the noises meant, I knew which ropes were attached to which sails (most of the time!) and had heaps more confidence in the boat. I was a little bit apprehensive, but wasn’t scared out of my mind this time –a fact I am actually a little proud of!

The wind swung around to the east (a much better point of sail for us) much sooner than expected and by day two we were happily sailing
along between 6 and 7 knots. The swell died right down too and it was all pretty comfortable. I even managed to stay below deck long enough to do the dishes, which is unheard of for day two!

I was a bit queasy for the first few days (the drugs helped heaps though!) but while we were on the same tack I managed to avoid being
physically sick – at first. We all settled in to our night watches and I quite enjoyed listening to my audio books and looking at the stars. I had the 4am to 8am shift so I got to watch the sun rise too, which was always quite comforting in the mornings.

We all had the standard auditory hallucinations – Mike heard a radio and muffled conversations, I heard a baby crying and people calling my name. I also saw a UFO, which was definitely NOT a hallucination. Though Paddy claims its movements were consistent with a
satellite being de-orbited, which apparently was happening at the time, I in fact believe it was a type of Weird Dream Mothership. I say this because at the time I saw this light darting about in strange geometric patterns, Mike was dreaming of dog-fighting planes flying under the boat and popping out the other side while Paddy dreamed he was racing trucks while people shot rats at him
from a cannon. I rest my case.

As we got closer to New Zealand though, things got colder and greyer and lumpier. We had wind, we had rain, we had swells that
were all over the shop and heaps of water coming over the deck. There was water in the cockpit, water all over the cushions, water down the back of my wet weather gear (but no leaks in the boat!) and it wasn’t really that much fun. It wasn’t dangerous by any means, just bumpy and noisy and very hard to sleep. For Paddy and I, who had spent most of the last six months in places where the weather never dropped below 24 degrees, it was also a bit of a culture shock – wasn’t it supposed to be Summer in NZ?!

While the captain managed to stay on his feet, the crew took some pretty spectacular tumbles. Poor Mike lost his balance on a trip to the
toilet and, being a little taller than Paddy and I, managed to put his bum through one of our cupboards. They were just wooden slats and easily fixed, but I think the poor boy was a bit mortified! I myself managed to slip down the companionway and do a really impressive Tarzan-style swing from some ropes hanging off the stairs, managing to land on my feet without hurting myself. Unfortunately there was nobody there with a video camera because I reckon it would have made great Youtube footage! Some of my other tumbles were a little less graceful  – but we won’t go into that…

I did lose my sense of humour a couple of times during this part of the passage – particularly when sconned on the head by a full 2kg
container of rice, and lack of sleep meant there were moments where I was actually quite scared – though perfectly safe. I found in these cases I was better when I was concentrating on doing stuff and more comfortable when I was doing my night watches.

Our spirits lifted markedly once we were able to see land and our arrival was made even better by a welcome party of Hectors dolphins who
swum about the boat for about half an hour. It was one of the biggest pods I had seen and they stuck around for ages, playing in the bow waves and leaping out of the water. It was magic. Our escort home was completed by a single albatross who circled the boat for a while before going off on his business. It was good to be home.

We have settled into a berth at Opua marina and will be here for a week, tidying up stuff on the boat and generally recuperating. We then
plan to cruise the Bay of Islands for a bit before meeting up with our friends Fergus and Diane (our crew in Fiji) and cruising the Hauraki Gulf with them. I plan to keep blogging while we cruise New Zealand because we will heading to parts of the country that I haven’t really seen much of – and I am sure it will be just as fascinating as the islands!

Journey to the centre of the earth

On Friday night Paddy and I got a good look at the Earth’s insides.

They are red-hot, angry and utterly terrifying, but also fascinating and beautiful.

When I sit back and think about it, crawling around on top of an erupting volcano is possibly one of the loonier things I have done, but it is also one of the most exhilarating.

Mt Yasur on Vanuatu’s Tanna Island is one of the world’s most accessible volcanoes. It fluctuates between being tourist friendly and dangerous, and when the danger level exceeds 3 (it was level 2 while we were there) it is advisable to steer clear.

We flew to Tanna from Port Vila because the wind was blowing in the wrong direction and 35 minutes in a plane seemed preferable to two days of bashing to windward in a boat.

The flights, accommodation and trip up the volcano were my Christmas present from Paddy and – while for some having molten lava flung at them may not be their idea of a romantic gift from their beloved – I was stoked.

It was a two-hour four wheel drive from Tanna airport to our accommodation – an eco resort called the Jungle Oasis – and during that time those of us sitting in the back got to know each other pretty well! Paddy and I went with our friends Chris and John from Sara II and Chris, Paddy and I were squished into the back seat. Luckily there were only four of us because a couple of times we passed vehicles with some rather uncomfortable looking folk bouncing about in 4WD trailers.

The road wasn’t just bumpy – in some places it was still being created (I think it will be a shortened version of what was a much longer route). At one point we had to crawl behind a digger that was actually in the process of pushing the earth out of the way of the road as we drove on it! We were all so hyped up, nervous and excited about the impending volcano trip that it didn’t really bother us. In fact on more than one occasion Chris and I burst into hysterical giggles as we slammed against each other. I was sitting in the middle so got more of a workout than the rest, but the way I figured it was like doing 5 million stomach crunches and so was better than going to the gym. The drive back the next day however was a much sleepier affair!

Part of the trip involved driving across the ash plain, where the smoke and ash from the volcano has smothered the land to give it an eerie alien-like quality. This ancient lunar landscape was stunning, with flattened black plains disappearing into the distance and huge canyon-like structures formed by lava flows from previous, more violent eruptions. We hopped out of the 4WD and snapped some photos before heading on our way. I was fascinated and could have spent hours there but I knew we had a volcano to get to!

We arrived at our accommodation, which was literally in the middle of nowhere, threw down our bags and got ready to head up the hill. We had been told the best time to view the volcano was at dusk. The Jungle Oasis is so close to Mt Yasur that you can hear the rumbles and explosions from the huts you are sleeping in. Chris remarked that spending the night on the side of an active volcano may have been one of the loonier things she had done. I felt comforted that we were all loonies together.

We drove up to the volcano as far as we could go and then climbed the rest of the way, eying uneasily the large rocks and boulders (called bombs) that Mt Yasur had previously flung forth. We could hear the volcano rumbling as we walked and see the steam rising. We had been a little concerned on the way up that we wouldn’t see much because it seemed to be rather foggy, but we needn’t have worried – molten lava is never going to let a little fog get in the way.

Then we reached the highest point of the ledge we were climbing and found ourselves looking right down into the planet’s innards. We were actually standing on the rim of a crater on an active volcano.

I find it hard to describe what it felt like seeing the earth laid bare like that, staring straight into the fiery core of the land we walk over every day in blissful ignorance. To say it made me feel small and insignificant would be twee – I think it was more of an example of how much bigger and more powerful the universe is than we will ever understand. It made me feel very human.

And that was before the excitement started!

When we arrived up top we could see two fissures steaming away with the molten hot inner core of one plainly visible. I was pretty impressed by this, but it also seemed rather far away. I guess I had figured we would get a bit closer. Then, as I was just starting to snap photos, Mt Yasur gave a mighty belch and started flinging red-hot rocks upwards (I guess if my insides were roiling about like that I’d want to get a bit off my chest too). Despite the fact most of the boulders were still landing hundreds of meters away from us, we all scuttled back pretty quickly! Our guide politely said to me, “you have to stand still if you want to take photos!”

You know when you are watching a big fireworks display and it seems like they are coming straight for you? Well it was like that but much scarier. It was also utterly beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. After the initial eruption died down you could see the chunks of molten lava littering the crater and hear the thud of boulders landing that were no doubt the size of cars. One of the closest rocks landed about 75 meters away from us, which is pretty much as close as I would like to get to molten rock thank-you-very-much! All would go quiet, an eerie red light would stain the smoke and then it would start all over again. You couldn’t really predict when it would happen so whenever it did it elicited stunned gasps and high pitched shrieks. Paddy got some wonderful video footage (some admittedly involving me squealing like a little girl) which I will link to the blog once we find a way of making it web-friendly.

When we finally got tired and hungry we reluctantly turned our back on the pyrotechnics and headed back to our accommodation where we had a lovely dinner cooked for us from local ingredients.

Jungle Oasis is a beautiful place with lovely green gardens growing from the ash coated ground (volcanic soil is actually very fertile), but it is also very basic. The huts
have electricity (via some pretty dodgy wiring) only when the generator is running and the bed is pretty much just a thin mattress on a chunk of wood, covered with a mosquito net. I also choose to believe that the critter with the long tail I saw scampering across the rafters was just a really big, furry looking, lizard. While all this is good fun and adds to the charm, sadly it doesn’t really make for a good night’s sleep. Jungle Oasis definitely has the plus of
being close to the volcano though. Others who came to see Mt Yasur then had to turn around and take the two hour pot-hole fest back to their accommodation by the airport, while we just had to go down the road. We also had extra sound effects and I actually found it rather comforting listening to Yasur rumbling in the background when I couldn’t sleep. At that point it felt like we were old friends.

Our room also came complete with an island alarm clock – a rather vocal rooster right behind our hut. Being half asleep neither of us were in any position to deal with it but we were relieved when the crowing morphed into an angered squawking followed by silence. Paddy reckons this was someone engaging an ‘island snooze alarm’ (most likely a rock or a big stick!). Unfortunately, with the rooster silenced and Paddy and I just starting to doze off, the seventh day Adventists started. There was a sort of tent revival going on just across the road with lots of bell ringing and singing and preaching. The singing was actually quite nice to listen to (after a couple of cups of island coffee) but at stupid-o’clock in the morning I’m afraid my musical appreciation was at a bit of a low ebb. From what I could make out with my broken Bislama the revival was going to go on for the following week, followed by numerous other activities in the coming months. I guess the area would be ripe ground
for that sort of thing, having hellfire and brimstone pretty much right on the doorstep.

All in all Tanna and Mt Yasur were unforgettable in so many ways and I am so glad we did it. There really is something magical about the place.

Here’s the public link to my facebook volcano photo album (http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150383017736420.405831.619276419&l=51b886016e&type=1 and I’ll link to the vids once they are good to go

Slow and steady may not win the race – but it’s a heck of a lot more comfortable

Slow and steady may not win the race – but it’s a heck of a lot more comfortable!

The types of boat on this regatta are many and varied – a lot of them being performance cruisers (racing yachts converted into cruising boats).

These are light and fast and get places a lot quicker than we can. They do, however, tend to bob around like Champaign corks in a bathtub when conditions get a bit rough. Wildflower II is neither light nor fast. We tend to arrive after everybody else but we bob around a whole lot less.

It’s not Wildflower’s fault she is a bit on the heavy side. She’s made out of steel and no amount of crash dieting can do anything about that. She also has a lot of stuff in her – a decent sized generator, a water maker, half a tonne of batteries to keep her powered up and a huge fridge-freezer that is the envy of the fleet.

The lighter boats have much less in them so they go faster, but they struggle to keep things cool and are constantly working to conserve power and water. Wildflower is also more likely to win an argument with any coral we (heaven forbid) should ever hit.

As you can probably guess, we are playing catch up with the rest of the fleet at the moment – in company with another steel boat (Sara II).

We first dropped behind when we, and another group of reprobates, decided we weren’t going to follow the rest of the fleet from Espirito Santo to Asanvari Island for a festival they were holding there. At the time they left the wind was blowing 20+ knots from exactly the direction we were planning to travel in, which would have made for a slow and uncomfortable trip.

As we discovered on the way to Tonga, Wildflower goes to windward like a walrus takes to roller-skates, so it was pretty much out of the question for us. Some of the other boats were also disinclined to bash to windward, so a group of us stayed put. Sara II bravely decided to persevere but tore their genoa (head sail) in a squall and came straight back..

Unfortunately when we all decided to move on, the wind decided it was going to play silly buggers again. The lighter, faster boats were able to push on through but we were just burning diesel and getting nowhere. Every time we crashed into a wave the boat would pretty much stop – and Sara II was in the same boat (s’cuse awful pun). So we both turned around and headed for Pelikula Bay where we could get a ride into Luganville to pick up a few more supplies and wait for the weather to change.

Sara II’s owners, John and Chris, are a lovely British couple in their 70s. They are great fun to be around and have a wonderful, adventurous outlook on the world. They are halfway through their circumnavigation and are exactly the way I want to be when I am their age. Unfortunately for them their fridge broke down and it turned out to be one of the few things Paddy has been unable to fix on this cruise (mostly because of lack of appropriate parts). However, since our fridge is big enough to fit a corpse, we have been able to take their food on board to keep it cool. Since we both go at pretty much the same pace, we plan to stick together until they can get replacement parts in Vila.

Being a little behind the rest of the pack has in no way detracted from what has been a fascinating trip so far, with the four of us having the opportunity to explore all sorts of villages and bays.

A stand out for me would be Wali Bay on Pentecost Island, where we got to have a look at a land diving tower. This suicidal sport is kind of a forerunner of bungy jumping which involves locals tying a springy vine around one ankle and jumping headfirst from a rickety looking platform. The tower we saw was about 75 meters tall and looked like the mutant offspring of a drunken game of Jenga and pick-up-sticks – you could not pay me enough to jump off that thing!

Land diving is a seasonal sport because the vines are only suitable at a certain time of year. Apparently someone tried it out of season when Queen Elizabeth visited the island a few years ago and it didn’t end well. We arrived out of season but checking out the tower was fascinating enough. Women are not allowed to take part in this lunacy (a fact I put down to them being far too sensible) and cannot touch the tower until the season is over when they can chop it up for firewood. I certainly know what I would rather be doing! The locals gleefully told us how dangerous the sport was, totting up the injuries during the last season. We get the feeling there is a fair bit of peer pressure to jump among the young men on the island.

Wali gave us another example of lovely locals too. Being stopped by people who genuinely just want to say hello and have a chat is taking a bit of getting used to – but we like it!

Another great spot was Ranon on Ambrym Island. There are two active volcanoes on Ambrym which shroud the top of the island with puffy white smoke and give off an eerie red glow at night. Ranon sits under the volcanic Mt Benbow, which you can climb up with the aid of a guide if you are feeling particularly adventurous. An Australian couple who tracked us down after hearing Paddy on the radio (they couldn’t get theirs to transmit and thought he sounded like he knew radio stuff – he fixed it for them of course) told us the walk was great but took 12 hours. Since we were still playing catch up we decided to give that one a miss (it had nothing to do with us being unfit and lazy)

We did go ashore to check out the village though, which is famed for its carvings. They produce these huge creations called Tam Tams (kind of a cross between a totem pole and a drum) which I really like because they have big googly eyes that make me think of Muppets. There are large ones lying all around the island made out of coconut trees or hardwood and local carvers produce beautiful polished pieces that would look wonderful in a garden. The larger pieces were too big for the boat but we met a couple of local kids who took us to their village where they had smaller pieces – and two kittens which gave me my catlady fix (the kids thought this was hilarious) – so I managed to score a beautifully carved mini Tam Tam (about 30cm high) and a little Tam Tam necklace for the equivalent of $NZ 15. I love that I’ll be able to look at them and know exactly where they came from and who made them.

We did eventually get to Asanvari too and, while we missed out on the festival, we were treated to some very cool custom dancing, took a walk/climb up to a beautiful waterfall and were able to stock up on fresh fruit and veges from amazing gardens that put any of mine to shame.

John, Chris and I did the waterfall walk while Paddy stayed on the boat to do some sail surgery. Our guides were two little girls – Lisha and Angeline – who I suspect were part mountain goat. They bounced effortlessly from rock to rock (one barefoot and one in jandals) in places where Chris and I had to resort to going down on our bums, and I am guessing that it was hard work for them to refrain from bursting out laughing. They did a great job and the view from the top was well worth it. We could even spot Paddy working on the sail from there.

We were also given a tour of the island’s school, which only really had the bare essentials. They were in the process of building a school library because they lost most of their books in a cyclone. They were using materials supplied by some people who came out for a diving holiday and transported for free by the dive operator, which I think is really awesome. We still had some of the books we had picked up in Opua and we were happy to be able to help out in some small way by donating them. It was the school holidays but the head teacher took time out to show us and some people from a cruise ship. His tour included very proudly showing us the class that his wife taught. When one of the Australian tourists asked what she taught he said “Classics.” Needless to say the rather educated sounding, middle aged woman was quite surprised. Her response was something like “Well I studied Classics at school but I am surprised that you teach it here.” In the ensuing awkward silence I happened to notice the large number 6 on the door of the classroom and realised she actually taught “class 6”!

My final stand out spot is the bay we are at right now, Lamen Bay on Epi Island. This is a beautiful bay with a lovely village where you can buy fresh bread and some vegetables – but its best feature, as far as I am concerned, are its critters. The bay is full of big beautiful turtles. All you need to do is pop your snorkeling gear on and jump off the boat and within a few meters you can see them swimming about or munching on the grasses at the bottom of the bay. You can also spot them coming up for air from the boat itself. The turtles are pretty used to people and don’t even interrupt their lunch when you swim up to them. They are even quite happy to let you snorkel down and give them a pat. I think they are just beautiful. Lamen Bay also has a resident dugong which is apparently quite people friendly too. I haven’t managed to spot him yet but even if I don’t the turtles more than make up for it!

We are thinking of you all back then and hope things are going great. There will be annoying amounts of photos to come once we get some decent internet connection in Vila.

Lots of love,

Anna and Paddy

PS – those of you who get Paddy’s e-mail updates as well will notice I have pinched some of his words for this – hey, the man has hidden talents, and it’s not plagiarism if I admit it, right? 😉

Million dollar waste

Luganville in Vanuatu boasts a couple of sites that are on many divers must-do list – the wreck of the President Coolidge and Million Dollar Point.

The Coolidge, a 200 meter long luxury liner, was sunk during World War II in a case of friendly fire (it struck an American mine – though the own goal wasn’t publicised until much later). Fortunately there were very few casualties. The ship however was totaled, leaving divers the opportunity to check out weaponry, tools, and a swimming pool, a porcelain statue known as The Lady and the personal belongings of the 5000 soldiers who bailed out of there as fast as they could.

The Coolidge site is quite deep and if you want to see much further than the outside then you need to do a decompression dive, which I am not qualified to do yet. So, while some of the cruisers checked it out, I gave it a miss.

Paddy has a horror story about diving the Coolidge during an earthquake that put me off a little as well. He was inside a lift shaft at the time which silted up completely, leaving him unable to see the light from the torch he was shining right into his eyes. Then the dive guide wrapped Paddy’s hand round something and left him there while he looked for the other divers. While everybody did get out safely, as far as I am concerned sitting in a black lift shaft deep under water, unable to tell which way is up, where the exits are or how much air you have left is the stuff nightmares are made of. It has cured Paddy of deep penetration wreck dives and I think probably me too!

Million Dollar Point however is a nice easy shore dive that doesn’t go below about 25 meters and, in my out-of-diving-practice state, I figured it would be more my sort of thing.

The story behind Million Dollar Point does make you despair about mankind a bit though. It dates back to the end of WWII when the US navy pulled out of the Pacific. The Americans left behind thousands of tones of military paraphernalia that wasn’t worth their while taking home – but at the time Vanuatu had both a British and a French government and neither could make up its mind who was going to pay for the gear. In a fit of pique over this the US navy decided nobody was going to get it and dumped everything into the sea. So cranes, bulldozers, tanks, trucks, boats and an entire field hospital are now disintegrating on the ocean floor.

It makes a great dive site (once you are able to work out what the twisted bits of metal actually are) but it’s such a senseless waste. The people here don’t have a lot and probably had even less back then. Who knows where they would be now if they had actually been able to make use of that infrastructure and health care?

Paddy and I met an Australian couple who were using their boat to provide transport for doctors visiting the islands. The medics come from overseas, set up in villages and in some cases spend days doing conveyer-belt consultations and operations. There is such a need that they just have to churn people out one after the other.

We were told that one of the reasons ni-Vans have such poor health is dehydration. They simply don’t drink enough water. Ironically it is water that is one of the other leading causes of illness here. When villages build wells they just dig a hole in the ground, instead of lining them with stone (I am guessing mostly because they lack the raw materials). The stone filters the greeblies out of the soil and helps purify the water. Without it run-off in the form of pig poo, chicken poo and people poo leeches into the soil and makes people sick.

Its little things like that I never would have thought of and it’s such a shame because the people here are so lovely. When you are in towns or villages and people come up to say hello it’s not “hello I want to sell you something” it’s just “hello.” They seem genuinely interested in who we are, where we come from and where we are going and, despite what they lack, they always seem to be smiling.

On a slightly lighter note, the dive at Million Dollar Point was very cool, even if it did make me feel sad. Lots of fishies and coral have taken up residence among the tires, tanks and number plates, which makes a lovely juxtaposition. Also, I surfaced with nearly the same amount of air as Paddy, which is a record. Paddy barely breathes (I suspect he is hiding a pair of gills somewhere), while I usually hoover air in the same way my cat inhales food – so I must be getting better!

Paddy had a WWII find of his own as well when we were snorkeling at a little bay on Aese’ Island. He spotted a bottle buried in the sand which turned out to be a WWII era Coke bottle. There were crates of them dumped at Million Dollar Point but most have been souvenired (we also noticed quite a few popping up in souvenir shops in Luganville). You can tell it’s the real deal because the bottle is shorter than the remake ones they did and it comes in fluid ounces instead of mls – so we thought it was a pretty good score.

We’re thinking of you guys back home and hope you are managing to stay warm. We are struggling with the humidity a bit at the moment (it doesn’t get much below 30 degrees and 70/80 % humidity) but are acclimatising more and more each day. I honestly have no idea how I am going to cope when we get back to the real world. My money is on me having a cold or flu within the first week of being back! xx