Tag: Pacific

Bon voyage Mirabilis!

The last few weeks have felt like stepping into a time warp, as we watch our neighbours scramble to get ready to head across the Pacific.

I recognise and empathise with all of it – the race against the clock to get the boat ready to go before the weather decides to play silly buggers, the boat maintenance by tourchlight, the million little things that need to be tweaked , tied down and ticked off before you can hit the waves. Then you have to wrap up your life, wind up your job, pack away all your worldly possessions – you find yourself so busy your friends and family begin to forget what you look like.

I watch our neighbours get ready and part of me sympathises with them. But the other part of me is jealous as hell.

Mike and Danica Stent are about to embark on one of the biggest, maddest adventures of their lives. They will get to go places that tourists don’t often go and see things that most people never get to see. They will learn a whole heap about themselves, meet a bunch of amazing people and learn how to live life in whole new way.

Paddy and I first met our neighbours when Dani and I wound up on the same Boatmasters course. When we got to the whole ‘class introduction/why are you here?’ bit we were astonished to discover that not only were we both living at Chaffers Marina but we were on the same pier and practically right next door to each other. Paddy and I were planning to do the Pacific trip and Mike and Dani were getting their boat ready to do the same thing the following year.

It also turned out that Mike shared Paddy’s engineering geek traits so the two of them got on like a house on fire. It got to the point where I was a little concerned Dani would ban him from coming over – because every time he did it ended with “well Paddy’s got this and I think we should…”

This time last year it was Mike and Dani standing on the pier, waving us off – and this year we will happily return the favour.

Mike and Dani see us off

It has also been great fun watching the nameless boat next to us grow handrails and new sails and morph into the lovely Mirabilis. A Mirabilis is a type of nudibranch – basically a really tiny, really pretty sea slug (Dani is a seasoned scuba diver and her work involves hanging out with all manner of interesting sea-critters). Mirabilis has only recently had her name unveiled, and I think it is pretty stylish!

Before the big reveal
Ta-da! Isn't she lovely?
An actual Mirabilis

 

I’m not going to say when they are planning to leave, because I don’t want to jinx anything – but lets just say it’s soon! I’m sure they will be great. Dani has had the chance to get out on the boat a bit more than I did before we left so she’ll have a much better idea about what all the bangs and creaks and groans mean.

Mike was our crew when we brought Wildflower back home from Noumea and he was great – he even did the cooking when I was too crook to manage it and he witnessed me having a bit of a meltdown reefing a sail in some bouncy conditions heading in to NZ and didn’t run away screaming, which I think bodes well.

But if I can offer any advice at all, here are a couple of things:

1) If you see the Port light of a massive ship coming for you when you are heading towards Auckland – it is probably the Skytower

2) If you see the Port light of a massive ship coming towards you late in the evening – it could very well be the moon rising

3) Venus is a b*tch – no matter how many times you see her and you know it’s her, there will still be a part of your brain that reckons she’s a boat

4) Reheatable passage meals are awesome. The last thing anyone feels like doing is cooking if the boat is bouncing about a bit and sometimes the simplest task seem to take hours while you are down in the galley. Being able to throw stuff in a pot and just stir it till it reheats can be the best thing in the universe!

5) Try to get some sleep. It’s really easy to stay awake all day, particularly if it is nice and sunny and you are really enjoying yourself, but if you don’t have at least a bit of sleep before you go on nightwatch you can end up jumping at shadows all night

So guys, enjoy. You will have an amazing adventure. There will be times when it’s not easy, there will be times when you fantasise about pushing each other overboard – but those will pass. There will also be times when you have to pinch yourself to believe you really are where you are – and you will create memories that will last a lifetime.

We will miss you, and we will expect updates on your progress – no excuses!

Happy Sailing!

Paddy and Anna 🙂

 

Reality and punk cabaret

The boaties among you will be wondering what on earth punk cabaret has to do with sailing, and those of you reading this because I posted it up on a punk cabaret forum will be wondering the exact opposite – but bear with me, the twain shall meet, honest!

So after spending the best part of last year sailing around the South Pacific, reality has come crashing in with a loud and rather inconsiderate thud. I am back home, back at work and back to the world as I once knew it.

It’s been great – it’s been wonderful to see the family and friends I have missed so much, to catch up with my workmates and to see my cat again, but it hasn’t been easy.

Once the novelty of not having to do laundry in a bucket or ration your showers wore off, I was faced with a stark reality – the world was the same, I was not. I’m a lot better now but when I first got back I was a complete insomniac. I’d gone from being out in the middle of nowhere with sporadic communication (other than radio and the odd burst of internet or celphone reception if you were lucky) to constant connectivity – celphones, blackberries, emails that can reach you wherever you are, television, radio, advertisements, planes, trains and automobiles. And when I went to bed I just didn’t know how to switch off anymore. I would lie there staring at the ceiling with stupid radio jingles, work emails, TV cop shows and what was trending on Twitter that day whirling around in my head. It was clearly a case of over-stimulation, I just didn’t know how to turn my brain off.

The other thing that is different about cruising is the way that you look at the world. The things that are important when you are sailing are much different from the things that are important in the ‘real world”. When you are sailing the decisions you make are simpler but the ramifications much bigger. When you are sailing the decisions often boil down to where and when you are going and how you are going to get there. They are simple decisions but ones that potentially, if you screw them up, can kill you or somebody else on the water. You don’t really have time for the nuances, it’s ‘pull this rope right bloody now before we lose a sail”, obey the collision avoidance rules or you could smash into somebody else’s boat, plan and look where you’re going or you could run smack into a reef – there isn’t really much time for interpretation. Interpersonal politics, other people’s agendas and whether or not you might have offended someone kind of takes a back seat.

For some of the people we met on the islands it was even more black and white – grow, catch and find food or you starve, look out for your family and your village or you won’t have a world. If you have books to read or pens to write with, you treasure them. It’s hard to go from that mindset to “he said this, she did that” and öh my god I missed my bus and I have to wait another 15 minutes for the next one!” A lot of the crap that I used to give myself an ulcer stressing over just doesn’t seem so important anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the details aren’t important. I know that the minutiae behind the decisions that are made can have massive “consequences. I know that the political arguments and intrigues are deeply important (nowhere is that more apparent than in places like mainland Fiji which is so politically screwed up it’s beyond words) – I just need to get my brain working back on that level again. I can do it if I concentrate, but it’s not natural like it used to be.

So where does the punk cabaret come in? Well I decided I needed something to bridge the gap, something creative (other than writing), that no-one was paying me to do, and something that wouldn’t be the end of the world if I screwed up.

So when I heard that ticket sales for punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls weren’t going so well in New Zealand and they were looking for street teams to poster and get the word out, I jumped at the opportunity.

Listening to the Dolls on my i-Pod helped heaps during my first few night-watches at sea. They are so punchy and anarchic and joyful that it’s almost impossible to be scared when  you are listening to them.

This song was a particular favourite:

The Dresden Dolls – Sing

Those of you who are masochistic enough to have been with me from the beginning may remember this blog I wrote before we left:

And I never lose my wallet

The Amanda Palmer who wrote that particular song is one half of the Dresden Dolls, so I figured it was worth a repost

They are not everyone’s cup of tea, and definitely not Paddy’s (he is more of a Tom Petty man – who I also think is awesome). But I figure if we can survive eight months at sea without killing each other then we can cope with having different tastes in music. Though when admitted he didn’t particularly like my one true obsession – David Bowie – it did nearly end in mutiny. It kind of put me in mind of a song by a lady called Eileen Quinn called “”If I killed the Captain” – A sample of the lyricS:

But if I killed the captain – really, who would know?

We’re two weeks out of port, we’ve got one more week to go,

And all that it would take,

Would be a timely little shove… whoops!”

For some reason this is a favourite song among many women cruisers! She’s a little bit country and not my normal style, but the lyrics are brilliant and I’ve developed rather a weakness!

So anyway, I’ve been spending my evenings going around Wellington putting up posters in strange places, playing with glitter pens and fraggles – and it has been damned therapeutic! It’s helping me find the other Anna again. She was always there, but she’d just taken a back seat for a bit. Punk Cabaret Therapy might not work for everyone, but it certainly has for me!

So the Wellington Gig is this Saturday at the Opera House and the details for that and the Christchurch and Auckland gigs are here:

Upcoming shows

If you want to come along I am pretty sure it will be awesome!

In a nutshell yeah, I’m a different person – I’ve done some things that scared the hell out of me, I’ve stuffed up some things but was lucky enough  to be able to learn from my mistakes. I found things about myself I didn’t really like very much and things that I am extremely proud of – and I am sure I will be able to find a way to channel that into my life back home.

In the meantime – thanks to punk cabaret, I am starting to appreciated the stimulation again – bring the noise!

What’s in a name?

Since its silly season and we are being inundated with news stories about baby names I figured it would be a pretty good time for me to finally write my boat name blog.

 When I was a junior reporter I got all the good jobs – and one of them was the dreaded Baby Name Story. Back then this hardy annual involved physically going through the birth section of the year’s papers and picking out the most popular and any patterns.

 The year I landed the job we had a run of precious stones. We had a Diamond, an Opal, an Emerald and several Rubies. This year I was quite surprised to see history repeating itself with Ruby being the most popular girls’ name. I was quite shocked. I’d figured it would be something from the Twilight saga.

I guess the inner cub-journo never dies because I found myself doing the same thing on our Pacific trip – collecting quirky boat names and picking up patterns.

Our boat – Wildflower (II because of a teensy lapse in registration) was named after a Tom Petty song about freedom on the ocean (or perhaps wacky bakky – who would know?) and there were certainly a number of other musically inspired names out there.

They ranged from the Pink Floyd inspired – Comfortably Numb and Crazy Diamond to the sublimely tacky Elvis on Tour – complete with picture of The King’s head. Others included Simply Red (painted red), Santana and – a personal favourite of mine – a big old steel lady called Iron Maiden.

Then there were the fantasy inspired names. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe produced Narnia and Dawn Treader, Lord of the Rings Frodo and Star Wars Jedi.

Back home in Opua I was quite taken with the names of the racing boats at the local yacht club – Trouble Bubble, Frivolous Fish and – my favourite – Hogwarts Express!

Others that tickled my fancy were Saline Solution, Bamboozle, Secret Agent Man, New Kitchen and the Magic Roundabout. We also came across one called Viagra, which prompted all sorts of theories on how it earned its name!

We also heard tale of a boat called Jolly Rogering which caused much hilarity when called over the radio.

Bad Kitty was one of my favourite names for a catamaran, closely followed by Catatonic.

Colour and name also went together with some boats with Simply Red joined by, Citrus Tart – yellow and our friends Fergus and Dianne’s boat Only Blue, which was dark blue until they discovered the sunlight on the paint made it really hot.

There were also lovely puns like Sea-esta, several Infinities and numerous variations of Charisma.

The flip side of the annual baby name story is the list of names people were not allowed to call their babies. These have included such gems as Violence, No. 7 Bus Shelter and the poor girl who had to go to court to have her name changed from Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii.

You are also not allowed to give your child a royal title or any other that they have not actually earned and the same goes for boats. You are still not allowed to name a boat after a member of the royal family, because back in the day most royals had boats names after themselves. I am unsure whether there are any other rules about what you can and can’t name a boat, but would be interested to find out!

Paddy says if he ever got another boat (don’t listen Wildflower!) he would name it Never Again II, so here is my question to you. If you had a boat, what would you name it? I think boat names say a lot about people.

I would also love to hear any interesting boat names that other boaties have come across –  just to add to my collection 🙂

 

Christmas at Sea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parking woes and playing with dolphins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Floating trailer trash

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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!