MAY 2001 May 1st, 2001 Latitude 27 degrees 11 minutes 06 seconds South Longitude: 153 degrees 06 minutes 03 seconds East Scarborough Harbor Marina May 1st has finally arrived. I can’t believe we have been here almost 6 months! Where does the time go? I guess its true about that ol’ saying “time flies when you’re having fun” just depends on how you define FUN?  This morning we packed our bags for New Zealand and said our good byes to the last of our cruising friends, for they will most likely all be gone when return from New Zealand. This is probably the most difficult part of the sailing lifestyle for me. You make new friends along the way and then they come and go, some permanently and some temporary, but it seems like we are always saying “good-bye and fair winds”.  Today we said fair winds to George and Sara on Kemo Sabay who are heading to Indonesia and to Hiedren and Dieter on Pomerin who are heading home to South Africa. Who knows if and when we will see them again?  The Shearwaters gave us a ride to the airport and we were on a jet plane to New Zealand. We flew Air New Zealand, which I will have to say is the nicest airlines I’ve flown. The staff was very courteous and professional. Something about flying on an airplane that always makes me feel like we are going on a big vacation. So I was looking forward to this little trip away from the boat. We had a quick 3-hour flight over the Tasman Sea and we land in New Zealand. New Zealand consists of two islands, the North Island and the South Island. We are going to the North Island, which lies approximately 36 degrees south, and 175 degrees west.  This is approximately 10 degrees further south than Brisbane and it is approaching winter down here, so we aren’t expecting great weather. It was dark, raining and very cold when we arrived so we quickly found a place to stay on the outskirts of Auckland and called it day. The native people of New Zealand are Polynesian descendents and are called Maori. The Maori called this land Aotearoa, which means the land of the long white cloud, or in the case of our visit, the land of the long gray cloud! In 1642 the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sailed along the shores of Aotearoa and named it Niuew Zeeland. Later in 1769 the famous explorer James Cook sailed around New Zealand mapping the shores as he went and claiming the land for the British. Wednesday May 2nd, 2001 Auckland, New Zealand David and I called the place where we were to pick up a rental car. They would not come and get us so we had to make our way to down town Auckland by bus. So we headed down the highway with our bags in the pouring rain to the nearest bus stop. We finally found our bus and were on our way to the city center. We were dropped off at the transit center and then walked the rest of the way in the pouring rain to the car rental place. It’s very cold, gray sky, and wet! So far it reminds me a lot of Seattle. The one thing that has struck me the most interesting about New Zealand so far is the presence of the Maori People in the town center. We have been in Australia for 6 months and have only seen one aboriginal person; I have seen many Maori adults and children so far. We hired a car and with the help of the lonely planet guide found a nice little place in the suburb of Parnell to use as base camp while we explored Auckland. We made our way down to the West Haven marina in pouring cold rain and found a place to have a late breakfast. We soon were exploring all the giant boat chandlers’ that Auckland had to offer. We visited several boat riggers in the hopes of having a rigid boom vang made, but so far we’re not very impressed. We finally gave up on driving around in the pouring cold rain and went back to our room. We walked around the little village of Parnell and visited several great little art galleries and found a great Thai restaurant for dinner. It was raining so hard we could barely make it across the street and to the restaurant. The place was traditional Thai and we sat on the floor with cushions. The ceiling above where I was sitting was leaking rain and they had to put a bucket under the leak to catch the water. Tonight on the news it was reported that this was an extraordinary down pour. They had 60 mm of rain that day and most of it in the last 3 hours. This caused a lot of havoc at rush hour for the streets were flooded, sewage was flooding into the streams and beaches from overflowing pumping station and houses flooded. What a weird night it was. Thursday May 3rd, 2001 Auckland, New Zealand Across the street from our little hotel was a nice big old Starbucks.  We made our way over there for a coffee and bite to eat for breakfast. With gray cloudy sky and rainy drizzle, I could have sworn we were in Seattle! We made our way back over to the west Havana Marina to track down another rigger. We found him out on a finger pier and he gave us a tour of the boom vangs he had made and installed on boats in that marina. After we were done with him we went over to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron to visit the Americas Club trophy. There was a delightful guy who gave us a tour of the trophy room and the club. They had the Americas Cup in its own special trophy case, and if you tried to get too close a look the bells and whistles began to go off.  If you were to actually touch the glass a cage would drop down from the ceiling. They are very concerned about the security, for the first time they won the cup someone broke in and gave it a few good bashings. We had a great time there talking to this guy for at least an hour. He gave us directions to find the Americas Cup basin to take a look at where the big boats are preparing for the next campaign. We made our way there to see what was going on. Prada still had their headquarters all set up as well as the New Zealand team. The rest were demolished and some being reconstructed. Looks like more excitement is on the way and in just a short 18 months the next challenger series will begin. Now it was time to go see something I wanted to see, so we made our way over to the Auckland Museum. We spent the better part of day exploring the 3 floors of information the museum had to offer as well as a traditional Maori performance. The first floor of the museum was full of exhibits from the south pacific islands as well as the Maori of New Zealand. As I looked over carvings, tapa cloth and art work from new Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa and French Polynesia, I thought what a keen observer I’ve become, for I could tell which countries various works were from with out looking at the labels.  A major part of the 1st floor was dedicated to the Maori life style and there were great displays of the their housing, food storage houses, canoes, and war clubs. The Maori appear to be very rich in culture and art for everything was very intricately carved with a special purpose and meaning. The second floor of the museum was dedicated to the natural world of New Zealand. Here we learned about the geology, plant life, and wild life of the islands. The North Island of New Zealand was formed from a series of volcanoes and volcanic activity. This happened when one of the earth’s plates slid under another in a subduction zone. This is what has caused the volcanic activity in New Zealand, once again very similar to the Pacific Northwest in the United States.  The presence of large volcanic mountains and the many geothermal pools still steaming away remind us New Zealand’s fiery beginnings. The most famous wild life in New Zealand is the Kiwi bird. It’s a small bird about the size of a chicken, but has no wings and dark brown feathers that almost look like fur. It’s a nocturnal bird so it’s very rare to actually see one in the wild. The 3rd floor of the museum was dedicated to war and war memorials, I decided to let David explore this floor on his own while I went back to the ground floor to observe some current works of art. While we were at the museum we were treated to small intimate Maori performance. They were dressed in traditional costumes and shared with us a few of their traditional songs, weaponry display and poi dance preformed by the women. We were fairly wiped out from a full day of activity so we made our way back to the room and found dinner at the same Thai restaurant, this time for a little dryer evening! Friday May 4th, 2001 Russell, New Zealand Today we will make our way up to the Bay of Islands in north end of the North Island to look for our friends at the various marinas. It’s still raining and cold so it’s a good day for site seeing form the car window.  We first stopped in Whangarei, for we heard that this is where Phantom and Moonlighter are residing. Sure enough the Phantom boat was there, but we had just missed them by one hour as they loaded up to go back to Seattle for the next year, new baby, bird, kids and all. We did find the Tucumcarrie boat and had nice visit with them. They are planning on coming to Australia next year so we were able to answer a lot of questions for them about where to check in and customs. Just as we were ready to give up and leave, Jim and Lindy from Moonlighter found us and invited us back to their boat for lunch. I think they wanted to show us their new exterior paint job they had just finished and boy did it look nice. A few red racing stripes should make them go fast. After a nice visit they gave us a wet dinghy ride back to land and we were off again to points further north. We finally arrived in the little sleepy town of Opua and found the marina. We went in and asked for the Flyers only to find out that their boat was there but that they were in Auckland. Oh well, we took the little ferry over to Russell and found a real nice place to stay along the beach. By now the wind is blowing and it’s still pouring rain. We walked over to the grocery store to get something to prepare for dinner and were totally soaked by the time we returned. We spent the night watching movies and trying to keep warm. We listened to the wind howl all night long. The doors and window on the small apartment rattled in the wind most of the night. Saturday May 5th, 2001 Russell, New Zealand We decided to stay in Russell one more day to see the sights in the Bay of the Islands. The Bay of Islands is an area in northern New Zealand that contains approximately 150 islands with coves and bays of turquoise and dark deep blue waters. The Bay of Islands is also the site of New Zealand’s first English settlement.  In 1840 the treaty of Waitangi was drawn up by signed by 46 Maori chiefs in the Bay of islands. We took the little ferry back across to Opua and checked the marina one more time for the Flyer’s. This time they were home! Boy were they surprised to see us. Turned out they had been at the Americas Cup Trophy yesterday about 15 minutes after we were. What timing. The Flyer’s were going to be leaving the marina today and move over to the anchorage in Russell, so they invited us to meet them at the Russell Boat Club later that night for dinner. David and I hit the road to go explore some other little towns in the Bay of Islands. We went to visit Dez of Russell Radio. This is an older gentleman who everyday runs a net on the single side ban radio for boats cruising in the South Pacific. He gives a weather report and then checks in and keeps track of all boats in the area. He does all this on a volunteer basis so we just wanted to stop by and say thank- you. He ended up being quite a character. We soon found ourselves in the town of Paihia. This was an interesting little tourist town with many gift shops and eateries. We soon hit the road again and found ourselves in Kerikeri. Kerikeri is an agricultural area, know mostly for its kiwi fruit. We had actually met a guy sailing in Samoa last year whose name was Kerry and was a kiwi farmer from Kerikeri. Pretty funny, and now we have seen it. Most shops were closed due to it being Saturday afternoon and all. In this county most things shut down at noon on Saturday and don’t open again until Monday morning. At least it wasn’t raining so we were able to get out and walk around a bit. The hillsides on our little drive were dotted with the famous New Zealand sheep and cows.  After an afternoon of site seeing we made our way back to Russell and the boat club. We soon found the Flyer girls with Sophia from Nanu. It was the end of the racing season for the boat club and they were having a big celebration and dinner. We were lucky to have arrived on such a festive occasion. We had a great dinner and a lovely evening sharing stories with the Flyers and hearing about their journeys after we departed in Bora Bora. We also saw friends from Nanu and Moon Penney as well. We met many new cruisers who will be hoping to arrive in Australia next year. It was a fun night and we hated to leave but it was getting late and we were freezing. Sunday May 6th, 2001 Russell, New Zealand HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID! This morning we packed up our gear and left the little apartment and made our way to the anchorage in Russell to meet the Flyers. They dinghied us out to their boat for a giant birthday brunch for David. There were 5 girls and 6 adults, wow such a racket I’ hadn’t heard in along time. We had a lovely day on the Flyers boat and it actually quit raining! We stayed there until around 3 in the afternoon when decided that we better get going. The Flyers will be leaving New Zealand with in the week, weather permitting. From New Zealand they are going to Fiji, American Samoa and then hopefully Hawaii if the winds are right, if not they will keep going all the way back to Canada! Yikes, glad we’re not making that trip. Well looks like this will be the last time we see the Flyers until we go back to Seattle. We said our good byes and were on our way. This time we were hoping to make it to the town of Rotorua, which is a town south of Auckland.  Unfortunately we had gotten too late of a start and the road was very winding and David didn’t feel like doing all that hard driving on his birthday so we pulled over in a little town just for the night. Monday May 7th, 2001 Rotorua, New Zealand The sun is shinning and the birds are singing so it has started out to be a beautiful day. We took a nice stroll along the beach this morning before we hopped back in the car to drive south again. We managed to get to Auckland just in time for the morning rush hour traffic, but we managed to make the slow crawl through the city and proceeded on to Rotorua. Rotorua is in the central part of the north island and world famous for its volcanic activity of geysers, hot springs, boiling mud pools and sulphur smell. As we approach the town known as Sulphur City we could see big clouds of steam rising above the city as well as begin to smell the rotten egg smell of sulphur. When we arrived around 2:00 in the afternoon we soon figured out that we were in the tourist mecca of the north island. There were streets and street of hotels, motels and resorts, all advertising hot thermal springs and private spas. We drove around until we found one we liked. Lucky for us we found one that just opened two weeks ago and since it was considered the low season they were very anxious to rent us a room for an extremely nice rate. This was a fantastic place with a spa in the unit. I could hardly wait to soak in that big tub! After a quick break from the car we soon headed back into the heart of town to explore the shops and figure out what we would do with our two days to spend here. There is plenty to explore and see so we will be very busy.  Tuesday May 8th, 2001 Rotorua, New Zealand After pouring over all the brochures of things to do, we decided that we would try to get in a little Maori culture while still seeing some of the county side. We started out the day by first finding a place called Whakarewareewa. I know that is a mouth full, but our tour guide instructed us that it is pronounced Faka-raywa-raywa or shorted by most to just plain Whaka. This mysterious place is known as the Thermal Maori Village built all around geysers, hot springs and boiling mud pools. Our guide, who grew up in this village, pointed out all the sites to us along the way and shared what knowledge he had on the Maori traditions. We made a stop by one of the boiling water pools where a girl was cooking corn on the cob in the hot sulphur water. Little wooden boxes with lids dotted the paths around this cooking pool. These boxes are called Hangi and are used to put chicken, bread and vegetables in to be cooked. All the families in the village shared these boxes for cooking food from the natural heat the earth had to offer.  Next we were shown how they run hot water from the hot pools into some concrete square holes in the ground. These are the communal bathes that are used nightly by the village people once the gates are closed to the public. They believe that the hot water has therapeutic minerals and salts so they are used quite regularly. We were next lead to the look out for the giant geyser that would shoot off every 15 minutes or so. There were several geysers in this area so it was pretty steamy! After the tour we were allowed to tramp in the bush to view some of the other wonders on our own. They had managed to build a boardwalk over a steaming hot lake that we walked over. I kept thinking who and how built this?  The water was so hot that the steam was rising all around us and of course the smell! We eventually made our way to the thermal mud pools, but being that it had rained here for the last three days the mud was pretty watered down and they weren’t very spectacular. It was getting close to 11:00 am and time for the traditional Maori performance at the great house. We made our way there and were instructed to take our shoes off, for this was a house to respect the ancestors. For the next 30 minutes the people of the village entertained us. The women preformed the poi dances. This is a dance preformed with two soft white balls on the end of long white ropes that they swing through the air with amazing precision. The men preformed several traditional dances and chants in their native Maori language.  The little kids that haven’t started school yet were also dressed up in traditional outfits and encouraged to join in when they felt the urge, thus keeping the Maori traditions alive for future generations.  Having seen enough of this place we decided to head over to the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute. They too had a daily performance, which was to begin at 12:15, so off we went to another performance. David wasn’t thrilled thinking we had just seen one, but this one was very different and more polished then the one we had just seen.  We were greeted by a maori warrior presenting a fern leaf to us which means that we were welcome to come into the great meeting house called a Marae.  This house is adorned with elaborate carvings from the Maori culture. We were once again asked to take off our shoes and take a seat inside the house. The men and women preformed traditional songs and dances for us for 45 minutes. The most exciting of these dances was the Haka. The Haka is a Maori war chant that is preformed before going into battle to psychic up the warriors and intimidate the enemy. The chant is delivered with thunderous stomping, fists waving around and loud chanting and the faces they make could scare a ghost! They try to make their eyes protrude out while sticking out their tongues as far as they can in curling down motion. I can imagine that several hundred men performing this ritual would be a scary site! After the performance we were allowed to wander the grounds and take in all the arts and crafts. This institute is in existence to preserve the Maori crafts of weaving, woodcarving and bone and jade carving. The Maori men and women both wear skirts made from the leaves of the flax plant. They had a working exhibit of how the green plant was striped of some of the green leafy part leaving behind just the tough white fiber, then it is hung outside to dry and as it dries it curls into a straw like tube. These tubes are woven together to make the clothing. A very ingenious idea I thought. The rest of the village was dedicated to the wood carving school and the jade carving school. Here young men were chosen to study and learn their craft from masters. They had many beautiful things to see. We also took a long bush walk through the grounds observing more geysers, boiling hot pools of mud and steaming pools of water. It was at last a nice sunny day so we enjoyed our time walking around enjoying the sites.  We made a venture into the town center to have a fine dinner and then went back to enjoy a nice hot soak in the hot tub. Wednesday May 9th, 2001 Rotorua, New Zealand We spent a nice leisurely day driving back to Auckland. It didn’t rain all day so that was good. As we drove back through the countryside the hills were spotted with sheep, cows and horse ranches. We ended up at out same ol spot in Parnell on the outskirts of Auckland.  David decided to rest from all the driving while I took one last hike around the neighborhood.  I wanted to tour the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. It was a beautiful cathedral just up the street, but when I got there, it was just closing for the day at 4:00 PM. I did run into a tour guide who gave me a tour of the outside and told me the history of the place, which was interesting. This is supposedly the worlds only pacific style gothic building. I think they consider it gothic for they made a huge addition onto an existing gothic building and it had to somewhat blend in. The thing that drew me to this cathedral was the massive stained glass that appeared to be in the Maori design style. Looks like there was plenty to explore and learn here if I hadn’t been too late.  Well, not to let that dampen my spirits I continued on my search for weird things and I wasn’t disappointed. I found a public restroom that had a sign on the outside that said “PLUNKET ROOM”, pretty self-explanatory I’d say. We had an early dinner and called it a night for we had an early flight to catch back to Australia tomorrow. Thursday May 10th, 2001 Auckland, New Zealand Up early to return the car and catch a taxi to the airport. New Zealand has been an interesting place, but we are glad to be going back to a warmer and dryer environment. The thing that struck  me the most interesting about New Zealand was the abundance of Maori culture. They appear to really cherish and encourage the indigenous people of New Zealand.  They even teach the Maori language in the school system.  The Maori are of Polynesian descent and so it did seem like visiting another large south pacific island. The North Island seemed to be full and rich with Maori culture all around us. This is quite a contrast to Australia, where I’ve only seen one aboriginal person since we’ve landed. We had a cold, wet and wonderful stay in New Zealand. Could have seen a lot more, but that’s the way it goes.  Another interesting fact is that the Green Peace ship Rainbow Warrior was sunk by some French secret service terrorist in 1985 in the Auckland harbor.  The Rainbow Warrior was protesting against nuclear testing by the French government in the French Polynesian atolls. This has not detoured Green Peace for our friend Tom from Flyer went along with the sailboat Nanu to form a flotilla of boats with the new Rainbow Warrior to protest the French ships transporting nuclear waste through the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia. Tom and Nanu were gone for a month on this protest adventure. Good on ya, Tom and Nanu! Good-bye New Zealand. We will soon touch down in Australia. As we landed in the Brisbane airport David said to me,” isn’t it strange that this place feels like we are coming home?” well it is the longest place we called home in a long time, so I guess that’s why. Our friends from Shearwater were there to greet us and pick us up. It was instantly sunny and warm and felt so good. We had fun catching up with them and then it was back to the boat for a good night’s rest. Friday May 11th  - Sunday May 20th, 2001 Latitude 27 degrees 11 minutes 06 seconds South Longitude: 153 degrees 06 minutes 03 seconds East Scarborough Harbor Marina After much research on the Internet we had found and ordered a new toilet for the boat. It was there waiting for us when we arrived home, so now David will have that fun project to look forward to. With newly stamped passports in hand, David, I and Madeline made a trek into Brisbane Friday to make another visit to customs and get our cruising permits. It all went very smoothly and we now have our 6-month cruising permit that will allow us to head up the coast of Australia.  Madeline and I decided to stay in Brisbane for the day and take the bus back while David went back to dig into that toilet project. The next week was spent finishing up the last our projects. David worked on the toilet for 3 days, while I cleaned out all the storage lockers and gave them a fresh coat of paint. I finished up some sewing projects and put the finishing touches on the dodger extension. David had ordered a new rigid boom vang, which had also arrived so he spent a day installing that. Now we can take off the topping lift which means he’s has to go to the top of the mast to dismantle it. I usually pull him to the top with the help of the electric windless, when we went to do this we discovered this wasn’t working anymore for some reason, so he spent the better part of the day tearing it all part and fixing the problem. Now that’s working smoothly and up the mast he went to detach the topping lift and fix the windex.  With all the lockers cleaned and painted we went to the giant super market to do a major provision and fill the lockers up again. We are now ready to leave when the weather permits. Monday May 21st – Wednesday May 30th, 2001 Latitude 27 degrees 11 minutes 06 seconds South Longitude: 153 degrees 06 minutes 03 seconds East Scarborough Harbor Marina The weather doesn’t seem to want to cooperate much; it has been raining and windy for the last few days trapping us in the boat. I took advantage of this time to work on polishing the interior brass, now everything looks shinny and new again. Tuesday we drove down to the Manly Boat Harbor to visit the folks on Shiriri. They have just returned from a trip back to Canada (by plane). Heather had written a book and was asked to come back for the official launching. Sounds like they had a good time seeing all their friends and family again. Anne stayed behind, for she is now officially teaching in southern Australia. It was a 5-month process for her to get a working permit in this country! But she is happy to be gainfully employed again. On Thursday David, Tony and I made the trek down to the Southport area to attend what is to be the premiere boat show of Australia. It was a pretty major event, but geared mostly towards powerboats. Plus when your boat is already outfitted and ready to go there isn’t much to look at or buy. David always enjoys seeing what improvements he can make and what new products are available so he had a good time. I enjoyed having a sticky beak  (new Australian word) at the interiors of the big million dollar yachts. Its amazing what you can do when money is no object. Well, we closed the place down at 5:00 PM and headed back home. Friday we finished up the week with dental and doctor appointments, so the boat and we are now ready to go. We were ready to leave on Monday so we moved our car into the storage lockup and made sure it was covered up well for the Brisbane winter. We are now sitting watching the weather and waiting for our window to leave. The coast guard has issued a high wind warning and storms for Tuesday and Wednesday so we will wait and see what appears. I took advantage of this time for a few last bike rides along the coastline and some visits with the Shearwater. Thursday, May 31st, 2001 Latitude 27 degrees 11 minutes 06 seconds South Longitude: 153 degrees 06 minutes 03 seconds East Scarborough Harbor Marina The weather looks good for leaving today so at 6:50 am we finally let loose our lines holding us to the marina for the last 6 months. As we exited the marina and entered Morton Bay we were greeted by a pair of dolphins, that’s gotta be a good sign! It took the next three hours to get across Morton Bay. The wind was coming from the south and we were heading east so it was a pretty lumpy ride until we turned north. From sitting in the marina for a month after we hauled out the speedo was clogged up with barnacles again so David went to work on clearing up the mess while I kept us on course. There are two ways to head up the coast, one is on the inside of Fraser Island and the other is on the outside of it in the open waters of the Coral Sea.  We are planning on having our first stop be the Whitsunday Islands so we decided to go on the outside so we wouldn’t have to maneuver through the narrow passages at night. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world so it took us the rest of the day to go by the bottom part of it. It’s been a beautiful clear day with bright blue skies and what they call a fresh breeze of 20-25 knots of wind. We made good time at 6-7 knots as we sailed off into the sunset.