Category: Wellington Harbour

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 🙂

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!

Our boat has six eyebrows!

Over the past lord only knows how many nights, Paddy has been lurking in his shed pasting fibreglass into moulds and inhaling all manner of chemicals.

This has all been in the name of plastic surgery for Wildflower – eyebrows to be precise.

Like eyebrows for people – which are designed to keep sweat out of our eyes – eyebrows for boats are designed to keep water (rain, sea spray) out of open windows.

 

Monobrow!

 

This weekend we got the chance to complete Wildflower’s facelift and since so much work went into these things I feel the event should be documented.

Paddy with two of his creations

 

Paddy was so persnikety about his work that we even ended up with a spare – one perfectly fine specimen hit the cutting room floor just because it had a couple of tiny green splodges.

 

The successful candidates

 

Like plastic surgery, you have to mark where the work will be done…

 

Eyeliner
Emo Wildflower

 

And then there’s the heavy-duty eyebrow trimming

Slightly more hardcore than tweezers

 

 

And finally the application.

 

 

Perfectly sculpted eyebrows

 

 

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful
The bandages will come off tomorrow and an extra layer of sealant put around the edges and she’ll be good to go.
It was a labour of love for Paddy but he did an awesome job. The amount of work he’s done to make Wildflower what she is is phenomenal. I’m really proud of him – and his beautiful boat.

 

The countdown begins

It’s 2011 and it’s official – we are running away to sea in a matter of months.

I am excited, exhilarated and scared out of my mind.

Sorry Mother but this is not a window to try to talk me out of this! 😉 It’s a stock-take of my own capabilities – where I am now and where I need to be in a few months time when Paddy, Wildflower and I take on the briny deep.

This is really happening. I am stopping work, putting my life into storage and disappearing for eight months. It’s one of the biggest, maddest things I have ever done. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s scary – but scary in the most thrilling way!

We spent a fabulous week over New Year’s sailing around the Marlborough Sounds, which gave me the chance to hone my practical skills and work out where my head was at.

But I was faced with my first limitation before we even left the marina. I discovered that –  despite having done two sailing courses – nobody had actually taught me how to throw a sodding rope. Unfortunately trying to tie a boat up alongside a fuelling dock (in full view of  people on the waterfront having coffee in the sun) is not the best time to realize this! Luckily, after a few abortive attempts and a lot of ineffectual arm flailing, a kindly chap managed to catch the end of the rope and help pull us in.

This humiliation necessitated some remedial rope- throwing lessons once we got to the Sounds, and  I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t actually that difficult once I knew the technique (it’s all in the way you coil the rope before you throw it.) Being slightly ambidextrous also made things a bit tricky – but that’s the subject of an entirely different blog!

The Sounds were gorgeous – we chilled out in our favourite spot in Erie Bay where I did a lot of reading, writing, snorkeling (and maybe a teensy bit of wine drinking…) and then headed to one of Paddy’s favourite haunts, Flipper Bay – near Picton.

 

Chilling out at Erie Bay
Flipper Bay bound

On the way to Flipper Bay we did a bit of sailing and I got to practise my boathandling. Unfortunately –  because of  either crap weather or a depressing lack of wind (yes I am aware of the irony of the latter, living in Wellington) – most of the travelling I have done on Wildflower has been under motor. So I have actually had more experience on the little boats I learned in at the Port Nick Yacht Club than I have on the boat I spend half my time living on.

This meant I over-steered, under-steered and sailed us round in circles – which would have been fine if there weren’t so many other boats about! At that point I was getting so flustered that I would go into a blind panic every time another boat approached, despite the fact that I knew all the give way rules and exactly what I should do.

This was around the time that wretched little beast Self Doubt reared its ugly head. “How the hell am I supposed to take this thing around the Pacific when I can’t even get it to go in a straight line?!” The funny thing (and a credit to Paddy’s patience) was that the more I breathed through the frustration and just did it, the easier it became and the more I watched the other boats in the water and worked out where they were going, the less frightened of them I was. By the time we were heading home even the ferries weren’t phasing me.

Flipper Bay is a lovely spot. It’s sheltered, the water is relatively warm and it is surrounded by regenerated native bush. This means you wake up in the morning to a gorgeous chorus of native birds. There are also quite a few jellyfish (not the stingy kind!) about and they are fascinating to watch propelling themselves through the water.

Neighbours at Flipper Bay
Native bush at Flipper Bay
Paddy looking for mussels on the beach
What became of said mussels

Flipper Bay also has tame ducks. These crafty little devils have worked out that if they tap on the side of visiting boats in the mornings for long enough someone will eventually come out and feed them. Paddy once witnessed a mother duck teaching her babies exactly how to do this. We ran into a mother and brood while we were there but I don’t think she was the sharpest tool in the shed because while we were standing on the beach throwing out food for them she decided to swim the troops over to the boat that we were no longer aboard and tap in vain instead.

Mama duck and brood
But you're going the wrong way!
Mama duck's failed attempt to tap food out of Wildflower

We left Flipper Bay for Wellington when we had what looked like a good weather window and we had a gorgeous sail for a good part of the trip. We had a 25 knot northerly pushing us exactly where we wanted to go.

Waiting at the entrance of Tory Channel

Then we reached the south coast of Wellington – and things got a little exciting.

We probably should have reefed the sails in sooner, but we were having such a great trip. Unfortunately this meant we had quite a bit of sail up when we got walloped by the 45knot winds (gusting 50k Paddy says). When the boat started tipping so far on its side I thought we’d be able to converse with passing fish Paddy suggested we should perhaps pull in the sail. I agreed (in a very small voice while clinging to the safety rail with every muscle in my arms.)

A note for the worriers: The boat cannot tip over. It is physically impossible. Because of all the weight in the keel it will only lean so far sideways before righting itself again. Paddy has actually experimented with Wildflower to see how far she will lean (NOT with me aboard I might add!) Secondly, we are attached to the boat at all times by safety harnesses that we can move up and down the boat with.

I handled it fine for the most part (with a few terrified noises and the odd expletive) but there were a couple of gusts that had me praying under my breath. At one point we had a postage stamp sized scrap of sail up but were doing 9 knots (which is apparently faster than the boat is actually supposed to be capable of going) which I think was pretty impressive! In the end though it was nothing the boat couldn’t handle, and that’s what helped me through it. When I saw Paddy calmly steering the boat in the direction we needed to go it really helped.

It was actually really good for me to see that the boat can cope with those conditions easily. The only casualties were the wind indicator at the top of the mast (Paddy says we needed a new one anyway…) and a few books that came out of the bookshelf. Wildflower and skipper did brilliantly and it gave me even more confidence in both.

Besides, apparently it would be very unusual to come across conditions like that in the Pacific (touch wood). They do say if you can learn to sail in Wellington you can sail anywhere!

The northerly stuck around so we had a bit of a sloppy trudge into the harbour using the motor, but at that stage I was so pleased that we weren’t diagonal anymore that it didn’t faze me at all.

So in short (with a few hiccups along the way) this trip has given me more confidence in the boat, the captain and myself. I intend to get out on the water as much as I can before we go –  and to keep learning.

Captain Paddy got us home safe and sound

Sew what?

It’s official, they are wearing woolly jumpers in hell.

After years of refusing to do something as girlie as learning how to sew, I am now in the process of producing cockpit cushions.

There is a lot of work on the boat that, not being an engineer or mechanic, I can’t really help with. So in a bid to do something practical, I have been introduced to Paddy’s industrial sewing machine.

As many of you know, the idea of me as a domestic goddess does not sit well – least of all to me. But I really do want to do something tangible, so I’m willing to give it a go. Besides, sewing canvass to make something for us to sit on isn’t the same as lace on frilly things.

Photographic evidence for the unbelievers

The last time I touched a sewing machine was during manual classes at primary school – all i really remember about that is trying to race the thread off the material by  slamming the foot pedal down. I also remember coming in one week to see a bit ‘Out of Order’ sign on the machine I usually used – I’m still giving myself the benefit of the doubt as to whether that one was my fault… I do remember making a really great deck chair in woodwork though – I’ve still got that.

So I needed some serious remedial lessons.

Enter the lovely Keri – a good friend of mine who I’ve always been a little bit jealous of because she made her own really funky clothes (she also had the best name for a clothing label I had heard in a long time  ‘Snotbubbles!’).

The first step was to make a mock-up of a cushion out of Calico (the canvass for the cushions was a teensy bit expensive so I didn’t really want to be practising on them!) but we actually found material in a much better colour…

Seamstress Keri helps with the mock-up
Tools of the trade - cushion foam and low-carb beer

Unfortunately our lovely orange mock-up fabric turned out to be too flimsy for the machine – so now I’m back to boring but heavy-duty.

The next step was getting the sewing machine to behave – and this reminded me exactly why I never had the patience to take up sewing.

There are so many teeny tiny persnickity little things that can go wrong with the sodding machines and Paddy’s seemed to snarl up and screech to a halt every few seconds.

Paddy has a stubborn streak when it comes to technical stuff and, where I would have lost patience and given up in disgust, he finally managed to get the thing to work.

We seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties...

In the end it turned out to be a combination of thread tension issues, fabric that wasn’t strong enough, dirt on the thread and the thread spool thingie being pulled through the wrong metal doohickey (or something like that)

But once all that was fixed, the actually sewing was relatively easy. I haven’t got past the practising sewing straight(ish) lines on a bit of fabric part yet – but you’ve got to start somewhere.

I was amazed at how convoluted and technical sewing machines actually are. I don’t know why they have such a fluffy, girlie reputation – they are about as obscure as car engines to me.

Watching Keri take the thing apart and adjust it was pretty impressive actually – I was totally lost! She told me that machine maintenance was not covered at all when she took sewing at school, which I think is crazy since you pretty much have to dismember the things when something goes wrong. I’d like to think things would be a bit more progressive now though.

So I officially take it back – sewing isn’t just a girlie girl pastime. It’s a real, technical, practical skill that I am going to do my best to master without maiming myself or the cockpit cushions.

Wish me luck!

I passed!!!

Hi all,

Just a quick update (since Dad let the cat out of the bag on my blog about cats on maps)

I PASSED MY BOATMASTERS!!!

I’ve been meaning to let you all know for the past week, but life the universe and everything kept getting in the way.

The written exam went reasonably well (though I made a couple of really silly mistakes that I would have picked up if I had the time to re-read it properly).

I also got a few funny looks when I pulled out my goodluck troll and stuck her on the desk – but she did her job very well, and I am sure they were all just jealous!

The oral exam was hilarious. I arrived there and half the class were sitting around a table filled with chips and beer, swotting up on flashing and beeping things and waiting for their turn.

It was nice that it was that relaxed, but the temptation was to drink the nerves away. I managed to resist this urge and soothed my nerves with potato chips instead. Not so good for the waistline, but much better for the brain!

Basically the oral part of the exam involved sitting down with an examiner and talking through the bits that you stuffed up in the written exam.
Part of the rationale behind this is that some people tend to freak out in written exams, but by sitting down and talking to them you can gauge pretty quickly whether they know their stuff or not. I think it’s a really good way of doing things.

The oral part went well for me and pretty much devolved into a conversation about next year’s Pacific trip. When the examiner pulled out a chart though and started asking me questions I started feeling a bit queasy, but it was Paddy’s love of gadgetry that actually saved my bacon.

While we were looking at the chart and talking about how important they were he asked if we also had GPS. When I told him Paddy had actually installed this other fancypants system called AIS  –  which gives you a whole lot more info than GPS and lets other ships know about you (if you want a more detailed explanation, Google it) –  his eyes lit up and he forgot about the chart entirely!

I must have managed to bluff my way through the rest of it successfully because he passed me quite happily.

So now I just need to get out and practice it all.

It’s a gorgeous day today so we are planning on putting the sails back up on the boat and take her out for a spin.

You’ve got to pick your moments in Wellington when it comes to putting up sails because if the wind performs its usual tricks there is a high likelihood of doing a Mary Poppins number!

Wish us luck 🙂

Introducing Wildflower

Wildflower at the marina

Wildflower is a 44ft steel yacht. She’s named after a Tom Petty song and I think she’s beautiful.

Granted I did come along when she was looking her best. About 10 years ago Paddy was living in her while she was sans ceiling and floor. He had to balance on beams and duck under exposed wires. In contrast the Wildflower I know has a lovely wooden interior and all the mod cons, including microwave and internet.

I’ve been asked a lot of questions about her so figured the best way to do this would be Q and A format  – if anyone has any other questions just let me know, I may have to forward the more technical ones on to Paddy though.

Q: (the first question asked by any female before stepping on the boat) Is there a toilet and does it work?

A: Yes – its a fancy electric toilet so you don’t need to pump it to flush it, it does however sound a little like a lawnmower chewing gravel when you flush it!

Q: Do you have hot water?

A: Yep – its heated by gas, so hot showers are not a problem (as long as there is enough water in the tanks!)

Q: What do you do for electricity?

A: The same thing as everyone else when we are at the marina. When we are out at sea we have a kick arse generator (built by Paddy) to do the job for us.

Q: What happens if you run out of fresh water at sea?

A: We make our own (technical details will have to be left to Paddy!)

Q: Don’t you get in eachother’s way in such a small space?

A: This is one of the many plus sides of being munchkin sized, it honestly isn’t an issue for me (and to be honest its not much smaller than my flat!)

Q: Yes – but living with someone on a boat and visiting someone on a boat are two very different things. Are you sure  you will cope?

A: I live on the boat at the weekends and a couple of nights during the week and we’ve taken the boat away on trips together and we haven’t had any problems so I’m pretty confident we’ll be fine.

Q: So why don’t you just move onto the boat now then?

A: There is another man in my life – 6kgs of spoilt black feline that has travelled up and down the country with me over the past 7 years. He kinda got in first.

Q: What are you going to do with the cat when you go away?

A: Ollie is going into borstal with a lovely catlady who does longterm stays. I know it would be cheaper to leave him with a friend, but I’d worry. This way I definitely know he’ll be there when I get back.

Q: Why don’t you just take the cat with you? people have ships cats don’t they?

A: Cats are fine at sea if you start them off as kittens but they have very sensitive inner ears and an adult cat that is not used to a boat will just get horribly sick. Ollie has stayed on the boat in the marina though and has been fine – unfortunately his desire to go exploring loudly around the boat in the wee small hours of the morning had him dangerously close to taking swimming lessons, so I don’t think he’ll be invited back again!

Any other question hopefully will be answered by these photos:

The Galley
Paddy in the 'library' - before it underwent a big cleanup!
Looking up from inside
Big Red the engine - who lives under the stairs

Sleeping berth
Ollie hanging out with Bilgey the ship's cat in the forward cabin

Wildflower’s bottom

Main cabin/sleeping berth