Category: South Pacific

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

Lots of thank yous and a blog-pology

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 🙂

One for the stalkers

Just a quick entry because I am in the middle of house packing hell at the moment.

This one is for the nervous family members, nosey parkers and stalkers among you (you know who you are! 😉 )

The Island Cruising Association has set up a way for people to see where in the ocean we are as we travel.

This running fleet position reporting is done through a map on a website called Skipr.net, which will follow us as we progress on each leg of the trip. It’s free so friends and family can use it to have a perve at where we are, and it’s pretty easy to use.

* First go to the skipr.net website here: http://skipr.net/

* In the box that says “where is that boat?” type in Wildflower II (long story and the subject of another blog) and press ‘search’

* You’ll see a picture of us with a map next to it. There is an upsidedown teardrop on the map that shows where we are (at the moment it says Chaffers Marina Wellington)

It’s pretty basic at the moment but we will add more information and pretty pictures when we have a bit more time.

A few of you lovelies will be meeting us on various islands to dodge the winter for a bit – and no doubt we will be missing you all by then. For others interested in hanging out in pretty places with us for a while, here’s our itinerary –  there are lots of cheap flights to the Pacific on at the moment and we would love to see you xx

12 hacksaw blades and don’t skimp on the buckets

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!

Avoiding dentists with the wobblies

Paddy once told me about a dentist in Tonga who wouldn’t let being in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease prevent him from doing his job. While I respect the man’s determination, it did make me a little nervous, and was one of the reasons behind me deciding to get my wisdom teeth out before we go to the islands.

While the Tongan dentist only charged Paddy’s friend $20 to fix a tooth that was giving him grief, it was a bit of a traumatic process – and the filling fell out after two days. This led to Paddy’s first ever use of an emergency dental kit which he says was a resounding success – after the application of some putty stuff and a shot of serious antibiotics, the patient was right as rain.

Don’t get me wrong, I do admire Paddy’s enthusiasm for amateur dentistry, but I still think I made the right decision getting the ouchy stuff done here, particularly since it was far from straight forward.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt

I didn’t pick up Dad’s navigation genes but I did inherit his rather difficult teeth – which I think is a pretty bum deal. My wisdom teeth weren’t actually causing me any pain, but when I did check them out I discovered two were badly impacted and slowly creeping sideways towards the nerves that control feeling in my mouth. The other two had roots wrapped around things that roots definitely shouldn’t be wrapped around. So we called in the dental surgeon (thank you health insurance!)

It was the first time I had been under a general anesthetic and I was a teensy bit terrified. It didn’t help that something had held up the works earlier in the day and I several hours to sit in a hospital bed waiting and stewing. Luckily I had Paddy, Cal the good luck troll and (the newest addition to the troll family) Deco the diving troll to keep me company. I was even such a nerd that I tried to distract myself by reading my Boatmaster’s notes.

Before - indulging in some pre-operative troll therapy

The waiting actually turned out to be the hardest part – I only actually remember two things before waking up groggy with a face surrounded by icepack. I remember staring up at a big light shaped like an alien spaceship and watching it get darker and darker. I also remember the anesthetist telling me  there used to be a giraffe hanging from it to distract children – apparently the kids loved it but adults woke up complaining of having terrible dreams about giraffes, so they took it down. I didn’t dream about anything – not  a single solitary giraffe. I felt ripped off.

Next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery asking if I could say thank you to the anesthetist for making everything so quick and painless – only to be told that I already had. Lord knows what else I said in there!

In the spirit of public humiliation, here is the after pic that Paddy so kindly took for me on his celphone.

After - drugs are good mmm-kay?

It has taken a wee while for everything to heal up and one of the holes has been giving me a bit of grief but – through the magic of antibiotics and painkillers – I am feeling heaps better. I don’t look like I have a tennis ball stuffed in my left cheek any more and I am no longer rivalling the cat for the flat’s biggest drooler. I’m still not quite on solids yet, but I’m getting there – and I still think it was a better option than chancing the emergency dental kit!

You may be right, I may be crazy

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!

Munchkin at sea

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!