Sailing away from New Zealand

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Well I have successfully transitioned from being a backpacker to being a yachtie. I wouldn't call myself a cruiser until I have earned my stripes doing an ocean crossing. I've been living on "La Vie" with Dave, the captain, for about a month and a half now. We've been having a great time doing sails around the Bay of Islands and northern New Zealand. When I first got here we did a 3 day sail around the Bay of Islands where we did some nice, but chilly snorkeling and picked a bunch of Green Lipped mussels that we steamed for dinner. We sailed out to the bay opening near 'hole in the rock' where I caught 5 fish, but only landed one. It was a Kahawai, which wasn't that great, but we ate it anyways, since I killed it. We entered in one of the Sunday night yacht club races, we had fun but didn't do too well, only because we had no idea where the race course was. We sailed up to a nice little marina called Keri Keri where we had a lovely dinner at the yacht club on the top of the hill. The next day we did another all day race.

Dave and I did a road trip up to the very northern tip of New Zealand, Cape Reigna. The first day we drove all the way up 90 mile beach, which is more like 90k beach. It's a hard packed sand mainly for 4 wheeled drives. We felt like the Honda prelude could handle it! The only thing you really need to be careful of is getting out of there before high tide, or you will be swimming. We got a little lost, that is we thought we could get off the beach at the end, but we had to come almost all the way back to get off the beach. We drove at speeds up to 100mph on the sand. All we really needed at that point was a few open containers to feel like real hoodlums. We then drove up to the light house at the northern tip and made it just at sunset. We stayed up there for several hours, sipping wine and watching the confused seas where the Tasman and the Pacific meet. The next day we went to some beautiful huge sand dunes that we climbed up and tried to roll down. From there to Kari Kari peninsula for some wine tasting, beach walking and cove swimming.

We are staying in Opua Marina, where about 2 weeks ago we were the center of a natural disaster. We had 2 days of heavy non stop rain, 17 inches fell. All the roads to the Marina were closed due to landslides. Power and water were lost for several days. About 300 people were stranded at the yacht club, including about 40 orphans (not sure where they came from). Fortunately living on a boat these things don't affect us much as we are completely self sufficient. The only problems we had was cabin fever and the fact that we were running out of beer. We decided on taking a big trip, a walk up to the laundry (the Marina social center!) Hunkered down in all our rain gear and a big umbrella we made it up there to find out that all the other live aboard boaters were up there also hanging out. Everyone got cabin fever about the same time. We grabbed a few people and decided to try and drive to a nearby restaurant/bar for some grub, but turns out the roads had just started washing out at that point...good thing we didn't make it out before. We decided then to raid the little marina store of what we can get our hands on (being the first to have knowledge that we were going to be stranded for several days), so we loaded up on sausages and beer and moved the party to our boat to wait out the storm. The storm knocked many boats off their moorings, and some were just floating out in the bay. After the rain ceased the head government official flew into the marina on a helicopter and the Army came up to help put things back together.

Dave and I volunteered at a winery during the harvest. We mainly wanted to get the experience, but we also wanted to get a good deal on some very nice wine. We worked for 2 days at Cottle Hill Winery. Unfortunately all the grapes were ruined. 2 inches of rain at this very vulnerable stage would have been a disaster, but 17 inches!!! We tried to salvage as many grapes we could, the only thing they can do with them is make Rose.

Just before Easter our new crew, Chris arrived. He's a 26 year old American with a Masters in geology. He's done some extensive traveling and work all over the world. He's been on a working holiday in New Zealand for the past year. We sailed the boat up to Whangaroa Harbour along with some other yachts over the Easter Weekend. We caught a big King fish on the way up which we grilled for dinner. The next morning one of our mooring neighbors dropped off 3 snappers that they caught. I can get used to this! We had some lovely weather and did a great hike. I surprised both the guys with chocolate bunnies on Easter morning, after scarfing those down, they both had bad toothaches for a few days. We ended up going to the dentist and they each had problems with their fillings that had to get replaced (good thing that was caught before we are in the middle of the pacific).

For now the fun is temporary halted as we work tirelessly on getting the boat prepared for passage. I've just finished washing and waxing the boat. We've already gone into town and done all our provisioning. We spent about $400 on food. I download weather faxes from the Internet everyday and study the weather patterns for a few hours. We have also consulted with a professional meteorologist to give us his opinion on a good weather window for departure. On our passage, Dave will try to send short emails everyday to his blog, via the single sideband radio, describing where we our and how things are going. You can check these out by going to:

http://www.svlavie.blogspot.com/

We plan to leave here tomorrow and head to Tonga. The passage should be 7-10 days. It's going to be very cold leaving here, but should warm up about half way to the tropics. From there on to Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomans Islands. We need to be out of Cyclone/Hurricane zone around early December so we are thinking of going to Papua New Guinia, Australia or Palau, but really up in the air for now. Once we leave here I don't know how accesible internet will be, especially in tonga, so you may not hear from me for a while. Thanks for following along!

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