Yay!! It looks like I’m able to upload photos again so I am going to stuff as many as I can into this post. The technical difficulties may have stemmed from the fact that the wifi antenna at the yacht club was left sitting on a rather jaunty angle after some rather gnarly winds swept through here. It appears to be upright again now, so fingers crossed!
Paddy with our shiney new NZ ensign flag ready for duty
I should probably also mention that I have Cal the travelling good luck troll with me as I upload, so credit where credit’s due 🙂
Fergus takes the wheel
Night watches were a little chilly until we got further north!
First mate Fergus
Heading round East Cape
East Cape
Fergus hoping in vain for some wind to blow us around East Cape
It's a tough life!
Leaving Whitianga after refuelling due to lack of wind
Paddy playing with his navigating toys
Sun setting over Needle Rock leaving Whitianga
Needle Rock
A slightly salty sunset
There are some much better sunset shots from the Opua trip!
Auckland skyline - lots and lots of lights!
The awesome orange flowers work gave me before we left
Okay, so the last shot has nothing to do with the Welly to Auckland trip – I just really like the flowers!
Sorry guys! WordPress seems to hate my photos at the moment so this is all you get (will try sticking them up on Facebook)
Well my idyllic introduction into the world of cruising has been a little less than idyllic.
It has, however, been an amazing learning curve and certainly hasn’t been boring!
We are holed up in Opua with the rest of the fleet at the moment and it doesn’t look like we will be out of here any time before Friday. The weather, not to put too fine a point on it, has been complete arse – interspersed with the odd fine patches.
Apparently this has been the longest time the Island Cruising Association has held off on leaving and one or two skippers are definitely getting a little bit twitchy! The good news is that from Friday onwards we should be heading into a great big high with just the right amount of wind blowing in the right direction – ie perfect sailing conditions. Most people (particularly those of us who had a bit of an uncomfortable trip up here) are more than happy to hang around for the good stuff!
The only real issue is boats with crew who have a set amount of leave and have booked flights back from Tonga – though it looks like our crew will be okay – thank goodness! It sucks for some people who pretty much have to turn around and go back as soon as they arrive but, as I am fast learning, that is the nature of cruising!
Poor old Paddy had this lovely vision of us having a b beautiful sail up north, which would help me become more of an experienced boat-chick for the trip offshore. Unfortunately. the weather had other ideas.
We either had no wind at all or it was blowing from the direction we wanted to go in – making for a couple of lumpy nights.
I’ve had some great help through the scarier bits from both Paddy and a friend of ours Fergus, who was kind enough to help us take the boat from Wellington to Auckland and Auckland to Opua. Fergus was really patient with me jumping at shadows and was a brilliant help when it came to the early morning watches. I definitely think I would be in a much different headspace going in to this if it wasn’t for him!
For the first couple of days out of Wellington both Paddy and I were rather jumpy. Paddy was up and down like a meerkat checking out the boat’s every little whirr and creak and I was making myself nervous about having to do night watches.
For my first couple of night watches I was hyper-vigilant, jumping at stars and shadows, thinking they were land or other ships. At one point I dragged Paddy out of bed because I spotted the port light of a HUGE ship that wasn’t showing on the radar and was heading straight for us. It turned out to be the moon rising.
(I have since discovered this is a common rookie mistake so I don’t feel so bad!)
After a while though I realised that things happen pretty slowly out at sea and looking around every 10 minutes is just fine. Once I got a little more relaxed about it I was able to set up an alarm, put my ipod on and lie back and watch the stars, which was quite lovely.
I have to admit there were times when things were a little challenging for me on that trip. We had quite a few fishing boats lurking around in the dark during a particularly lumpy night when the wind was against us, and they did make me a bit panicky. We were also shepherded out of the way by a ridiculously long vessel we later discovered was a ship towing a 10 kilometre cable doing a seismic survey. We suspect it was the Petrobas boat, which could be why it didn’t radio to tell us what it was up to – it probably thought we were protestors, but all we wanted to do was get out of its way!
Navigating our way into Auckland harbour at night was also pretty exciting. We wouldn’t have done it the way we did if we didn’t have Fergus’s local knowledge, but he was able to expertly guide us on a rather interesting course. The scary thing about heading towards Auckland is that there are so many damned lights it seems impossible to see which ones apply to you – what I thought was a navigation buoy tur ned out to be the Skytower!
It took us four days to get to Auckland and we arrived at 5am, absolutely knackered. Fergus’s wife Dianne had managed to secure us a berth next to their boat in the marina (they are both live-aboards too) and we had a Champaign breakfast – minus the breakfast – to celebrate completing our first leg, before falling into unconsciousness.
We camped out at Bayswater Marina for a few days waiting for a window in what was already looking like some pretty crummy weather. It worked out great for us though. We were literally able to step off our boat and onto Fergus and Dianne’s, where we had some delicious meals (Dianne is a primo cook!) and great company. Dianne also gave me lots of helpful tips for cruising survival and some bread recipes I’m looking forward to trying out.
I also had a surprise visit from quite a large chunk of my family, some who live in Auckland and even an auntie from Australia (will post pics when WordPress loves me again) which was really lovely. So Paddy got to meet the family, all at once, in a very small space! He did very well and I have a sneaking suspicion they might quite like him 😉
Mum and Dad came to check out the boat before heading off to meet us in Opua (which is just as well because we couldn’t get a marina berth in Opua and had to anchor off and I don’t think Mum fancied a lumpy dingy ride!) They’ve spent the past few days with us, which has been really great and even arranged for a bit of shore leave for me.
Hanging around in Opua has been really interesting actually because it has given me a good insight into the sailing community here and the people we will be travelling with.
The next blog will be an Opua special (including the trip over) and hopefully I’ll be able to get some photos up as well xx
I apologise in advance for what will probably be a sorry excuse for a blog.
I have enough material and photographs to write about 10 of the things on our last few weeks of preparation, but we have pretty much run out of time – so you’re not getting any of them.
I do promise a huge blog backlog when we get to the islands though!
At this stage it looks like we will be leaving for Auckland on Monday. That should take 4 to 5 days, and then we head for Opua. From there we will sail on to Tonga around April 30.
I have to say this unemployment lark has not been living up to its reputation at all! (Although I’m not technically unemployed as I am taking unpaid leave from my job)
Instead of sitting around smoking pot and playing playstation (or whatever else our lovely minister of social development believes unemployed people do) we’ve been getting up earlier than did while we were working and have been going round the clock getting Wildflower ready to leave. Paddy even ended up pulling an all-nighter rewiring the engine panel!
At this stage it looks like sailing across the Pacific is going to be the easiest part of the whole process! (touch wood.)
There have been a few speed bumps on the road to paradise (like the company we insured the boat with going bust and me thinking my cat had done a runner) but everything has been sorted now.
We have been given the okay by our new insurance company, and just minutes ago Wildflower had her category 1 status sign off – woo hoo! (there is a whole blog waiting to be written about this, but it will just have to continue waiting for the moment.)
I know I have been a bit of a stress bunny lately – and I would just like give a big thank you to my family and friends who have helped and supported us and put up with my twitchiness.
I would also like to thank those people (and tradespeople) who have gone the extra mile to help us out and who gave us faith in humanity when others were stuffing us around.
In the wonderful people category I would like to include;
Mike our lovely next door neighbour – an engineering geek like Paddy – who has been over on our boat day and night helping weld stuff and mount stuff and who lent us his 4W drive to help clear out one of Paddy’s sheds. We will be meeting he and his wife Danica in New Caledonia and they will be sailing back to NZ with us, which should be a lot of fun.
Jenn and Trevor for helping us out with the (increasingly frustrating) job of getting the cockpit cushions sewn. In the end it turned out that we were working with a sewing machine that was in need of a serious tune-up – so Jenn’s infinite patience and Trevor’s help in eventually out-sourcing the work was very much appreciated.
Rebecca and Jared for helping me out with the grocery shopping trip to end all shopping trips at Moore Wilsons to stock Wildflower up for the journey.
Paddy’s Dad David for looking after my fur-child Ollie while we’re gone. It makes me feel so much better knowing he will be living in a place that he knows, where he will be looked after and fussed over rather than being shoved in a cattery.
My Mum and Dad, for supporting me through all the lunacy. Mum for staying strong and supportive even though I know this trip worries her and she will find it hard to let us go (we will be fine though!) and Dad for going back to school to get his amateur radio licence so he can talk to us out at sea. Oh, and one more for Mum for letting Dad put a dirty great pole in the middle of her garden to aid in said communication!
(there is a blog – and photos – on this to come!)
In the wonderful tradies category I want to include our international boat building family (Gregor the Maltese welder and David the Chilean carpenter) for all their hard work making Wildflower safe and beautiful inside and out.
Grant Henderson who managed to tame our recalcitrant sewing machine and even made us a repair kit to take away with us, should it need further ‘persuasion’ (for the record, the machine is running beautifully now.)
Dave and Ian from Wellington Providoring who have also been a great help.
Finally I would like to thank Paddy for building a beautiful boat for us to go away in and for working so hard to make sure that it is safe. Also a huge thank you for being there for me when I became a crumbling wreck after I thought Ollie had run away. To be fair (even though he probably has better eyesight than me) an 80 year old man looking for a black cat that likes hiding in dark places was always going to be a big ask – but I wasn’t about to see sense. I think it was the final push that broke down the damn holding the stress, tiredness and nervousness in and I just needed to wail like a banshee for a bit. I’m fine now (and the cat came back) and feel heaps better for it, and Paddy didn’t run away screaming, which is always a good sign!
Hopefully we will be able to jump online some time before we head to the islands, but if not. I’ll write again when I’m lazing under a coconut tree drinking something with an umbrella in it 🙂
Yesterday I learned that you cannot leave this country in a boat unless you have 12 new hacksaw blades and four buckets on board. This is just a small sample of the demented shopping list we need to check off to get Wildflower up to category one standard so we can legally go offshore.
One or two hacksaw blades I can understand, but 12! What on earth for? Are we going to need to break out of prison? Is there an island I don’t know about that barters in hand tools? Are we going to be boarded and demanded to produce the requisite number of hacksaw blades?
The buckets make a little more sense – they can be used for bailers or collecting sea water and make excellent receptacles for queasy passengers (which I can sadly vouch for from personal experience…) But even if you are sailing single-handedly, you still have to have four of the things – offerings for a passing lolrus perhaps?
Along with the hacksaws and buckets, category 1 also involves spending thousands of dollars on equipment we don’t ever want to use. Flares, lifeboats, fire extinguishers and flashy beepy locatory things all have expiry dates on them – so you buy them and (all going well) don’t use them, only to have to chuck them out and buy new ones that you don’t want to have to use – a little perverse really.
Also, it turns out that New Zealand is the only country in the world where you have to meet a required standard before you can leave on a boat – and, while I would like to think this is because we are a particularly safety conscious nation, it probably has more to do with the fact that New Zealand covers the largest search and rescue area in pretty much anywhere. If people get in trouble in their patch then a lot of money is spent getting them back – and it’s a pretty big patch!
Our search and rescue patch
So mother, you can rest assured. I will be leaving New Zealand in a ridiculously safe boat!
On a different note – a couple of people have asked me if the quake in Christchurch has put me off going on the trip, and I have to admit there were a couple of moments (and I recognise them for what they were) when I didn’t want to leave because I was afraid something else might happen while I was gone. But I know that is something that, even with all the willpower in the world, I have absolutely no control over.
What I do have control over (and what everyone does) is my fear. And a perfect example of that is Christchurch. Watching life doing its damnedest to go on when I was down there at the weekend was truly awe-inspiring.
You can’t live a life of what-ifs, because you never know when a boulder is going to roll into your living room and sell on TradeMe for $60,000. If the quake has taught me one thing it’s not to put off what’s important. Do the things you have always wanted to do, tell the people you love that you love them, don’t hold anything back because you never know what’s around the corner. If the people of ChCh have the strength to pick up their lives and keep going, then I sure as hell can run away to sea with the pirate I love and have a life-changing experience.
I’m a Cantabrian born and bred, and every day we are seeing how tough that lot are!
The Boatmasters certificate isn’t like a drivers’ licence, you don’t have to have it -but for someone learning the ropes it’s pretty important. It teaches you things like navigation, the rules of the ‘road’, and how to generally keep yourself and your crew safe. It’s something you would hope newbie boaties would be encouraged to get, so it’s pretty surprising that for many New Zealanders it can cost up to $500.
For the non-Kiwis:
Last year our government, in its wisdom, decided to cut adult community education funding by 80%, meaning that thousands of courses that used to be done as secondary school-based night classes have either had to be axed or their prices ramped up to cover costs.
People lost the opportunity to upskill affordably and potentially life-saving courses like boat safety have suffered.
I’m not just getting upset because it could cost me a bit more, I’ll save up and pay what I need to – as far as I’m concerned the price won’t be money, it will be lives.
New Zealand does not have a great maritime safety record. Time and time again tragic accidents have proved to have been entirely preventable if only basic safety procedures had been undertaken. And yes, you could argue that there are some muppets out there who would never bother learning anyway – but, with a record like we have – why would you want to make it more difficult for those who actually want to?
So I’ve had a bit of a nightmare trying to find somewhere that runs the course for a reasonable price, though it looks like the wonderful Wellington Coast Guard will come to my aid – will keep you posted!
It would be cheaper to buy the materials myself and self-study, but with my slight navigational challenges I think the personal touch will be needed!
Back to my original point though, if even one life is lost because someone couldn’t afford to learn how to keep themselves safe then this government has blood on its hands.
Time to consign this lot to the briny deeps methinks!
Someone once described cruising as “the art of boat maintenance in exotic locations” – and I am in absolutely no doubt this is true. But what they fail to mention is the large amount of work that needs to be done before setting out for more tropical climes.
Evidence of this is The List – a document Paddy uses to keep track of what needs to be done before hitting the waves. Ever since I have known Paddy The List has been shrinking and growing – as quickly as items were ticked off, more were added, but finally now it seems to be on a downward trend.
One of the biggest jobs to be crossed off The List involved more dust and mess than I had seen in all the grotty student flats I have lived in put together – and that’s saying something!
Sanding and repainting a boat’s bilges is a once-every-10-years job, and unfortunately Wildflower’s 10 years were up.
Before I met Wildflower I didn’t really know what a bilge was. Through pirate insults like ‘scurvy bilge rat’ I’d kind of figured it was something sewer-like and gross, but that was the extent of my knowledge.
The bilge is actually the inside of the bottom of the boat – (“the lowest compartment inside the hull of a ship” according to fount of all knowledge that is Wikipedia). It’s where water that overflows from the decks of the ship collects. When there is too much water sloshing about on deck (say during a storm) to make it safe to walk on, the boat is designed to funnel this water to the bottom where it can be sucked out by bilge pumps (this is a very amateur summary so feel free to correct me!)
The scurvy bilge rat insult stemmed from the fact that, along with water, bird poo, food scraps, and bodily waste from dirty sailors of old, also ended up in the bilges – so it really wasn’t a pleasant place to be. Before mechanisation bilges used to have to be pumped by hand and this rather disgusting job was reserved for junior sailors or those that had managed to upset the captain.
So the bilge is actually a pretty important part of the boat – and because bilge water can get quite acidic and generally grotty, it’s important to have a good layer of paint on the bottom to prevent it from eating through.
While this sounds relatively simple, the 10 year repaint actually involves ripping up the floor of the boat, sandblasting what is underneath to within an inch of its life and twisting your body into all sorts of unnatural positions (a practice Paddy has dubbed Boat Yoga) in order to repaint it.
The sandblasting process involved many long nights and weekends and rendered the boat uninhabitable. Paddy ended up living in a backpackers near the marina (aka the Roach Motel) so he could come and go from the boat during whatever insane hours he needed to. The result was more dirt and dust than I actually thought existed in the world.
While I was more hindrance than help with the sandblasting, I really wanted to be able to do something to help Paddy so I embarked on the biggest cleaning expedition of my entire life. While Paddy was playing contortionist with a paintbrush I turned my hair, clothing and skin grey attacking the dust. For a while it was exceedingly frustrating because for every layer of dust I removed a new ones seemed to appear overnight. But it was an incredibly fulfilling feeling when surfaces began to reappear again. It also makes me feel a lot safer knowing exactly what is at the bottom of the boat and that it’s clean and shiny and newly painted.
I am pleased that particular hurdle is over though – Paddy pretty much exhausted himself – but with a stubborn and determined streak a mile wide, he wasn’t going to slow down until the job was done. I’m sure Wildflower appreciates it though – I know I do.
Emerging from the dusty depthsThe galley - beforeThe galley afterThe cleaning ladyBilge undercoatboat yoga
I’ve just finished reading this book, the taming of the crew, about an insane couple who sold up everything, bought a boat and took their two sons (both under 10 at time of leaving) around the Pacific.
If that wasn’t challenging enough, they then ended up sailing themselves into some of the worst winter storms the area had seen in decades – courtesy of a volcano with an inappropriate sense of timing
They struck gales on just about every passage leg and weathered storms that had other crews abandoning their boats.
Now any sane person would be put off attempting a similar trip after reading that, right? But I’m not. In fact I actually found it reassuring to read about how people coped in really challenging conditions and still had a fantastic, life-changing experience. The only injury was to their eldest son who, after making it unscathed through brutal conditions at sea, broke his arm falling out of a tree at a resort.
And to be fair, that particular family had spectacularly bad luck – weather patterns like that are most definitely not the norm in the Pacific!
It does put in mind the big question though – why on earth am I doing this? Do I need my head read?
I guess a big part of it is that it’s an adventure. I haven’t done the Big OE (overseas experience for non-Kiwi readers) and this is a way of doing it literally. It’s a way of challenging myself (gumby unco Anna on a boat!?) and proving that I can do something that scares me a little.
I’ve also always loved the ocean and sea critters and this is a way of getting to see more of both. When I got my PADI open water diving certificate it was the most amazing feeling. It was something that if you’d told me a couple of years ago I would be doing I would have asked what you’d been smoking. I was afraid but, with the encouragement of the wonderfully patient Paddy, I did it – and it opened up a whole new world. I get the feeling this trip will be the same, but on a grander scale. I’m going into this with my eyes open. I know there will be times when I’m cold and I’m scared and I’m miserable – but I also know there are some incredible experiences in store, and I’ll get to meet a whole lot more sea critters in the process!
And it’s not just the critters I’m looking forward to meeting – it’s the people as well. The other cruising nutters who have run away to sea and the people who live in the islands. There’s only so much you can do in a two-week holiday on a tropical island. Being able to stick around longer will give us time to try to understand people and see how they really live. I’ve visited a couple of Pacific islands doing the two-week tourist thing and one of the things that upset, but also amazed me, was the level of poverty and the friendliness of the people who were living in it. It was hard knowing that the camera you were wearing around your neck was probably worth more than their house – but the bitterness just wasn’t there. I’d like to be able to help out in some way – even if it’s just bringing blankets and clothes over with us, or helping plant stuff in a village.
The other thing I am looking forward to doing is stopping for a while – taking time to chill out, get some stuff read, get a couple of trashy novels written and to just be – I haven’t done that for a very long time.
So that’s why I’m doing it (that and I’m rather fond of the Skipper!) I’ve got a lot more to learn before I’m ready to go and I’m looking forward to the challenge!
A word about seasickness medication – don’t knock it. And for the love of Neptune, if you aren’t used to sailing, don’t try to be macho and tough it out without it.
I learned that one the hard way during my first Cook Strait crossing on the way to Queen Charlotte Sounds. I did the whole “I don’t get motion sickness, I don’t need drugs” routine.
Big mistake.
To be fair we had a horribly sloppy sea with 4/5 m swells, so it wasn’t going to be a comfortable trip anyway – but I’m sure I would have been able to handle that fine if I’d just taken the damn pills!
Instead I spent the latter part of the trip hugging a bucket.
There is a much more scientifically accurate way to say this but basically motion sickness happens when your inner ear starts squabbling with your eyes. Your inner ear tells you that you’re moving while your eyes are convinced you are staying still – your tummy then decides to opt out of the whole argument by expelling its contents. Repeatedly.
That’s why they tell you to keep an eye on the horizon – that puts your eyes and your brain back on the same page. Unfortunately, on that particular trip, I was too far gone for that trick to work so poor old Paddy ended up bringing the boat in single-handedly while I wedged myself in a corner and refused to move.
One of the worst things you can do if you are prone to motion sickness is go below deck, because then you have no reference point – and that was exactly what I did. I went below to go to the toilet and when I came back it was all on. Lesson learned.
Some people don’t like taking drugs because they can make you drowsy, but Paddy has discovered an answer for that in some awesome little pills called Paihia Bombs. These work for 24 hours so you can take them the night before, get a good night’s sleep and be alert in the morning without getting sick. They rock!
My second brush with seasickness was very Monty Python. We were holidaying in Vanuatu and went out fishing on a charter boat. I didn’t even think about taking seasickness pills because we weren’t going that far out. But the boat was a lot smaller than Wildflower and therefore a lot rockier. It all happened so fast. One minute I was sitting up the front of the boat and the next I was doubled up over the side (NOT a safe position to be in – another lesson learned). Again I wedged myself into a corner with a bucket and again was so paraliticly sick I couldn’t move. Unfortunately the spot I had chosen was right in front of the fishing rods and people were having to climb over me to get at them.
This was fine until Paddy managed to land a 7kg mahimahi, which clobbered me in the head on its way aboard. So, ladies and gentlemen, I have actually been slapped in the face with a wet fish – and it wasn’t a pleasant experience!
The funny thing about seasickness is that while you are going through it, it feels like you are dying, but the second the motion ceases it all goes away. That’s because your body isn’t actually sick, it’s just really confused.
And before you start worrying Mum, I have been out plenty of times since then and haven’t been sick at all. Apparently it takes about three days in the open ocean before your body gets used to the motion. In the meantime though, the drugs are working for me so I’m sticking with them!
And I got the last laugh on the fish in the end – it was delicious!
Sailing home from the Sounds (only decent bit of wind we got!) The offending fish Revenge is scrummy!
A word about seasickness medication – don’t knock it. And for the love of Neptune, if you aren’t used to sailing, don’t try to be macho and tough it out without it.
I learned that one the hard way during my first Cook Strait crossing on the way to Queen Charlotte Sounds. I did the whole “I don’t get motion sickness, I don’t need drugs” routine.
Big mistake.
To be fair we had a horribly sloppy sea with 4/5 m swells, so it wasn’t going to be a comfortable trip anyway – but I’m sure I would have been able to handle that fine if I’d just taken the damn pills!
Instead I spent the latter part of the trip hugging a bucket.
There is a much more scientifically accurate way to say this but basically motion sickness happens when your inner ear starts squabbling with your eyes. Your inner ear tells you that you’re moving while your eyes are convinced you are staying still – your tummy then decides to opt out of the whole argument by expelling its contents. Repeatedly.
That’s why they tell you to keep an eye on the horizon – that puts your eyes and your brain back on the same page. Unfortunately, on that particular trip, I was too far gone for that trick to work so poor old Paddy ended up bringing the boat in single-handedly while I wedged myself in a corner and refused to move.
One of the worst things you can do if you are prone to motion sickness is go below deck, because then you have no reference point – and that was exactly what I did. I went below to go to the toilet and when I came back it was all on. Lesson learned.
Some people don’t like taking drugs because they can make you drowsy, but Paddy has discovered an answer for that in some awesome little pills called Paihia Bombs. These work for 24 hours so you can take them the night before, get a good night’s sleep and be alert in the morning without getting sick. They rock!
My second brush with seasickness was very Monty Python. We were holidaying in Vanuatu and went out fishing on a charter boat. I didn’t even think about taking seasickness pills because we weren’t going that far out. But the boat was a lot smaller than Wildflower and therefore a lot rockier. It all happened so fast. One minute I was sitting up the front of the boat and the next I was doubled up over the side (NOT a safe position to be in – another lesson learned). Again I wedged myself into a corner with a bucket and again was so paraliticly sick I couldn’t move. Unfortunately the spot I had chosen was right in front of the fishing rods and people were having to climb over me to get at them.
This was fine until Paddy managed to land a 7kg mahimahi, which clobbered me in the head on its way aboard. So, ladies and gentlemen, I have actually been slapped in the face with a wet fish – and it wasn’t a pleasant experience!
The funny thing about seasickness is that while you are going through it, it feels like you are dying, but the second the motion ceases it all goes away. That’s because your body isn’t actually sick, it’s just really confused.
And before you start worrying Mum, I have been out plenty of times since then and haven’t been sick at all. Apparently it takes about three days in the open ocean before your body gets used to the motion. In the meantime though, the drugs are working for me so I’m sticking with them!
And I got the last laugh on the fish in the end – it was delicious!
Sailing home from the Sounds (only decent bit of wind we got!) The offending fish Revenge is scrummy!
A couple of years ago I met this guy who lived on a boat. I thought it was kind of quirky, like a floating housebus. I didn’t even know which end of the thing was the front and I wondered whether he got seasick in the marina.
In about nine months time Paddy and I will be taking said floating housebus around the Pacific and plan to be away for about eight months.
For those of you who know me, this may come as a bit of a surprise as I am somewhat reknowned for my lack of coordination. It’s fun to watch people’s eyes widen when I tell them – knowing they are picturing one of the many spectacular tunbles I have taken over the years.
The funny thing is, I think spending time on a boat has actually helped my coordination. You have to concentrate a lot harder on where you are going when the floor is swaying beneath you!
I’m writing this blog for myself but also for the people who are struggling to get their heads around this slightly mad enterprise (it’s okay Mum, you’re not alone!)
It’s also a good way for me to keep track of how far I’ve come (and how far I still have to go!)
I probably should have started this earlier, because I am already miles away from the landlubber I was. I’ve done a practical sailing course, a couple of cook strait crossings and have passed my Day Skipper exam. The next step is getting my Boatmasters certificate.
I am a little apprehensive about this because it involves navigation and I am a teensy bit directionally challenged (read couldn’t navigate my way out of a paper bag with the aid of a GPS) – but that’s a subject for an entirely different blog!
So this blog will be part log of progress so far and part diary of how things are going – and that’s probably enough for now.
Oh yeah, Paddy doesn’t get seasick in the marina – and neither do I!
