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 🙂

Hairy hazards to navigation

You know what it’s like when you try to read a newspaper when there’s a cat around?

Well you can probably picture the look of glee on Ollie’s face when I rolled out a large chart on livingroom floor.

No sooner had I pulled my chart protractor out than I was faced with this:

You don't need those Mum, my bowl's this way...

Unfortunately “my cat’s big hairy butt was in the way” is not likely to be accepted as an answer in the exam.

So Ollie and I commenced battle. I would shovel him off the chart and he would sit quietly for a while watching me drawing lines, then suddenly my bearing would land me smack in the middle of Fur Rock again.

But I'm only trying to help!

I attempted to deal with this by navigating where he wasn’t sitting and this worked for a little while – until he decided it would be a great game to try to whack the dividers out of my hands. His uncanny sense of timing meant that he often chose to do this exactly when I doing something that involved concentrating deeply to get a measurement right down to the last millimetre.

When the score had reached Cat – 20 Chart- zero I decided it was time to give up.

Luckily the following night I had remedial navigation lessons, where there wasn’t a moggy in sight. (The tutor did have two boxer dogs, but they just sat quietly under the table.)

I felt a bit better after working through a few charts like that. Although the other people playing nav catch-up with me were streaks ahead of where I was, I think I’m getting the basics. Since dropping out of Maths in the fifth form I had forgotten how utterly crap I was at it. Now I remember!

So now I just have to practice – and stuff as much information into my head about flashing lights and beeping noises, tides and weather and give way rules as possible over the weekend.

Variation east, magnetic is least

Red Port Left in the bottle

How do you identify a barge towing a mine-clearance vessel in restricted visibility?

My brain hurts!

The theory exam is Monday night – I shall be bringing Cal the good luck troll, but I’m leaving the cat at home!

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!

I’m sorry Dad!

For those of you who don’t know – my Dad was a navigator in the Air Force.

 For those of you who know me well, this fact is hilarious – because I couldn’t navigate my way out of a paper bag with the aid of a GPS.

I’m one of those people that need to drive to a destination at least twice (under the supervision of someone who is not directionally challenged) and preferably walk past it a couple of times to make sure, before admitting I know how to get there. And even then I prefer to have a map just in case.

 

My abysmal sense of direction is somewhat legendary – I’ve gotten lost in teeny tiny one street towns, shopping malls and even some of my friends’ houses. In short, I didn’t inherit the navigation gene. 

 So you can probably hazard a guess at how last night’s navigation lessons went.

 To be fair, the tutor made an heroic effort to get the information through, and in the first hour some of it actually managed to sink in.

Unfortunately the course pretty much starts straight after work and after a while my brain begins to tire and start wandering. By the time he got to the variation between true and magnetic North, it had wandered out the window and was watching the birdies hop around the car park.

They don’t exactly make it easy though. Latitude and Longitude I could handle, but then they took all these perfectly adequate measurement terms and made them mean something else entirely.

So there are 60 minutes in a degree – but minutes in navigation are entirely different to minutes in the real world. Then there is the nautical mile – which just has to be different from your garden variety mile doesn’t it? And don’t even get me started on the two different Norths!

 

Paddy tells me that navigation was deliberately made difficult to stop the rank and file from mutinying and taking over the ship – and I can see why it worked!

I must have looked like I was struggling because the tutor crouched down next to my desk after the session and asked if I was okay with it all. I told him I’d try to work out what I could on my own and then probably come hollaring for help.

I’m sure it will be fine with practice, I just have to get my head to work in a gear that I’m not used to. I feel like I’m back at high school failing miserably to grasp what my maths teacher was trying to tell me. But this time I won’t give up and start writing notes to my classmates or listing David Bowie’s top 10 albums. I’m going to keep trying until I get it.

I know how important it is. It’s rather daunting knowing the a decimal point could be the difference between sailing through clear waters or making friends with a rock, but its also a lot of incentive!

I guess I just find it hard because I don’t like feeling like I can’t do something and it’s been a long time since I have felt that way. I steered my career towards writing because I can do that easily and I guess I’ve subconsciously stayed away from the stuff that makes my brain hurt.

I think I can harness that though – if I don’t like not being able to do something then I guess I just bloody well have to learn how to do it – even if it does take me a little longer to catch on than the rest of the class.

So if you see me thumping a protractor or cursing at a compass, don’t worry – it’s just the learning process!

Starboard stand-on, Port piss off

Is there any red Port left in the bottle?

Starboard stand-on, Port Piss off

If to Starboard red appear, tis your duty to keep clear

I am four weeks into my Boatmasters course (thank you Wellington Coastguard!) and I have ridiculous rhymes and sayings coming out of my ears.

If you see a marker with two black circles on top of each other its a Balls Up to go near it

 

A balls up

 

If someone honks at you five times it mean’s you’ve done something stupid

 

What not to do

 

Having done the Day Skipper course beforehand really helped because it everything wasn’t entirely alien – but there is still so much to remember!

Red lights mean one thing, green and white ones another but unfortunately ‘if it’s lit up light a Christmas tree, keep out of its way’ is not an accepted answer.

 

An ocean-going Christmas tree?

 

I am aware all of this is important – particularly at night and when things are being towed – but I’m a little dubious about the value of some of the information I am memorising. For example –  I do wonder when I will use my newfound knowledge on how to identify a vessel engaged in mine clearance duties.

If Paddy and I end up seeing one of those we’d have to be seriously lost!

 

If we see one of these we have bigger problems that what colour lights its showing!

 

Next week we get stuck into the navigation side of things. I’ve got everything I need – chart, protractor, dividers – except for a sense of direction, so wish me luck!

Starboard stand-on, Port piss off

Is there any red Port left in the bottle?

Starboard stand-on, Port Piss off

If to Starboard red appear, tis your duty to keep clear

I am four weeks into my Boatmasters course (thank you Wellington Coastguard!) and I have ridiculous rhymes and sayings coming out of my ears.

If you see a marker with two black circles on top of each other its a Balls Up to go near it

 

A balls up

 

If someone honks at you five times it mean’s you’ve done something stupid

 

What not to do

 

Having done the Day Skipper course beforehand really helped because it everything wasn’t entirely alien – but there is still so much to remember!

Red lights mean one thing, green and white ones another but unfortunately ‘if it’s lit up light a Christmas tree, keep out of its way’ is not an accepted answer.

 

An ocean-going Christmas tree?

 

I am aware all of this is important – particularly at night and when things are being towed – but I’m a little dubious about the value of some of the information I am memorising. For example –  I do wonder when I will use my newfound knowledge on how to identify a vessel engaged in mine clearance duties.

If Paddy and I end up seeing one of those we’d have to be seriously lost!

 

If we see one of these we have bigger problems that what colour lights its showing!

 

Next week we get stuck into the navigation side of things. I’ve got everything I need – chart, protractor, dividers – except for a sense of direction, so wish me luck!

Chickens, seasnakes and a whole lot of courage

Room with a view

Niue – population: 1400 people, a pod of dolphins and more chooks than New Zealand has sheep.

It is also an amazing example of courage in the face of disaster.

In 2004 Niue was clobbered by a tropical cyclone that pretty much levelled a large portion of it. Cyclone Heta was a category 5  that devastated the tiny island’s capital of Alofi, wiping out most of its commercial, electronic and communication infrastructure.

Six years later, after an aid injection from New Zealand and Australia, the tourism industry is growing,the marine life is returning, you can scuba dive, swim with dolphins, snorkel and sample the local cuisine. Both Paddy and I agree its somewhere we are happy to see our taxpayer dollar at work.

So technically this blog entry is a little off topic since we didn’t actually sail to Niue, but it ticks the tropical paradise and scuba diving boxes so I’m running with it – It’s my blog and I can bend the rules if I want to! 🙂

Paddy and I have just come back from a week in Niue (though both of us felt we really needed two!). It was essentially meant to be a diving holiday, but we fell in love with the place in the process.

If you’re looking for flash hotels with hottubs and Sky TV then perhaps Niue isn’t the place for you. But if you want to be able to chill out, commune with awesome seacritters, and are happy to operate on island time, you will love it. There is only one plane in and out each week, so you arrive on a plane full of strangers and leave knowing the vast majority of them through running into them at the islands local hangouts (like the Niue Yacht Club that doubles as an icecream parlour or the Washaway Cafe where you pour your own drinks, write down what you bought in a book, put your money in the till and take your own change).

For me the highlights were diving, dolphins and whalesong and I experienced all of these through the fantastic folk at Niue Dive. I’m a bit of a newbie diver and I hadn’t been in the water for a little while so I have to admit I was a bit of a scaredy cat at first. I was by far the least experienced on all the dives we did but Annie, Ian and BJ from the dive shop were wonderfully patient with me and in the end had me doing things that exhilarated and challenged me. I hadn’t had much experience cave diving and we did quite a bit of that, but I was able to do it in my time and at my pace and was really proud of myself when I actually did it. I also went down the deepest I have so far (27 metres) which wasn’t half as scary as I thought it would be.

Sometimes, when you’re inexperienced, you get the feeling that you are holding up the works for those who actually know what they are doing, but I never got that feeling from any of the people we went out with, it was pretty much all in my head. Whenever someone said ‘don’t worry, we’ve all been there’ it didn’t feel like a platitude and I actually really appreciated it every time I heard it.

While the caves were fascinating, and some truly beautiful when you saw the sunlight shining through from the surface, I have to say it was the reef diving I enjoyed the most – just cruising around checking out  clown fish and giant clams and seeing the coral regenerating.

When you are underwater it becomes very obvious how much damage the cyclone has done. There is a vast amount of dead coral, which is sad, but there are also signs of life – and that life becomes all the more vibrant in contrast. The new coral growth and the fish and the sea snakes stand out all the more for it I think.

One of my favourite dive spots was Snake Gully – it had coral and critters, beautiful caverns – and of course, sea snakes.

I didn’t know this, but sea snakes (or at least the ones in Niue) actually swim up to the surface to breathe. It was quite fascinating watching them from the boat before we dived in, their little snakey heads popping up out of the water to gulp a few breaths before slowly slithering back down again. From the bottom it was really lovely to watch, four or five snakes at a time winding slowly winding upwards like reverse reptilian rain.

And yes they are poisonous, but they have such teeny tiny teeth that you’d pretty much have to shove your finger down their throat and squeeze their head for them to be able to do any damage – all the same, I wasn’t game to cuddle one, no matter how friendly they seemed to be!

Whales are another reason people are drawn to Niue, and usually at this time of year mother whales come in to the island to calve. Unfortunately this season, because of the La Nina weather pattern (please correct me if I’m wrong, I always get them muddled up!) the water has been a couple of degrees too warm for them, so there haven’t been so many around. We were able to see some coming in pretty close from the Coral Gardens resort we were staying at, but we didn’t have so much luck finding them when we were out in the boats. We were however able to hear them singing underwater, which was magical.

The dolphins were fabulous too – it was my first time swimming with dolphins and they were just beautiful! The dolphins that hang around Niue are Spinners, named for their habit of leaping out of the water and whirling around like dervishes – apparently just for the hell of it.  I’ve heard that dolphins get all the food they need in 15 minutes a day and spend the rest of their time playing and shagging – and we definitely spotted a little bit of both on this trip!

My favourite was a little baby dolphin in the pod who was trying desperately to keep up with the big kids – when they leapt out of the water he followed with a bit of a feeble splash and he could only manage about one and a half spins before falling back into the water – but hey, he was trying!

A spinner spinning

Sadly there are a lot of abandoned buildings that still have not been rebuilt and apparently there are three times more Niueans living in New Zealand than there are now in Niue. But as one local said to us ‘if they all came back, where would they fit?’ I guess it shows that those who stayed are the ones who love the place, and that there is the opportunity to leave and make a life elsewhere for those who want to.

Niue is a lovely little place, but it is isolated so the tourism industry is vital for it. So go there, it’s gorgeous – and if you don’t believe me, here are some more pictures to make you jealous 🙂

Warm welcome at the airport
Paddy and I looking ravishing in rubber!
Ian hauling the dive boat out of the water
Limu Pools - snorkeling spot


Arches at Limu Pools
Niuean weather forecast

View from Coral Gardens (also comes with complimentary whales!)
Cal and Dam go caving
Cal, Dam, Tom and TJ prepare to climb a coconut tree
Success!

Stop staring at my bum!

A boat out of water is a sad sight – all awkward and exposed. But it’s a necessary evil to ensure everything is in good shape below the water.

Fish out of water

Living on a boat out of water can be a little unnerving as well – particularly when it’s windy. Being several feet up in the air and swaying from side to side when you are nowhere near the ocean just feels wrong, as does climbing down a ladder to go to work in the morning!

Our longest stint out of the water was a few months ago while Wildflower’s decks were being repainted. We became temporary residents of the Evans Bay yacht club, and for several weeks the sounds of lapping water and ducks were replaced by passing traffic and power tools as people worked on their boats.

Paddy and I had a great time at the yacht club, with the locals embracing us as one of their own – but spending so much time so close to the bar probably didn’t do our livers any good (these guys drink rum and coke by the jug!)

Again, boat life forced me to sort out my coordination issues as I mastered the art of clambering up and down a ladder with any combination of handbag, gym gear and laptop.

Don't look dooown...

Paddy once had the frightening experience of being up out of the water during an earthquake – an experience he says he would rather not repeat! I had my own brush with an out-of-water natural disaster –  it turned out to be a false alarm, but it was still pretty exciting.

While we were parked up at Evans Bay, on the day I was due to sit the theory part of my practical boating course, Paddy and I were woken up by a banging on the side of the boat. It was the club manager telling us to clear out because a tsunami was due to hit in 25 minutes. In autopilot I threw some clothes on, grabbed Bilgey the (stuffed toy) ship’s cat and jumped into the car. We headed up Mt Victoria (and discovered half of Wellington had had the same idea) and waited…and waited…. and nothing happened, not even a little splash. Which was a good thing of course, but I did end up missing my test (everyone else had ignored the tsunami warning and turned up anyway.)  Luckily I was able to sit it in an empty office. I managed to pass but I did make a couple of really stupid mistakes that I blame squarely on my brain being frazzled by the early morning excitement!

While it was fun being honorary members at Evans Bay, it was an enormous relief to be back in the water. I swear I heard Wildflower sigh with pleasure when she was finally lowered back in. The process of getting her back in the water was quite fascinating, involving what appeared (to me at least) to be a giant mutant tractor. It was quite a process and I have included some pics below for those who are interested.

Taking the boat for a walk
Giant mutant tractor
And I thought reversing the car was scary!
Bombs away!
He made it look easy!
Bye bye Evans Bay

PS – please don’t tell Wildflower I put photos of her bottom on the internet – I kinda want to stay on her good side!

The price of safety – or why our govt should walk the plank

For the non-boaties:

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!