Yay!! It looks like I’m able to upload photos again so I am going to stuff as many as I can into this post. The technical difficulties may have stemmed from the fact that the wifi antenna at the yacht club was left sitting on a rather jaunty angle after some rather gnarly winds swept through here. It appears to be upright again now, so fingers crossed!
Paddy with our shiney new NZ ensign flag ready for duty
I should probably also mention that I have Cal the travelling good luck troll with me as I upload, so credit where credit’s due 🙂
Fergus takes the wheel
Night watches were a little chilly until we got further north!
First mate Fergus
Heading round East Cape
East Cape
Fergus hoping in vain for some wind to blow us around East Cape
It's a tough life!
Leaving Whitianga after refuelling due to lack of wind
Paddy playing with his navigating toys
Sun setting over Needle Rock leaving Whitianga
Needle Rock
A slightly salty sunset
There are some much better sunset shots from the Opua trip!
Auckland skyline - lots and lots of lights!
The awesome orange flowers work gave me before we left
Okay, so the last shot has nothing to do with the Welly to Auckland trip – I just really like the flowers!
Sorry guys! WordPress seems to hate my photos at the moment so this is all you get (will try sticking them up on Facebook)
Well my idyllic introduction into the world of cruising has been a little less than idyllic.
It has, however, been an amazing learning curve and certainly hasn’t been boring!
We are holed up in Opua with the rest of the fleet at the moment and it doesn’t look like we will be out of here any time before Friday. The weather, not to put too fine a point on it, has been complete arse – interspersed with the odd fine patches.
Apparently this has been the longest time the Island Cruising Association has held off on leaving and one or two skippers are definitely getting a little bit twitchy! The good news is that from Friday onwards we should be heading into a great big high with just the right amount of wind blowing in the right direction – ie perfect sailing conditions. Most people (particularly those of us who had a bit of an uncomfortable trip up here) are more than happy to hang around for the good stuff!
The only real issue is boats with crew who have a set amount of leave and have booked flights back from Tonga – though it looks like our crew will be okay – thank goodness! It sucks for some people who pretty much have to turn around and go back as soon as they arrive but, as I am fast learning, that is the nature of cruising!
Poor old Paddy had this lovely vision of us having a b beautiful sail up north, which would help me become more of an experienced boat-chick for the trip offshore. Unfortunately. the weather had other ideas.
We either had no wind at all or it was blowing from the direction we wanted to go in – making for a couple of lumpy nights.
I’ve had some great help through the scarier bits from both Paddy and a friend of ours Fergus, who was kind enough to help us take the boat from Wellington to Auckland and Auckland to Opua. Fergus was really patient with me jumping at shadows and was a brilliant help when it came to the early morning watches. I definitely think I would be in a much different headspace going in to this if it wasn’t for him!
For the first couple of days out of Wellington both Paddy and I were rather jumpy. Paddy was up and down like a meerkat checking out the boat’s every little whirr and creak and I was making myself nervous about having to do night watches.
For my first couple of night watches I was hyper-vigilant, jumping at stars and shadows, thinking they were land or other ships. At one point I dragged Paddy out of bed because I spotted the port light of a HUGE ship that wasn’t showing on the radar and was heading straight for us. It turned out to be the moon rising.
(I have since discovered this is a common rookie mistake so I don’t feel so bad!)
After a while though I realised that things happen pretty slowly out at sea and looking around every 10 minutes is just fine. Once I got a little more relaxed about it I was able to set up an alarm, put my ipod on and lie back and watch the stars, which was quite lovely.
I have to admit there were times when things were a little challenging for me on that trip. We had quite a few fishing boats lurking around in the dark during a particularly lumpy night when the wind was against us, and they did make me a bit panicky. We were also shepherded out of the way by a ridiculously long vessel we later discovered was a ship towing a 10 kilometre cable doing a seismic survey. We suspect it was the Petrobas boat, which could be why it didn’t radio to tell us what it was up to – it probably thought we were protestors, but all we wanted to do was get out of its way!
Navigating our way into Auckland harbour at night was also pretty exciting. We wouldn’t have done it the way we did if we didn’t have Fergus’s local knowledge, but he was able to expertly guide us on a rather interesting course. The scary thing about heading towards Auckland is that there are so many damned lights it seems impossible to see which ones apply to you – what I thought was a navigation buoy tur ned out to be the Skytower!
It took us four days to get to Auckland and we arrived at 5am, absolutely knackered. Fergus’s wife Dianne had managed to secure us a berth next to their boat in the marina (they are both live-aboards too) and we had a Champaign breakfast – minus the breakfast – to celebrate completing our first leg, before falling into unconsciousness.
We camped out at Bayswater Marina for a few days waiting for a window in what was already looking like some pretty crummy weather. It worked out great for us though. We were literally able to step off our boat and onto Fergus and Dianne’s, where we had some delicious meals (Dianne is a primo cook!) and great company. Dianne also gave me lots of helpful tips for cruising survival and some bread recipes I’m looking forward to trying out.
I also had a surprise visit from quite a large chunk of my family, some who live in Auckland and even an auntie from Australia (will post pics when WordPress loves me again) which was really lovely. So Paddy got to meet the family, all at once, in a very small space! He did very well and I have a sneaking suspicion they might quite like him 😉
Mum and Dad came to check out the boat before heading off to meet us in Opua (which is just as well because we couldn’t get a marina berth in Opua and had to anchor off and I don’t think Mum fancied a lumpy dingy ride!) They’ve spent the past few days with us, which has been really great and even arranged for a bit of shore leave for me.
Hanging around in Opua has been really interesting actually because it has given me a good insight into the sailing community here and the people we will be travelling with.
The next blog will be an Opua special (including the trip over) and hopefully I’ll be able to get some photos up as well xx
I apologise in advance for what will probably be a sorry excuse for a blog.
I have enough material and photographs to write about 10 of the things on our last few weeks of preparation, but we have pretty much run out of time – so you’re not getting any of them.
I do promise a huge blog backlog when we get to the islands though!
At this stage it looks like we will be leaving for Auckland on Monday. That should take 4 to 5 days, and then we head for Opua. From there we will sail on to Tonga around April 30.
I have to say this unemployment lark has not been living up to its reputation at all! (Although I’m not technically unemployed as I am taking unpaid leave from my job)
Instead of sitting around smoking pot and playing playstation (or whatever else our lovely minister of social development believes unemployed people do) we’ve been getting up earlier than did while we were working and have been going round the clock getting Wildflower ready to leave. Paddy even ended up pulling an all-nighter rewiring the engine panel!
At this stage it looks like sailing across the Pacific is going to be the easiest part of the whole process! (touch wood.)
There have been a few speed bumps on the road to paradise (like the company we insured the boat with going bust and me thinking my cat had done a runner) but everything has been sorted now.
We have been given the okay by our new insurance company, and just minutes ago Wildflower had her category 1 status sign off – woo hoo! (there is a whole blog waiting to be written about this, but it will just have to continue waiting for the moment.)
I know I have been a bit of a stress bunny lately – and I would just like give a big thank you to my family and friends who have helped and supported us and put up with my twitchiness.
I would also like to thank those people (and tradespeople) who have gone the extra mile to help us out and who gave us faith in humanity when others were stuffing us around.
In the wonderful people category I would like to include;
Mike our lovely next door neighbour – an engineering geek like Paddy – who has been over on our boat day and night helping weld stuff and mount stuff and who lent us his 4W drive to help clear out one of Paddy’s sheds. We will be meeting he and his wife Danica in New Caledonia and they will be sailing back to NZ with us, which should be a lot of fun.
Jenn and Trevor for helping us out with the (increasingly frustrating) job of getting the cockpit cushions sewn. In the end it turned out that we were working with a sewing machine that was in need of a serious tune-up – so Jenn’s infinite patience and Trevor’s help in eventually out-sourcing the work was very much appreciated.
Rebecca and Jared for helping me out with the grocery shopping trip to end all shopping trips at Moore Wilsons to stock Wildflower up for the journey.
Paddy’s Dad David for looking after my fur-child Ollie while we’re gone. It makes me feel so much better knowing he will be living in a place that he knows, where he will be looked after and fussed over rather than being shoved in a cattery.
My Mum and Dad, for supporting me through all the lunacy. Mum for staying strong and supportive even though I know this trip worries her and she will find it hard to let us go (we will be fine though!) and Dad for going back to school to get his amateur radio licence so he can talk to us out at sea. Oh, and one more for Mum for letting Dad put a dirty great pole in the middle of her garden to aid in said communication!
(there is a blog – and photos – on this to come!)
In the wonderful tradies category I want to include our international boat building family (Gregor the Maltese welder and David the Chilean carpenter) for all their hard work making Wildflower safe and beautiful inside and out.
Grant Henderson who managed to tame our recalcitrant sewing machine and even made us a repair kit to take away with us, should it need further ‘persuasion’ (for the record, the machine is running beautifully now.)
Dave and Ian from Wellington Providoring who have also been a great help.
Finally I would like to thank Paddy for building a beautiful boat for us to go away in and for working so hard to make sure that it is safe. Also a huge thank you for being there for me when I became a crumbling wreck after I thought Ollie had run away. To be fair (even though he probably has better eyesight than me) an 80 year old man looking for a black cat that likes hiding in dark places was always going to be a big ask – but I wasn’t about to see sense. I think it was the final push that broke down the damn holding the stress, tiredness and nervousness in and I just needed to wail like a banshee for a bit. I’m fine now (and the cat came back) and feel heaps better for it, and Paddy didn’t run away screaming, which is always a good sign!
Hopefully we will be able to jump online some time before we head to the islands, but if not. I’ll write again when I’m lazing under a coconut tree drinking something with an umbrella in it 🙂
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.
* 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
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!
“And in my mind In the far-away here-and-now I’ve become in-control somehow And I never lose my wallet
Because I Will be the picture of discipline Never fucking-up anything And I’ll be a good defensive driver…”
In my mind – Amanda Palmer
Yes I have just bought Amanda Palmer’s latest album – and you are probably (quite rightly) wondering what on earth this has to do with sailing.
Well the lyrics to this particular song jumped out at me in so many ways – particularly looking what I’m about to do.
WARNING: The following involves navel-gazing and has nothing to do with the mechanics of sailing – so boat geeks may wish to tune out now.
Right (rips off bandaid)
I’m turning 30 in couple of months (ouch – that really did hurt quite a bit!)
By the time I turned 30 I was supposed to have my shit together. I was going to be more organised, I was going to have stopped being scatter-brained and losing things, I was going to be a confident, competent driver, I was going to have my own house and at least 3 cats. I was going to have a sense of direction and stop panicking and swearing when I got stressed. I was going to be a published author, a journalist that made a difference for people who needed it and I would have at least three pairs of matching socks.
I was dangerously close to getting some of that too. I had the journo job, I looked at houses, I forced myself to drive , I learned to use a filing cabinet – and I wasn’t happy.
“…And in my mind When I’m old I am beautiful, Planting tulips and vegetables Which I will mindfully watch over
Not like me now I’m so busy with everything That I don’t look at anything But I’m sure I’ll look when I am older…”
So I packed it all in and moved to Wellington. I jumped to the dark side from journalism to comms for a teachers’ union (a job I love and hope does make a difference) I pretty much stopped driving (great public transport so no need) and I moved into a rented flat with my cat.
“And it’s funny how I imagined That I would be that person now But it does not seem to have happened Maybe I’ve just forgotten how To see That I’ll never be the person that I thought I’d be.”
If we go by my original standards. I’m nowhere near where I am supposed to be right now.
Instead I met a dirty old pirate and am running away to sea with him. I learned how to sail, swim with beautiful creatures underwater and do a lot of other things that scare me. Sometimes when I look at it all it can seem quite overwhelming.
“…And in my mind I imagine so many things Things that aren’t really happening And when they put me in the ground
I’ll start pounding the lid, Saying, “I haven’t finished yet, I still have a tattoo to get, It says, ‘I’m living in the moment'”.
I still have to work on the swearing and panicking when I get stressed, I still lose things and get frustrated with myself when I do. There is so much to organise and learn and do before we go – and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in my life right now.
“…Maybe it isn’t all that funny That I’ve been fighting all my life But maybe I have to think it’s funny If I want to live before I die And maybe it’s funniest of all To think I’ll die before I actually See That I am exactly the person that I want to be.
Fuck yes.
I am exactly the person that I want to be.”
To me this song says we can drive ourselves nuts with visions of who we should be and how we should act at certain points in our lives, and miss the amazing stuff that’s staring us right in the face.
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 BayFlipper 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 BayNative bush at Flipper BayPaddy 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 broodBut 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.
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-upTools 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.
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!
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!
