Christmas Cruising

I note that the last entry to this blog was back at the start of December. I'd like to say that we've been too busy to update more often but the truth of the matter is that we're seldom in range of the internet at other than very slow connection speeds and when we are we are usually so relaxed that we're too idle to do anything.

So, to recap the last couple of months. We finally left Whangarei on 1st December and made the last leg of the trip up to Tutukaka. What started out as a leisurely 4 hour trip up the coast ended up taking about 7 hours as we broke two fan belts halfway up and then spent about 3 hours changing them. Luckily we had spares on board but it's a major job changing them.

We only stopped at Tutukaka for a few days before taking off again up to the Bay of Islands. The weather forecast was good so we thought we'd spend a few days up there. Unfortunately the weather turned pear-shaped the day after we arrived at Russell and we spent the next 10 days waiting for the gales and rain to disappear. The first fine day we high-tailed it back to Tutukaka where we spent a week or so getting ready for the Christmas cruise.

We left Tutukaka on 21st December and headed back to the Bay of Islands where we finally saw Russell in lovely summer weather. Much nicer than the previous trip. After a few days there we carried on north and had an overnight stop at the Cavalli Islands before arriving at Whangaroa harbour about a week ago.

Sunrise at Whangaroa

Whangaroa is a lovely harbour about 30 miles north of the Bay of Islands with dozens of little bays to overnight in and creeks to explore in the dinghy.



The fishing isn't bad either, we had a nice feed of fresh snapper for breakfast on Christmas Day.


And we don't dine too badly on other stuff as well.


There are lots of great bush walks to be done.


And the scenery is quite spectacular.


It's New Year's Eve tonight and we're probably going to spend it at the Game Fishing Club so I'm off for an afternoon nap.

Not sure where we're going form here but possibly further north up to Hohoura before heading south to the Hauraki Gulf.

I trust everybody had a great Christmas and may 2008 be a good year for you all.

Whangarei

Finally I have some spare time and can update the blog. I note it's over a month since I last was on here but so much has happened it seems a lifetime ago.

Starting at the end first, we have been tied up in the Whangarei Basin right in the heart of Whangarei and next door to Ivan and Erin on Masada for the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, far too many nights drinking rum and playing the guitar with Ivan on his electric organ.

We finally left Napier on 7th October and headed north stopping overnight at Mahia the first night then up to Tolaga Bay the next day. It was quite an experience going across Poverty Bay past Gisborne. The weather forecast was for 25 - 30 knots which was about as much as we would have liked but it steadily built up to over 50 knots with quite rough sea and a 12 hour trip before any shelter...not one of our better days. We anchored overnight in Tolaga Bay then the next morning headed north again and round East Cape to Hicks Bay where we anchored again. Next morning we upped anchor at around 4am and sailed across the Bay of Plenty, past White Island which was covered in cloud and sulphur fumes arriving at Tauranga about 10pm. The next day we sailed up to Whitianga but again the wind got up and the sea was too rough to get into Whitianga so we found a little sheltered bay and waited a few hours until it calmed down a bit then went in.

Irrepressible at Whitianga

It blew a gale for the next four days to we stayed there on a mooring before setting off for the Mercury Islands which are a couple of hours off Whitianga. Great Mercury Island where we stayed is owned by Michael Fay but visitors are allowed ashore and we spent several very pleasant hours walking around the island which is quite hilly. The exercise was good though after being on the boat for so long.

The boat to the right of us is our friend's boat, Nutcase.

On the beach at Great Mercury Island.

We stayed here a couple of nights then sailed (motored really) up to Great Barrier Island where we stayed for a week, ducking and diving and trying to find a sheltered bay to anchor in each night. The weather wasn't the best with 30 knot winds most days but we went ashore several times and did a couple of bush walks and had a good look around the place.

Smokehouse Bay, Great Barrier.

We finally got away from Great Barrier on Friday 26th October and for the first time since leaving Napier had a really good sail across to Whangarei. The wind was almost perfect for a change and the boat sailed really well. We arrived here around 8pm and Ivan had arranged for us to tie up next to them on a berth which was vacant. We'll probably stay here until the end of the month then move up to our own berth at Tutukaka.

Irrepressible and Masada at Whangarei

Whangarei Basin

Ivan outside shower block

And that pretty much brings us up to the present time. Doreen is away in Auckland at a school reunion for a few days so I have the boat to myself and a bit of time on my hands.

Hopefully the next update will be a bit quicker than this one!

Ready to go (almost)

I was talking to Bev on the phone this morning and she kindly reminded me that I haven't updated the blog for a little while, actually quite a long while. So, feeling a little guilty I have roused myself to action.

Life continues at a hectic pace with every day bringing it's own unique challenges and one's database of experiences rising exponentially as a result. Mainly we have been busy getting the 101 things we want to do before leaving Napier done. Doreen's largest project has been recovering the squabs (mattress type things to you landlubbers) in the aft cabin and sewing up all the new fitted bedding she wants in there. Yeah, right, sewing on a boat I hear you say. Well look no further:

And as for me, I've been doing what I do best, spending money on new toys and installing them. The big ticket items lately have been a new computer (one that's big enough for me to actually be able to see) and a new solar panel to try and give us enough battery power to run everything without having to run the motor to charge the batteries too often.

The computer is great (I think it's the same as the one Rick bought when we were in Brisbane earlier this year) but Windows Vista gives me gas. It's all very nice with lots of flashing lights and clever gimics but seems slower than XP, uses more memory than you can shake a stick at and seems to have lots of little glitches in it. eg when you close a window in Internet Explorer it tells you IE has stopped working and Windows is checking to find out why. I know why for God's sake, I closed the bloody thing! Apart from that it plays a mean game of Solitaire with very fancy graphics.

We've only got one more important job to do now. We were filling the water tanks the other night, they hold about 600 litres and take an hour or so to fill. We were watching TV and having a few drinks and after a couple of hours Doreen asked if it always took so long to fill them. My response was yes or something similar and we carried on watching TV. After about another hour I thought my feet were getting a bit cold and looked down to see water round them. The long and the short of it was that the top of one of the tanks had split and the water was gradually filling up the boat. It certainly got our attention and put paid to the TV and drinks. I don't think it will be a particularly big job to fix it though and hopefully we'll get it done tomorrow and then on Friday or Saturday, weather permitting we will finally be off on the trip north.

Watch this space for further updates.

P.S Happy 50th birthday to David.

Spring at last

The last couple of weeks have actually been quite busy, with our friend's boat out of the water and many days of scrubbing, sanding, filling and painting of the hull. It's quite physically demanding work standing underneath a boat and holding a heavy sander above your head while trying not to get blinded or asphyxiated (try spelling that without a dictionary). The good news is that it's all finished now and they are going back in the water tomorrow.

We've also been doing some work on our boat with the new radar unit being installed last week (a bit more of the inheritance down the drain) and today we started getting the sails down and trying to clean them up a bit. They don't look as if they've had much attention for years and were very dirty. We did the staysail today, laying it out on the concrete and scrubbing it with a broom and a mixture of bleach and detergent and it's come up looking like new (well almost). So with renewed enthusiasm, the mizzen is set for the treatment tomorrow, weather permitting. And talking of the weather, it's actually been quite nice the last week or so, temperatures getting up around 20C and lovely sunny days. Even the wind has died down to almost nothing today although it has been gale force for the last few days.

Doreen's current project is making curtains for the boat, no small task as there are at least 14 windows which need doing and being a boat they are not all in the easiest of places to get to to screw up track etc. It will be a big job but worth the effort I'm sure.

I think we'll be in Napier for another three or four weeks and at this stage it looks like we'll all be ready to move north around the end of the month. It's been great living here for the last couple of months but we're both starting to get the urge to move on now.

That's it for now. More in a week or two unless there is any special news.

More of the Same

I note that it is almost three weeks since I last posted anything on here and I'm struggling to think of much new and interesting to talk about.

As I type, the rain is beating down, gale force winds are expected later this morning and the temperature is hovering somewhere around the 10C mark. Just another day in Paradise.

Actually there have been a few things happening since I last wrote. As I recall, I mentioned that a number of boats had come into Napier seeking shelter. Well one of them was an Australian boat called "Ray of Sunshine" with an Aussie couple from Tweed Heads on board. They are about our age and have been cruising round Australia for the last 14 years. They had just had an eventful trip across the Tasman where they got knocked down a couple of times in a storm, suffered lots of damage and ended up getting blown back to Tasmania where they repaired the damage and then set out again. Full marks for persistence! They ended up in Napier tied up next to us and we got on really with them and have become good friends. We took them to Taupo one day and did all the touristy things like the Huka Falls (they were awestruck!), Craters of the Moon (amazed) etc then drove back over the Desert Road and the Taihape - Napier Road (which I think is known as the Gentle Annie and which we had never been on before). We did a small detour into Waiouru and tried to find our old house which we did eventually but not without some difficulty. The whole area where we lived has had all the houses removed and is now acres of parkland all except for ONE house which has been left standing in the middle of nowhere for some reason and believe it or not it is the very house that we lived in when we got married. Amazing or what!

Anyway, back to the story. The weather finally improved enough for them to get away and continue their trip up North and a couple of days later we heard from them on the radio that they were holed up in Gisborne waiting for the next wave of weather to pass. Having never been to Gisborne we decided to drive up there and have a look around which we did, meeting up with our new friends for lunch while we were there. Gisborne is a two and a half hour drive from Napier over some pretty spectacular, hilly country. Mainly farmland, both sheep and cattle (and lots of goats) but quite a lot of forest and native bush. Similar in some ways to the Rye Valley area near Dave and Bev.

Other than these little excursions we've been pottering around on the boat, finding places to store everything (not easy), fixing things that need fixing and changing things that need changing.

I guess most of you know that Angus Tait died last week. He had been ill with cancer for the last year and in hospital for the last couple of months. I flew down to Christchurch on Monday for the funeral where about 800 people attended (250 of us in the funeral chapel and the rest in the Aurora Centre where it was televised into). He was 88 and his death had been anticipated so it wasn't a particularly sad funeral and it was good to catch up with so many old friends and acquaintances even if it was only for a few hours. I stayed with our friends the Atkinsons near Mona Vale and flew back to Napier the next day.

Our friends Graeme and Sandra are due to leave Picton on their boat (Nutcase) in the next day or so and when they get to Napier will be working on their boat for a couple of weeks before we all head off north. Hopefully the weather will have improved somewhat by then.

More weather

Well the rain and wind went away for a few days and we actually have had several days of nice sunny weather. I even managed to get into shorts for a few hours yesterday! However, another round of gale force winds and heavy rain is due to descend on us this afternoon and last for several days. There was an influx of boats arriving in the marina yesterday all coming in for shelter against the coming weather so it looks like it's going to be a miserable few days.

I've just read Julie's blog and see the temperature in Dubai was 48C. Does anyone in the Warren family live somewhere where the weather is good?

We went for a sail a couple of days ago, just out into the middle of Hawkes Bay and back again which was good and then yesterday we drove up to Mahia which is about 150kms away right up the top end of the bay. Neither of us has ever been in this part of the country and it was interesting seeing parts of NZ we had never seen before.

Congratulations to Kerrie and Leigh for both finishing and passing your courses. You most both be feeling very pleased with yourselves and should be proud of what you have achieved. It can't have been easy managing a family and studying at the same time. Congratulations also to Liam on achieving the ripe old age of one. Happy Birthday Liam.

Congratulations also to myself. It's two months today since I quit smoking.

Watch this space.

Rain, rain, go away.

Rain, rain, more rain and strong winds have been the story of our life for the last couple of weeks. The weather here in Napier (and most of the North Island) has been diabolical almost from the day we arrived here. Apart from a couple of reasonable days its been constant rain and high winds.

We've spent the time working on the boat (finding leaks and trying to fix them), going into town for a break and generally sitting around waiting for the weather to improve. Unfortunately, the forecast is for much of the same for the next week. Our friends are in an even worse position, they've been stuck here for four weeks delivering a launch from Tauranga to Picton.

Some of you have already found out that our photosite is no longer working. Photosite advised us a week ago that they were closing the site down and moving all their customers to Snapfish.com. They have done that but it's not so easy to get into and navigate around the site so when new photos are added you'll get an email inviting you to view them.

Well that's about it for now, I'm off to look for new leaks.

More onboard

Looks like the photo upload is working now.

It's now a couple of days since our stuff arrived and Doreen has worked wonders finding a place for almost everything. There is still a bit to do but at least we can live reasonably comfortably now.

I've spent the last week trying to make sense of all the knobs, dials and switches and fixing toilets and shower pumps etc but I'm slowly coming to grips with it all and should be ready to go sailing in a day or two.

The weather has been really cold the last few days with gales and snow storms sweeping the country. Cyclones and tornados have destroyed many buildings in Taranaki (the other side of the country from where we are in Napier) although it has been reasonably nice where we are.

Well that's it for now, more in a few days.

Onboard at last

Well here we are, finally ensconced in our new surroundings on the good ship Irrepressible. I've just noticed that the last post was over a month ago on 30 May. My excuse for such slackness is that we were busy looking after a couple of kids in Australia for a month (well, it's sort of true). Actually, we had a great time in OZ, helping Kerrie and Rick with Sophie and Toby while Kerrie was doing day shifts at Redcliffe hospital then a week of (sort of) relaxation with Ange and Zane. It was great being able to spend so much time with them all and seeing how much the grandchildren have changed and in the case of Liam, actually seeing him change over the five weeks we were there.





We were due to leave on 18th July but in the end the attraction of the new life on the new boat got the better of us and we brought the flights forward by a couple of weeks.

Our friends met us at Christchurch airport with our car which they had been looking after and we drove straight up to Picton where we stayed with friends for a couple of days ,tieing up a number of loose ends then got the ferry to Wellington and drove up to Napier. The 30 or 40 cartons with all our gear in arrived a couple of days after we got here and after loading them all on board we stood around like a couple of stunned mullets wondering what we had let ourselves into.

I've just tried to upload more photos but nothing's happening so I think I'll publish this and try a new posting.

Brisbane

At long last the rushing around is over and we are at last unwinding in Brisbane. The last few days in Blenheim passed in a blur with the packers arriving last Wednesday and getting everything packed and dispatched by Thursday night. Not a bad effort for two young guys. While the packing was going on we stayed with Graham and Sandra who were house-sitting a beautiful house for friends of theirs right on the waterfront at Waikawa Bay. Friday morning we went back to the house for a final cleanup and inspection of the place with the property manager and by lunchtime it was all over. Quite sad really to see the place completely empty and waiting for new people to move into it. The good news though is that they moved in yesterday, are signed up for twelve months and are paying $400 a week which will go a long way towards the cruising budget.

The trip to Brisbane was far from uneventful, we stayed at the Copthorne Commodore near the airport on Saturday night and were up at 2.30am to catch the plane at 6. So far, so good. The drama started when we went through the x-ray machine at the airport. Both our bags were pulled aside for a search and while mine was ok, Doreen's had one or two small problems. The first was the 12 inch carving knife hidden in the bowels of her computer bag. I don't know if you've ever tried to come up with a convincing reason as to why you had a carving knife in your bag but I can assure you it isn't easy. Actually the truth of the matter was that there were a few last minute things left in the house that were to go on the boat and the knife was one of them but try telling that to airport security officers at 5 in the morning. Next the 3 bottles of Q-Tol we were taking for Kerrie were deemed prohibited and were consigned to the bin along with a lecture on the necessity to read the warning posters. The bottle opener with knife attached got a thorough scrutiny but somehow got through and by now I was rather hoping we hadn't accidently popped a stun grenade in the bag and forgotten about it. In the end we got through minus the prohibited items and nothing more than a lecture but it could have been nasty!

Kerrie and Rick and Ange and Zane and the five grandchildren were all at the airport to meet us along with the 75,856 Japanese tourists who had disgorged themselves off of a fleet of 747's at the same time as our Airbus with about 30 passengers arrived. Add all this to the 3 hours on Jetstar Airways with nothing to eat or drink (the menu for the pay as you eat crap they had to offer was only available in Japanese) and by now you will understand I was just a tad frazzled.

Life has taken a turn for the better since then though. The weather has been beautiful (around 25C) and it's been good to catch up with the Australian contingent of the family again. Looking after the children hasn't been too traumatic, they seem to know what they are supposed to do and when they are supposed to do it and mainly it's all going quite smoothly.

Well that's all for now, it's 6am and the starting gun for the getting ready for school part of the day is about to be fired so must away and hide for an hour or two.

More in a day or two.

Ready to go

The last couple of weeks have been manic, hence the lack of postings on here.

I think the last posting was just before we left for the trip north to look for a boat so I'll try and remember what has happened since.

We caught the early morning ferry to Wellington with our friends Graham and Sandra as planned and were pleased to be in a large ship and not a yacht as Cook Strait was quite rough with a southerly gale blowing. After a brief stop at a marina in Petone to pick up a few bits and pieces we set off for Whangarei at 10am. It doesn't look far on the map but by the time we arrived there at 9pm we knew we had travelled some distance! Still, it was good to get it out of the way in one go. We stayed in Whangarei in a motel for four nights with a couple of day trips to the Bay of Islands, Pahia, Opua, Keri Keri, Tutukaka etc. All places that we hadn't been to for years with lovely scenery and beautiful weather, all the reasons we want to move up there on the boat. We looked at several boats but mostly they were pretty crappy and not what we wanted. On the Monday we drove down to Whangaparoa and met the broker there to look at more boats then down to Auckland for still more. Again, nothing we would buy. On Tuesday we all drove down to Tauranga for the day and looked at another half dozen with the same result. By now we were getting desperate and wondering if we were doing the right thing by packing up the furniture before we had the boat. On the Tuesday night we started the drive to Napier, stopping overnight in a very nice motel in Cambridge and leaving early the next morning and arriving in Napier mid morning. We only had one prospective boat to look at there and luckily the minute we saw it we knew we had found what we were looking for.

The boat's name is "Irrepressible" which some might think is quite apt! It's a 43ft ketch with a huge owner's cabin with queen size bed down the back and with total accommodation for nine people (we'll be taking reservations in due course). It's got all the smart toys like radar and GPS chartplotter etc so with any luck we won't get lost.

We were booked on the ferry to come home that night but changed that to the next day so we could stay and do sea trials on it. There wasn't much wind but enough to get the sails up and assure ourselves that we could sail it ok and so we made the decision there and then and committed ourselves to buying it.

Since arriving back in Blenheim life has been a blur of activity, packing the things to take on the boat, a seperate pile of stuff to take to Brisbane and the rest to go into storage when the packers come next Wednesday. In between all that there have been people coming to look at the house (the first ones to see it signed up for 12 months at $400 a week on the spot), organising change of address, trying to sell the cars, cleaning up around the place and generally working ourselves into a highly stressed condition. The end is in sight however and all the big jobs are pretty much out of the way and we're almost ready to go.

Full speed ahead

Life is gathering pace and there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything at the moment.

The last couple of days were a good example:

Monday morning, drove into Picton to get ready for a delivery of a launch to Wellington. Left Picton at 1.30pm, got about half a mile out of the marina and the motor overheated. Went back into the marina so Graham could fix it. It looked like it would take a couple of hours or more so I raced back into Blenheim to get four new tyres fitted to the Escape. Got back to Waikawa Bay about 5pm, went to the RSA for a couple of beers then to the Crow for dinner. Back to the boat by 8.00pm and straight to bed. Up at 1.00am for an early start because the launch had to be in Wellington by 8.00am for a truck to take it to Tauranga. Left Waikawa 1.30am, arrived Mana (Wellington) 7.15am. Caught the train to Wellington and then waited 4hrs to get the ferry back to Picton where we arrived at 5.30pm. Raced home to Blenheim and caught up on emails and phone calls and collapsed into bed around 11pm.

Tomorrow morning we are booked on the 5.45am ferry back to Wellington and then plan to drive straight to Whangarei where we'll stay for a couple of days looking at boats there and in the Bay of Islands then down to Auckland to do the same. After a few days there it will be Tauranga and Napier then home with only two weeks before the furniture is packed up on 23rd May. Then on 27th we're off to Brisbane for seven weeks. Sometime between now and then we have to organise all the disconnections, mail redeliveries etc plus sell Doreen's car, sell one boat and buy another.Who said retirement would be boring!

We took Dave and Bev out on the boat on Sunday up to Endeavour Inlet where we caught a good lot of fish then went on to Furneaux Lodge where we went ashore for a couple of hours then back to Picton in the dark. Luckily it was a beautiful full moonlit night and with the help of that and the GPS we didn't get lost and dodged several ferries to get back safely.

That's all for now, lots to do and not enough time to do it all.

Two Left Hands

John wrote the last post and at the time it was perfectly right but things change so much here so quickly that what I am about to say almost sounds like a contradiction - as if the right hand does not know what the left is doing. Actually, we are both left handed and we do sing off the same hymn-sheet, most of the time anyway.
We have decided that maybe the yacht "Blue Heron" is not what we want to live on after all. It is just not big enough with enough storage room. Pity, we have lots have good memories of the time we were on it from Tauranga to Whangarei via Mayor Island, the Mercuries, Great Barrier, and then back down via other side of Gt. Barrier and White Island as far Napier where we had to get off because of bad weather for yachts and rush home for Christmas with the family via the inter island ferry.
We are still looking for a yacht we can live on and have some affection for because I am sure we won't last long on the water if we don't and deep down we don't want to be quitters.
I have to record here that that the person who owns "Blue Heron" has that feeling for her, although not as a live-aboard yacht but does not really want to part with her.
After a lot of research, John's/our experiences on delivery trips ( me the guest more really) and good advice from our long term yacht-living friends we are pretty narrowed down to what we really want and there is not a lot of it out there on the market. In fact there is only one that looks like it.
In the meantime we still own "Wild Thyme" and there is an offer on it subject to the marina management being able to rearrange the boats around them because of the wide beam ( always a Warren/Magee problem) and wondering if ours would fit in their privately owned narrow berth.
What do you do??
Well, maybe you don't have to be a "Southpaw" to work it out the way we have but seeing we are going to Brisbane anyway from end of May for about 6 weeks we have decided to get the household storage people in to take our chattels away and into storage and rent the house of our dreams out to some other people that will hopefully look after it well, and move on to "Wild Thyme" until we fly to Brisbane on 27th May. We are hoping that while we are in Brisbane that the berthing thing will be solved and that we have a new yacht to come home to on the 18th July.
So we are busy getting the house ready - need to paint that wall that took ages to build and plaster and put in some bathroom fan/heater/light units. Apart from the final clean-thru thats all really.
In between that we are looking for our dream yacht.
I hope everyone is well.

Doreen

Easter Cruise

We're back home again after a very enjoyable 10 day cruise round to Nelson with a detour on the way there and back to Pelorus Sound. It started out as a four day Easter Weekend trip to Pelorus but grew as time went on and none of us wanted to come home. We sailed in tandem with our friends Graham and Sandra on Nutcase which was the first time we've gone away like that and it proved to be a very successful formula.


We left mid afernoon on Good Friday and tied up to a club mooring in a bay towards the end of Queen Charlotte Sound that night. Fishing was good with three nice sized cod going into the fridge. The weather was just beautiful, clear blue sky but not much wind which meant a lot of motoring. The next morning we left about 9am and motor sailed up into Cook Strait, round Cape Jackson and across to Pelorus Sound where we arrived and anchored in a nice little bay about 3pm. Fishing was good again with more fish in the fridge. Sunday morning we moved to another bay across the sound and went ashore for a short walk through the bush before moving on to another bay to anchor up for the night. This one had a one man pub in it so we went ashore and watched the Chiefs v Highlanders Super 14 rugby.



By now we were getting low on diesel as I had neglected to fill the tanks before leaving and were faced with the option of going back to Picton to get some or carrying on to Nelson. We all consulted our social secretaries and confirmed none of us had any pressing engagements so elected to go to Nelson.

To get there we had to go through French Pass, a scary narrow bit of water between D'urville Island and the mainland. Unless you go through at slack tide the current races through at up to 7 knots and can send you backwards so it's important to get the timing right. As you may guess, we didn't and ended up going through sideways but made it through in one piece nevertheless. That night we ancored up just round from Okiwi Bay.


Left early next morning and motored in flat, glassy sea to Nelson where we arrived around midday. We tied up in the marina there for a couple of hours to refuel and restock the cupboards then went round to the waterfront where we anchored about 50 meters off the waterfront drive right in front of the Boatshed Restaurant for those of you who know Nelson. Fabulous views and great weather although cooling down considerably at night time. Tuesday morning we set off for the return journey but by now the weather was starting to deteriorate with gale force winds forecast for most of the country. We got back as far as our previous night's anchorage near Okiwi Bay where we decided to take shelter for the night as the wind was getting up around 30kts. It was a pretty uncomfortable night with the boat bouncing around and quite noisy and at 5am we all had had enough so up anchored and set off back towards French Pass.

The ride up there was quite lumpy and it was a relief to finally get in the shelter of D'urville Island and calm water again with the added bonus of striking French Pass right on slack water. The pass is really quite spectacular, only about 50m wide with big swirling eddies both sides but quite ok to go through provided the weather and tides are good. Once through, we motored back to Pelorus Sound arriving around midday just in the nick of time as the wind suddenly got up to about 45kts and it all got very exciting very quickly. Just before we got to the safety of the bay we intended sheltering in there was one gust of about 50kts which picked Nutcase's dinghy up and flipped it several times throwing the oars into the sea. Both of us spent the next half hour doing man overboard drills trying to recover them. For those of you who know Doreen well, picture this. 45kts of wind, rough sea, spray eveywhere and Doreen out the back on the landing platform hanging on for grim death with one arm, leaning out trying to recover an oar with the other. Madness I say. Anyway, we all survived (even the oars) and eventually anchored up for the night waiting for the front to pass. And pass it did and the next morning we made a 10 mile dash to the other side of the Sound to shelter from the next front which was due that night.



The next morning dawned fine and calm and after a short excursion ashore to check out the beach we set off for what we thought was the final stretch home. Our travelling companions had different ideas though and being in no hurry to get back we ended up staying on a mooring at Furneaux Lodge at the end of Endeavour Inlet near the outer end of Queen Charlotte Sound. We went ashore to the lodge that night and had a meal, a few drinks and watched the Crusaders thrash the Highlanders, all in all a great way to finish the cruise.
Sunday morning we left Furneaux at 9am and motored back to Picton where we arrived shortly before lunch.

Which brings us up to the present moment, back in the house, looking at the lawns that need mowing and all the other work that needs doing and wondering why.

I think it's common knowledge but in case anyone reading this doesn't know (and assuming you're even remotely interested) ,our boat is up for sale and we're buying a bigger one , packing the furniture up, renting the house out and going cruising for a few years. We hope to have all this done and ready to go by the time we get back from Australia in July. At the moment it looks likely that we will buy Phil Vining's boat (Blue Heron 2000) (see photosite). He's willing to trade our boat as part payment and is flexible with the timing so it's all looking good at the moment.

Home again

Another trip over and a few more sea miles under the belt.

This one was one of the harder trips I've done with the wind and sea "on the nose" most of the way which meant lots of tacking and quite a bit of motoring. We did get a couple of days of favourable winds though and enjoyed some good sailing, especially round East Cape and from Whakatane to Tauranga.

The fishing was great all the way. We caught a couple of good sized Kingfish (see photo) half a dozen Tuna, three snapper and a Terakihi. The Kingfish and Tuna we caught on a line with a lure trailing behind the boat as we sailed and the snapper and Terakihi on a handline when we were at anchor.

While the winds weren't great, the weather was mostly fine and sunny and we only had rain (and heaps of it) for the last day coming into Tauranga. We made it just in time as the remnants of a tropical storm swept the North Island just as we were arriving with many Northland roads washed away.

Photo is the sunrise as we were coming up to Portland Island at the end of the Mahia Peninsula at the top of Hawke Bay.

After we arrived in Tauranga the new owners of the boat met us and took us back to their house where we stayed for a couple of nights before getting a rental car and driving down to Wellington and catching the ferry across to Picton last night.

There aren't any more trips immediately on the go so I guess I'll have to get used to living at home for a while and doing mundane things like mowing the lawn. I see the grass has had a growing spurt while I've been away.

Good to see you've joined the Bloggers Leigh. Sounds as though the girls are doing really well at school and with all their other activities. It fair wore me out just reading about them!

That's all for today.

Getting There

Hi from Doreen.
I have just received a text message from John ( 10.44am) "12 miles from Tauranga. Left Whale Island near Whakatane at 6am. 30 knots up the bum. Sailing at 7 to 8 knots all the way."
In reply to queries he said that the sea was very lumpy with 5 metre swells but all right because they are behind them. Sounds almost like they are surfing home, doesn't it? ETA Tauranga about 12.30pm.
The 10/20 to go from Tauranga to Lyttelton has fallen through and they haven't heard any more about the one from Opua so they are coming home - probably by rental car or bus and ferry which seems to be far more economical than flying.

In the meantime I think I have broken the back of the wall plastering job. It has taken ages covering up whoopses and trial and error but I am pleased with it at last. This wall has gone where there used to be a buffet bench jutting out into the Family Room and putting a wall there was to us the obvious thing to do because there was nowhere to put the TV. We think it has made both the kitchen and the Family Room better. Next challenge is getting the coving and skirting right then I can paint it. Have enclosed a photo - not very good for showing it in relation to the rest of the house. I have to sand that plastering now, then I can have a good clean up around that area.

Sailor's Wife Again

Hi - Doreen here.
John has been away for a few days with Graham on a boat delivery from Picton to Tauranga. Nice boat, a Chico 37 called Sea Hawk. No photos of it yet but John will have taken some.
They arrived at Napier midday yesterday after a very slow and rocky ride. I have just been talking to John on the phone. They had a good night's sleep and the weather is nice so they are keen to get away and head for Tauranga. It will probably take them about 3 days, putting down the anchor at night and taking it easier. John will keep in touch via phone texting - phone range permitting.
In the meantime I am spending time at home having book and clothes sort-outs and intend to make a super effort to finish that wall we put up. It needs more plastering and then coving and skirting and then paint. I really want it finished. If I run out of things to do I shall carry on in the garden which is looking quite good now that it has grown some and all the efforts to get rid of grass-grub, moth, and weeds in the lawn has paid off. It is looking great.

Delivery trip

This is a quick update between delivery trips. I've just arrived home from one and am off on another tomorrow and have lots do do tonight to get ready.

Delivery of the good ship Lollipop, sorry, Zeehaen, which was sort of like a bathtub with a cabin and motor, started this morning at 3.00am when we left Picton and finished 7 hours later when we tied it up in it's new home at Mana (just out of Wellington). Actually, it's not really its new home as it's going to be trucked from Mana to Auckland and ultimately shipped to England to be used by the owner on the canals there. Why anyone would go to all that trouble and expense I have no idea.

The official description of the boat is "a 28ft displacement launch" but that doesn't really describe it. It is about 60 years old and quite unusual in looks but motored well at around 8 knots and got us there safely.

The weather in Cook Strait wasn't too bad although a bit lumpy in parts.

We only stopped in Mana for a few minutes then caught the train into Wellington, jumped on the 1pm ferry back to Picton and arrived here at 5pm tonight so it was a long day.

The trip tomorrow is a 35ft yacht to be taken from Picton to Tauranga and should take about 7 days if all goes well with the weather.

As I won't have access to the internet while I'm away there probably won't be any new posts for a week or so (unless Doreen gets creative).

I trust all of you reading this who have proper jobs are happy in your work....keep pedalling!

Woke up this morning at 5am and got up for a cup of tea as normal only to find out a few hours later that daylight saving had finished and the clocks had gone back overnight so it was really 4am when I got up. We seem to have completely lost touch with the real world over the last few months and I had no idea that the clocks were going back last night!

Notwithstanding the early start, it's been a good day for Doreen's birthday. Cards and phone calls from all the family and lunch at the Slip Inn at Havelock with Dave and Bev and Julie. It's been blowing a gale all day but quite warm and sunny. Hopefully the high winds of the last few days will die down soon and we can get in a last bit of nice weather before the summer really ends.

I did a bit in the garden over the weekend, trying to get ahead of the weeds and the lawn which is growing at an alarming pace.

Not sure what the coming week holds but as soon as this current spell of wind and cold fronts is over I'll be off to Tauranga in the Chico 35.

Doreen: Yes, it was a lovely day and I enjoyed my birthday. Thank you all for your good wishes via cards or phone calls.
I recommend the Slip Inn at Havelock for its very nice seafood - it is at the marina.

Oh dear, big headache, bad aching feeling all over this morning. In short, a king size hangover. Our friends Roger and Joc from Christchurch arrived yesterday and we did some serious damage to a bottle of very exspensive cognac given to me by Tait friends when I left work last year. Seemed a good idea at the time but I'm paying the price this morning.

Sorry but there will be no deep and meaningful posts today.

As everyone who is anyone seems to have their own blog nowadays it seems only sensible that us recently retired, upwardly mobile, young grandparents should have one as well.

Our lifestyle over the last few months hasn't left much time for emails (a lot of the time we've been out of phone and internet range) but we'll try our best to update the blog whenever we're in port!