Tag: Sea

Patience is a virtue…

Leaving Wellington - oh so long ago!
 
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

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!

And I never lose my wallet

“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.

That, and matching socks are overrated.

Rock on!

The countdown begins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Chilling out at Erie Bay
Flipper Bay bound

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Waiting at the entrance of Tory Channel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Captain Paddy got us home safe and sound

I passed!!!

Hi all,

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

I PASSED MY BOATMASTERS!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wish us luck 🙂

I’m sorry Dad!

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop staring at my bum!

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

Fish out of water

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

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

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

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

Don't look dooown...

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it

There's a fridge under here - honest!

Someone once described cruising as “the art of boat maintenance in exotic locations” – and I am in absolutely no doubt this is true. But what they fail to mention is the large amount of work that needs to be done before setting out for more tropical climes.

Evidence of this is The List – a document Paddy uses to keep track of what needs to be done before hitting the waves. Ever since I have known Paddy The List has been shrinking and growing – as quickly as items were ticked off, more were added, but finally now it seems to be on a downward trend.

One of the biggest jobs to be crossed off  The List involved more dust and mess than I had seen in all the grotty student flats I have lived in put together – and that’s saying something!

Sanding and repainting a boat’s bilges is a once-every-10-years job, and unfortunately Wildflower’s 10 years were up.

Before I met Wildflower I didn’t really know what a bilge was. Through pirate insults like ‘scurvy bilge rat’  I’d kind of figured it was something sewer-like and gross, but that was the extent of my knowledge.

The bilge is actually the inside of the bottom of the boat –  (“the lowest compartment inside the hull of a ship” according to fount of all knowledge that is Wikipedia). It’s where water that overflows from the decks of the ship collects. When there is too much water sloshing about on deck (say during a storm) to make it safe to walk on, the boat is designed to funnel this water to the bottom where it can be sucked out by bilge pumps (this is a very amateur summary so feel free to correct me!)

The scurvy bilge rat insult stemmed from the fact that, along with water, bird poo, food scraps, and bodily waste from dirty sailors of old, also ended up in the bilges – so it really wasn’t a pleasant place to be. Before mechanisation bilges used to have to be pumped by hand and this rather disgusting job was reserved for junior sailors or those that had managed to upset the captain.

So the bilge is actually a pretty important part of the boat – and because bilge water can get quite acidic and generally grotty, it’s important to have a good layer of paint on the bottom to prevent it from eating through.

While this sounds relatively simple, the 10 year repaint actually involves ripping up the floor of the boat, sandblasting what is underneath to within an inch of its life and twisting your body into all sorts of unnatural positions (a practice Paddy has dubbed Boat Yoga) in order to repaint it.

The sandblasting process involved many long nights and weekends and rendered the boat uninhabitable. Paddy ended up living in a backpackers near the marina (aka the Roach Motel) so he could come and go from the boat during whatever insane hours he needed to. The result was more dirt and dust than I actually thought existed in the world.

While I was more hindrance than help with the sandblasting, I really wanted to be able to do something to help Paddy so I embarked on the biggest cleaning expedition of my entire life. While Paddy was playing contortionist with a paintbrush I turned my hair, clothing and skin grey attacking the dust. For a while it was exceedingly frustrating because for every layer of dust I removed a new ones seemed to appear overnight. But it was an incredibly fulfilling feeling when surfaces began to reappear again. It also makes me feel a lot safer knowing exactly what is at the bottom of the boat and that it’s clean and shiny and newly painted.

I am pleased that particular hurdle is over though – Paddy pretty much exhausted himself – but with a stubborn and determined streak a mile wide, he wasn’t going to slow down until the job was done. I’m sure Wildflower appreciates it though – I know I do.

Emerging from the dusty depths
The galley - before
The galley after
The cleaning lady
Bilge undercoat
boat yoga