Aeotoroa Tour

Aeotoroa is the Maori name for New Zealand.   

The first Maori landed on the western side of the North Island.  The great navigator leading this expedition was called Kupe and there are many Maori legends about Kupe and his accomplishments.  They had gone past the island on the north side but then noticed a very long low-hanging cloud on their eastern side.  Kupe knew that clouds like that meant land.  So they turned their canoes back southeast and make landfall about half-way down the North Island on the western side.   There continues to be dispute as to where these Maori sailed from – some same Bora Bora or Raiatea or Marquesas of what is now called French Polynesia and some claim they sailed from Raratonga of the Southern Cook Islands.   Regardless of which island they sailed from, it is certain that they made several round-trips to settle the islands of New Zealand and it is believed that Kupe led these expeditions back and forth.  This Polynesian immigration to Aeotoroa occurred between 800 and 900 A.D.  Another favored legend is that Maui, a demi-god, used the South Island as his canoe.  The South Island is actually shaped somewhat like a canoe, with Stewart Island at the southern tip as the anchor for the canoe.  Maui caught a huge fish.  That fish became the North Island.  Before he could land the fish it was bitten by sharks in several places.   Three of those places are near Auckland, where now are the Hauraki Gulf and the Bay of Plenty on the eastern side and Manakua Harbour on the western side.

The first European to see New Zealand was a Dutchman named Abel Tasman.  He named the land Nieuw Zeeland after a Dutch province.   Tasman approached from the western side in 1642; hence the name of Tasman Sea.  He spotted the Southern Alps of the South Island and approached the coast.  Two canoe loads of Maori paddled out to greet him.  The Maori called out a greeting and played a note on a war trumpet.  Unfortunately, Tasman’s crew responded with a trumpet fanfare.  The Maori took this as a challenge of war.  The next day the Maori returned and attacked, killing 4 of Tasman’s crew.  Tasman left and never came back.   Capt. James Cook sailed into the area 127 years later, in 1769.  His experience with the Maori was friendlier, although he still had problems.  As I explained in one of our first postings from NZ, the British eventually signed the Treaty of Waitangi on February 6, 1840.  The Maori had no understanding of individual land ownership and this treaty still remains has not been ratified and the Maori still want their traditional lands returned to them.

And with that history tidbit we are finally off on a road tour of Aeotoroa. 

Auckland Sky Tower

The Sky Tower in downtown Auckland is similar to others we have visited elsewhere.  Don’t remember all the specs but I think the main observation deck is around 183 meters high and the Sky Deck is 232 meters high.  There is also the obligatory lounge and restaurant off the main observation deck.   But they have added a couple of twists to garner more tourist dollars.   You can do the Sky Walk or the Sky Jump.  For the Sky Walk you are dressed in an orange jumpsuit and tethered to a safety harness.  Then you walk around the circumference of the main observance deck on a totally exposed outer  circular walkway.  This walkway is about 2 feet wide and has no hand bars or anything.  You are just walking on a 2-ft wide platform 183 meters in the air.  Needless to say I was not the slightest bit interested in doing such a thing.  The Sky Jump is a controlled bungee jump.   You jump off the outer section of the Sky Deck and free fall down to approximately the main observation deck, where you bounce a few times on the bungee cord and then begin a rapid slide down to the ground while being guided by 2 guy-wires.   There is a target platform where you land about 12 feet above the sidewalk.  A guy jumped while we were on the main observation level and Bill was able to get a photo with his phone – we had forgotten to bring our camera, of course.   Then when we were leaving another jumper landed on the target platform so we got the up-close-and-personal view of both someone in the air and someone landing.  I cannot imagine what thrill people get from this stuff.  And that is not just an age thing.  I would have felt the same way when I was 18 year old.  Thrill seeking is not my thing.

Waitomo Glow Worm Caves

Waitomo means “water entering a hold in the ground” in the Maori language.  The village of Waitomo is located on the western side on the North Island in the lower central area.  It is some distance from the coast and is very pastoral land.  The views are lovely.  There are more than 300 caves identified in the Waitomo area, but only a handful are open to the public.   All these caves are formed by limestone which was once the ocean seabed.  Enormous pressures were applied to the limestone as it was forced upward.  Inside the caves are found marine fossils.  Kind of cool to be high in the mountains and walk through caves and see fossil evidence of marine creatures.  There are several adventure tours that are extremely popular.  Some involve abseiling; some involve rock climbing or interior cave climbing; some involve something called black water rafting; some involve bungee jumping; and some involve simply walking through caves and one tour even floats you in a calm boat through a cave for a short distance.   You can guess which tours we opted to do.

 

Black water rafting is nothing like whitewater rafting.   Black water rafting is done with a flotation device (usually an old tire inner tube) on and in rivers that flow through caves.  Those caves are constant 60F degrees and that water is cold!!!  Can’t see us willingly getting wet in 60F air temps.   Sometimes the rafters go over small rapids and get scraped and cut on the rocks.  The term black water rafting comes from the fact that most of this rafting is done in complete darkness since the rivers go beneath and through the unlit caves and through rock “tubes.”   Sounds nuts to us – get into cold water and get scraped and cut while being pushed through total blackness.  What fun.

First we toured the Ruakuri Cave.  This is a very large cave that offers anything one might want to find in a cave.  The limestone stalactites, stalagmites, curtains, pillars and other formations are impressive.  It has interior waterfalls and underground rivers flowing through it.  I was very impressed by the engineering feats inside Ruakuri Cave.  They have constructed suspended metal walkways with handrails throughout the entire cave.   And this cave is huge.   

It is not the largest cave found in the area – that one is more than 1000 feet high inside the cave and more than 30 kilometers long but is not open to the public – but Ruakuri is largest cave open for public tours.  Because of the underground rivers this cave even has glow worms, so it really does have everything.  At one place inside the cave there is a “NO TRESPASSING” sign.  It was placed there in 1988 by Mr. Holden, the rancher who owned the land at ground level.  He placed the sign beneath the ground at the limit of his property at ground level.  This forced the tours to cease at the point of this sign.  It also forced a court case.  New Zealand law is based on English law which is based on Old Roman Law.  Seems like the old Romans determined that property ownership means that the property is owned to the center of the earth.  So the tour companies began paying annual lease payments to Mr. Holden.  And that was the last year that Mr. Holden worked his ranch.  Today the annual lease payments continue to be paid to the Holden heirs.

Second we toured Aranui Cave, which is supposedly considered the most beautiful cave in the Waitomo area.  It was nice but after first seeing Ruakuri our expectations were too high, so we were not overly impressed with Aranui.

Lastly we visited Waitomo Glow Worm Cave.  This cave is the most well-known and most visited.  The tour even includes a short boat ride through the total darkness where you see the glow worms covering the cave ceiling and sides.  There were thousands of glow worms covering the ceiling.  They looked like stars on a moonless night at sea.  I can only imagine what the first Maori to see these glow worms must have thought.  He would have had no idea that these tiny lights were caused by worms.  No wonder the Maori believed caves were the entrance to the spirit world.

Glow worms are found in caves in New Zealand and in Australia and also in caves in the Appalachian Mountains in the USA.  They are also found through Alabama and Georgia.  The worms in the USA caves are twice as bright as the worms in NZ or Australia.  The life cycle of a glow worm has 4 stages:

1.       The female fly lays around 120 small eggs.  After around 20 days the young larvae hatch.

2.       After hatching, the young larvae build a nest and put down lines sort of like a straight spider web.  These lines are made from mucous and trap insects, which are then drawn up to the worm’s mouth and devoured.  At this stage the glow worm is less than 3mm long and they emit a very visible light from their tail tip section.  They slowly grow over 9 months to the shape and size of a matchstick.

3.       The pupa stage is the same as the cocoon stage in the butterfly life cycle.  The pupa or cocoon stage lasts about 13 days, during which time the pupa is suspended by a thread.

4.       When the glow worm fly emerges from the pupa cocoon, it is an adult.  It looks like a large mosquito.  Except that it has no mouth.   Their only function is to reproduce.  Usually a male is waiting for the female when she emerges from the pupa.  Mating immediately takes place and the female soon lays her 120 eggs so the cycle can start all over again.  Since the adults have no mouth, they starve to death.   An adult lives no longer than a few days.  The proper name for these glow worms is arachinocampa luminosa and supposedly is unique to New Zealand.

Sunday, February 8, we drove through a mountainous national park as we made our way south.  The scenery was beautiful.   We enjoyed the day driving except for about 50 kilometers where the roads were very narrow and there were many washouts.    I could have done without that part.  We stopped in the town of Wangamui .    A large river empties into the Tasman Sea at Wangamui.  This is a larger town – a nice surprise after seeing various versions of Mayberry all day.   There are a gadjillion restaurants from which to choose.  I want veggies so tonight calls for Chinese food and TV.   

Tomorrow we should reach Wellington.

Musings and new cockpit cushions

January 26, 2009, Monday.

As the old saying goes, seems we are often a day late or a dime short.  Shortly after noon today we learned that it is New Zealand’s 169^th Anniversary Day.  We assume that is something like July 4^th back home.  Anyway, there was a regatta with tall ships, classic yachts and racing tug boats and other marine spectacles on harbor in Auckland at 9 a.m. today.  Darn!  We missed it.  The racing tug boats would have been fun to watch.

This strikes us funny.   I have mentioned previously that one drives on the left side of the road here in New Zealand.  Well, I guess because people are so accustomed to being on the left they have developed a habit of also walking to the left.  If someone is approaching you on a sidewalk or narrow walkway they will automatically move to their left.  This is opposite of what we do in the USA.   Notice the next time you are in this situation at home; probably 90% of the time you and the other approaching person will automatically move to your right and pass on your left side.   Here in New Zealand people move to their left and you pass on your right side.   It is funny to watch the “sidewalk dance” as all we visiting Americans meet oncoming New Zealanders on the walkways and in the malls.  We start to move to our right as they move to their left and we are still face-to-face and moving back and forth until one finally stops and lets the other pass on whichever side they chose.  You would think this would be a simple thing to remember but old habits die hard.  I find myself still automatically moving to the right but am still trying to remember to hang left. 

And the polite road signs also give us a chuckle.   When we drove up to Whangerei recently there was a lot of highway construction and resurfacing work, so there were lots of temporary road signs in place.  These signs are so very polite.  Such as when approaching resurfacing work the sign would read:  “Please shift to right lane for work ahead”  or “Signal persons working; Please be watchful.”    And at the end of this resurfacing work the last sign would read:  “Thank you for using care while we work; we hope you have not been inconvenienced.”    In the USA the signs would read something like:  “Construction ahead.  $500 fine for failure to obey signs or flagmen.”

Stop signs are very rare here.  Instead they use rotaries, what we would call a traffic circle.   The cars in the circle always have right-of-way.   It is surprising how well the rotaries speed up traffic.   Haven’t seen any accidents involving rotaries.   And you don’t have to worry about getting a ticket for failure to fully stop like we do at home with our regular stop signs.

Another local thing we have noticed is the proliferation of Roast Meal small restaurants.  These are literally everywhere.  We haven’t patronized one yet but they smell delicious.  Many of these establishments appear to be for take-away only and would be considered fast-food without drive-thrus.  The signs read something like:  “Roast Meals.  Beef, chicken, pork or lamb.  Vegetables and roast root vegetables.  Green Salads.”   Doesn’t that sound much healthier than all the fries and hamburgers and fried chicken sold in the fast-food places in the USA?  Also sounds tastier too.  There also are fast-food places here in New Zealand – like Wendy’s, McDonald’s  and Burger King – but there are far more of the Roast Meal places than fast-food/junk-food type establishments. 

Even though English is the primary language here in New Zealand, we still have difficulty understanding everything that is supposedly English.  They use different terminology for many things in Kiwi-ese.   For example, everyone is familiar with an auto body shop --  where you have dents removed, repaint  and repair wrecked cars.   Here a shop like that is called a “Panelbeaters.”  Thanks to Bill for figuring out what those signs mean.   Maori is the secondary language in New Zealand and literally everyone here is familiar with basic Maori language.  We are totally lost when Maori gets intertwined with Kiwi English.   Remember that every vowel is pronounced in every word in all the Polynesian languages.   This is an example of local language in a news article about a teenage boy named Jordan who was killed in an Auckland suburb:

“Pem Bird, principal of Te Kura Kaupapa Motuhake O Tawhiuau, said Jordan was proud of his Maori heritage and was a member of the school's kapa haka group last year.  He had also recently completed a course on Mokoia Island, at Lake Rotorua, in the Maori martial art Mau Rakau. He was awarded the title Tamatoa which means "young expert".   Jordan left the school last year to attend Rangitahi College but had told Mr Bird he wanted to return this year after recently discovering his whakapapa (genealogy) in the area.   He knew his family came from the Te Whanau-a-Apanui iwi in Te Kaha but didn't know his ancestors also descended from the local Ngati Manawa iwi.   Jordan had also talked about farming next year after finding out the iwi owns land in the area.

Whanau at Rangitahi Marae were yesterday preparing a feast before the body was returned after an autopsy in Auckland. They were to stay with him overnight before he was taken to a marae in Te Kaha for the tangi.”

Try to get your tongue around all of that.  Quite a mouthful, huh?  See why we don’t always understand what we hear or read in New Zealand.  However, I do love listening to people talk in Maori.  It sounds almost musical.

A dinghy repair shop picked up our dinghy earlier this week.  The straps that hold the seat in place broke months ago.  (It broke on Bill, thank goodness, so I was saved the embarrassment of falling on the floor of the dinghy.)   This dinghy has seen better days and looks pretty “tired” and is a bit larger than we really need; but we hope to get a few more years out of it.  We have an 11 ½ foot AB inflatable  Hypalon  dinghy with a double-hulled aluminum bottom and we really like it.   Don’t know if they even still make dinghies like this.  It already has a few patches on the pontoons but does not leak.  The aluminum bottom is lighter weight than a fiberglass bottom and won’t crack like fiberglass if (when) we hit rocks or coral.   I know we would never be happy with an inflatable bottom dinghy or one of those removable floor models.   So best to repair and keep what we like.   The repair is complete and looks great.  Check another project off the list.

January 28, 2009, Thursday

Yesterday we rented  a machine to clean the upholstery and carpets.   This is the first place we have been where these machines can be rented and for months I have very much looked forward to thoroughly cleaning the beige ultrasuede upholstery.   BeBe is 6 years old this month and no matter how well you do housekeeping  it was past time for the upholstery to be steam cleaned.   I would have been happy to pay a professional to clean the upholstery and carpets but we are docked too far from where they could park their truck, so we rented  a steam-cleaning machine and did it ourselves.  Bill stayed in the cockpit with the machine and I handed up every piece of upholstery and he cleaned it.  Then I would take each piece back down and go over it with our new wet/dry shop vac to remove as much moisture as possible.    The carpets are velcroed down and were easy to remove for cleaning, except for the carpet in our aft cabin.  That one wraps up beneath the vanity and is glued to the walls and cannot be removed.  Luckily the long hose reached just perfectly through a cockpit side port to the aft cabin.   It is so nice to have everything clean and fresh again.   Every boat interior needs to be completely taken apart and cleaned every so often.

February 1, 2009, Sunday

Friday we drove into Auckland to pick up our newly recovered cockpit cushions.  We like the colors in the new fabric but we definitely made the wrong choice in buying a striped pattern.  The old fabric was also striped but those were very wide stripes.  The new fabric has multiple stripes of various widths.  Stripes do not work well because of the curvature of the hull and cockpit.  Our cockpit looks rectangular but the rear of the cockpit is ever-so-slightly narrower  than the forward area of the cockpit.  This is due to the boat getting narrower toward the stern and the widest part of the boat is just forward of the cockpit.    This curvature causes the fabric striped pattern on the short end of the “L” shaped rear corner cushions to be slightly diagonal.  The stripes are correctly aligned on the rest of the cushions, but those 2 short sections on the rear corners have improperly placed stripes.  Nothing can be done about this.  If the shop had made the stripes align correctly on those 2 short sections then the majority of the stripes on the rest of the cushions all would have been diagonal instead of straight.  The shop did an excellent job – we just chose the wrong pattern for cockpit cushions.  But the new colors look great.

While we were downtown we took the opportunity to visit the Maritime Museum.  A very elderly gentleman was our tour guide and he tended to be a bit verbose about things that to us were not particularly interesting; but he was a nice guy and we enjoyed the museum.

I have finally used up almost all the thyroid pills that I bought back in Venezuela at such a bargain price.   Until a couple of years ago one was able to purchase simple medications like this without a prescription, but New Zealand changed their laws and now one must have a doctor write a script.  Our international health cards indicate that both Bill and I are overdue for boosters for Typhum Vi, and Bill needs the second and final immunization for Hepatitis A and the fourth and final immunization for Hepatitis B.   The doctor’s office ordered these vaccines and we have appointments for Wednesday morning to take care of everything.   The receptionist said the office visit will be expensive since we are not covered by the health care system in New Zealand.  “Expensive” to her is dirt cheap to me.  A standard doctor office visit will cost me $35 USD and if the doctor insists on lab blood test it will cost me $30 USD.   That is dirt cheap compared to USA prices for same health care without insurance.

As soon as that is finished we are finally ready to leave and begin our road trip to the South Island.  I want to see a glacier.

Bought a car

We have wheels!!!  

Last week we bought a 1992 Toyota Corolla Ceres online at Trade Me, which is like a local New Zealand version of Ebay.  We paid $2,000 NZD, which is $1060 USD.  We couldn't rent any car for 3-4 months for that amount, so we consider this to be a disposable car.  When it is time to move on then we will auction the car again on Trade Me with no reserve and take whatever we can get for it.  The car has 234,000 kilometers (145,800 miles) and everything works, including the air-conditioner.  It has a manual transmision.  I have not yet driven this car.  Bill seems okay shifting with his left hand.  I am not that coordinated so why test fate.  I'll just let Bill drive.  (He is still not accustomed to the turn indicator being on the right side of the steering wheel.  That is just odd.)

Last weekend we drove up to Whangerei to visit our friends on S/V FREE SPIRIT.  They are docked at the Whangerei Town Centre Marina and are right in the heart of town.  This was the weekend of the Buskers Festival which is like a New Zealand very miniature version of a Renaissance Festival.  They had numerous skits and shows and a fire show on Saturday night.  We enjoyed seeing Paul, Michele, Merric and Seana for the weekend.  It is a very scenic 2 1/2 hour road trip from Whangaparaoa Penninsula north to Whangerei.  Our first excursion driving through the countryside.

Today was a busy and productive day.

When we visited Houston in December 2007 we purchased Sunbrella fabric to recover our cockpit cushions.  S/V BeBe left the factory exactly 6 years ago this week and the cockpit cushions were the originals.  The fabric was still in good condition but we wanted a fresher look.  This week we finally shopped the marine re-upholstery folks.  We obtained bids from 4 shops.  This morning we decided which shop would get the job and dropped off the old cushions and the fabric.  Check one project off our list.

New Zealand has regulations regarding refilling propane/butane tanks and it seemed that our LPG tank could not be refilled in this country because it did not have the weight engraved on the tank.  It is a 20-pound aluminum tank and we have never encountered refill problems anywhere before.  This morning we took the tank to a dive shop where they engraved the tank weight capacity on the outside of the tank.  The tank still does not entirely meet the New Zealand regulations because the tank does not have the liquid volume capacity also engraved on the outside of the tank.  We have no way of computing that figure so could not have it also engraved at the dive shop.  But we decided to try getting it refilled anyway in hopes that the station wouldn't notice the missing liquid volume numbers.  Sure enough, they refilled the tank without any questions.  Check another little project off our list.

We also visited the Australian Consulate in downtown Auckland this morning to apply for our visas.  We wanted 6-month visas since we aren't certain of our exact arrival and departure dates.  Well, we were pleasantly surprised when the clerk said he could give us 12-month multiple-entry visas instead of 6-month single-entry visas.  AND he could have the visas ready this afternoon.  This was a shock since it was already almost noon when we submitted the applications.  So we shopped nearby chandleries for a couple of hours and returned to the Australian Consulate at 3 p.m. and picked up our passports containing completed visas.  Talk about service!  Kudos to the Australian Consulate.

I have spent the last few days plotting courses to New Caledonia and onward to Australia, ending at Darwin for the moment.   The Great Barrier Reef looks really scary when you drill down on the electronic charts.  Sure hope the charts are GPS corrected and the waypoints are accurate.  I always plot courses at least 10 miles from any shown reefs or rocks, but in the Great Barrier Reef there are many areas where you must be within 1/3 mile of reefs on each side.   Will be really glad when we are through that famous reef.

Which brings to mind something I don't think we have yet mentioned in this blog -- how many boats we know of that met disaster in the South Pacific this year.  A couple of boats had rigging failures but both survived without injuries and were assisted to the next port by other cruisers.  We personally know of 7 cruising boats that sank while crossing the South Pacific in 2008.  Most of them ran aground on reefs because they had their electronic charts zoomed out to show large scale during passages.  That just doesn't work out here.  There are way too many reefs to ever sail with your chartplotter set at large scale.  You need to keep the charts zoomed in to show detail, even during those long passages when it seems like your boat is not even moving across that screen.

Since bought the car we have discovered the Whangaparaoa Town Centre, or The Plaza as it is also known.  We have also found the new movie theater, where the seats are very large heavy upholstered chairs like you would find in a home.  Have never seen chairs like these in any cinema.  Of course, during certain movies they will also serve you food on the little tables between these large chairs.  Much more elaborate and nicer than the Alamo out on Highway 6 in Houston.   We did not attend a movie at a time when they would serve food so we aren't sure exactly how it works.

Today for lunch in downtown Auckland we visited a very nice Thai restaurant, rated as the best in Auckland.  During the fourth quarter of 2009 we will be in Indonesia, ending up in Phuket, Thailand by year's end.   So I thought we should become familiar with the various types of curry that is served in that region.  Today I tried Penang Curry, supposedly from Penang, Malaysia -- one of our planned destinations.  It was pretty tasty and even Bill liked it; and he doesn't normally eat curry.  

The best name for a restaurant I have seen locally was a Thai restaurant that is on the top floor of building on a nearby road.  The name is Thai'd Up. 

Trip home for the holidays; Bolivar Peninsula post Hurricane Ike

Date Range:  2008-12-11 to 2009-01-11

Title:  Trip home for the holidays; Bolivar Peninsula post Hurricane Ike

We flew home for the holidays on December 10.  Enjoyed seeing all the family members and friends in the Houston area.  Bill's sister, Helene, and her 2 kids and grandson drove down from Dallas for a couple of days.  And Bill's brother, Theo, and his family drove from College Station into Houston to visit.  Even my sister, Jo-Ann, drove down from Michigan and we met up with her in Beaumont for a couple of hours.  It has been probably 5 years since we have seen Jo-Ann and her grandchildren.  We met Jo-Ann's 2 newest granddaughters for the first time, Briana and Hailey.    Jo-Ann's husband does construction management and there is no work in Michigan right now, but he has lined up about 3 years of construction work in the Beaumont, Orange and Port Arthur areas due to the severe damage caused by Hurricane Ike in September 2008.

Bill and I are fortunate to have so many family members in the Houston area where we are welcomed as houseguests and even provided with vehicles to drive.  This saves us a bundle on hotel bills and car rentals.   We could not afford to spend a month visiting home each year if we had to pay for hotels and rental cars.  It is not inexpensive to fly to Texas from New Zealand.

Bill did his annual medical things at the VA hospital and got his script for another year.  We drove to Beaumont and picked up Bill's TWIC and applied for mine -- that ridiculous new requirement that one must have if you hold a Captain's license even if you do not work in the transportation industry and will never enter a secure area of any port.     Just for grins we checked online a week later and were shocked to learn that my TWIC was ready so quickly.  So we made another trip to Beaumont and picked up my TWIC also.  Now we are both set with the requirements for our Captain's licenses until those licenses expire in May 2011.  We will have to make another trip home around April 2011 to handle renewal of our Captain's licenses and renewal of our TWIC.  Spring of 2011 should find us sailing from South Africa to Brazil; so, hopefully we will be able to fly back to Texas from Brazil to do all the paperwork and physicals required for the Merchant Marine licenses.   Wonder if we will ever be able to make a trip home simply for enjoyment and not have a gadjillion "personal business" items to take care of while in Houston.

After picking up my TWIC we met up with my sister, her daughter and her 4 grandchildren at a pizza joint for lunch.  Our son, Trey, and our 2 grandchildren joined us for the day trip to Beaumont.  So we had a large lunch gathering with 6 kids and 5 adults.   It was the first time we had seen the 2 newest girls and it had been so long since the other kids had seen one another that it was like meeting strangers.   It was good to see everyone again.  Who knows how long it will be before we are all in the same place once again. 

We decided to return to Houston via Bolivar Peninsula and the Galveston ferry.   We had seen photos of the damage done by Hurricane Ike last September; and several people had told us that the "beach" no longer exists.  But we wanted to see for ourselves.  "The beach" is where everyone went during our childhood and teenage years.  Bill's father owned several beach houses for rental property for years.    For many years our family vacations were at rental beach houses at various places along Bolivar Peninsula.  Neither of us could imagine all those hundreds and hundreds of houses being completely gone.  Well, they pretty much are completely gone -- both on the beach side of the highway and also on the bay side of the highway.  There are a few pockets of a few houses left standing here and there, although all of them are severely damaged.  But hundreds and hundreds of houses are completely gone.  They are now running new electrical lines and a few people were cleaning up debris, but there is not one commercial building left standing along either side of the entire length of highway between Winnie and Galveston.  We understand that there are still 140 people missing from the peninsula -- assumed washed away in the hurricane.  We cannot imagine what this area must have been like during Hurricane Ike.  We learned later that the reason for so many deaths was that the weather service had predicted the storm to arrive at least 12 hours later than it actually did.  People tried to get out on Friday morning, expecting the storm not to arrive until Friday night.  Cars were washed off the highway as they approached the turn to High Island.  The cars were washed out in the swampy lands that are filled with the old oil horses that still pump and people drowned.  So tragic!  But that was the only way off the peninsula so folks were trapped.

On many piles of debris were placed large American flags on short flag poles.  We pondered the reason for these flags:  were they to mark where bodies had been found?  Our 7-year-old granddaughter showed more wisdom than her years when she told me that "I think the flags mean 2 things.  One is where bodies were found and one is that you shouldn't give up."  I do hope she is right and that the people who made their homes on Bolivar Peninsula don't give up.  There is still room left to rebuild in many areas on that peninsula and I hope that it happens.  Bill and I had always thought in the back of our minds that we would someday return and live on Bolivar Peninsula when we get too old to live on a sailboat.  Here's hoping there will be something rebuilt so we might still have a chance for that to happen.

The absolute strangest thing we saw on Bolivar Peninsula was a 44-45 foot sailboat sitting perfectly upright on the beach between Gilchrist and High Island.   We stopped the car and Bill walked out onto the beach to get a closer look at this boat.  It was named S/V Isabel and hailed from Kemah, TX.  This boat had no outward signs of damage whatsoever.  Heck, even the bimini was perfectly fine and still in place.   Cannot imagine why the owner has not trenched out and refloated this boat by now.  It has been sitting on that beach for more than 3 months.  Made us wonder if the owner even knows it is there.  After all, it is a pretty good distance from Kemah to High Island -- all the way across Galveston Bay and then across Bolivar Peninsula to get where it now sits. 
  
OMG!!! You would not believe the hurricane damage on Bolivar Peninsula!!  I don't think it can ever come back anything like it was.  Seeing photos doesn't do justice to the actuality of seeing the totality of the destruction.   The damage on Galveston Island (including West End beach area) does not begin to compare to the severe damage on Bolivar Peninsula.  Debris is still piled 15-ft high all along both sides of the highway and FEMA isn't contributing any money to help clean it up.  Guess all the money still has to go to New Orleans instead.  But I guess I shouldn't get started on that.

We arrived back at the marina on Friday afternoon.   Turned on the fridge and walked down to the Chinese superette and bought a few essentials.  By 6:30 p.m. we were in bed and slept for 13 hours straight.  Think we were a bit tired from the long flights?    Sunday morning there was another vendor day at the Hobbs Wharf which is under construction at the end of our dock.  Lots of baked goods, local honeys and local produce and a few craft-type things for sale.  Then we walked a short distance to a couple of small Indian grocery stores and bought all that we could carry back to the boat.  There is a sign on the fence at the end of our dock stating that the footpath will be permanently removed tomorrow so that the newly flooded basin will be open for the new Hobbs Wharf which should open in a few weeks.   Once that footpath is removed tomorrow then we will have no way of walking to either the Chinese superette or to the Indian grocery stores.  That means we won't be able to buy any type of groceries or beer or anything until we buy a car.
  
Staying at Gulf Harbour Marina means that you absolutely must have a car.  Used cars are very inexpensive here in New Zealand.  People have told us that it is illegal to purchase a used car in Japan, so all the Japanese used cars are shipped to various Pacific islands -- most to New Zealand.  We hope to buy one of the used cars soon.  Bill called on one for sale yesterday, but someone was looking at it when he placed the call; and that person bought it.  The only other car we saw for sale nearby was a Saab convertible, and that is not the type car we want.  This afternoon Bill found an old Toyota on Trade Me, the local version of Ebay; but we haven’t decided if we want to bid on it or not.  At least now we have enough food on the boat to last us about a week.  Then we will have to buy a car just so we can go grocery shopping if for no other reason. 

Great Barrier Island and arrived Gulf Harbour Marina near Auckland

Monday, December 1, 2008

Latitude 36.10.32S 

Longitude 175.21.57E

Distance sailed today:   53.4 NM

We departed the small harbor at Tutukaka at 0640.  It was gray and dismal and drizzling rain for half the day.  Winds were too light for sails alone, so we again motor-sailed.  About 3 hours before reaching Great Barrier Island the winds filled in, rain stopped and sailing was perfect until we got between 2 islands at the entry to Port Fitzroy bays on Great Barrier Island.  We anchored behind tiny Grave Island at exactly 1340.  The trip took less time than we had anticipated.  This is a beautiful anchorage, very calm and protected and surrounded by high mountains covered in every shade of green imaginable.  Picture perfect place.  Reminds me of the Pacific Northwest of the USA or parts of Scotland. 

A weather front moved across the North Island of New Zealand from the Tasman Sea on Tuesday.  Winds blew steadily at around 20 knots from the west for 24 hours.  This did not bother us because we had anchored behind Grave Island for just that reason.  So we were somewhat sheltered from the westerly winds.  But it was cold as all get-out and I refused to go outside all day.  We had originally planned to proceed onward to the marina near Auckland on Wednesday, but since we didn’t do anything all day Tuesday we decided to delay that departure until Thursday when weather prediction would be better for sailing in that direction.

Wednesday morning we finally put the dinghy in the water.  First time the dinghy has been in the water since we left Tonga more than a month ago, and the outboard took a few minutes to decide to run smoothly again.  It was a short ride over to Port Fitzroy, where we hired a car for the day.  Bill had forgotten to bring his wallet so we had to rent this car in my name and they said Bill could not drive it.  The clerk also said that the police do spot-checks looking for unauthorized drivers on the rental cars; so that meant I really was going to have to drive it.   We rented a Toyota Mark II.  It was a small 4-door sedan with diesel engine and automatic transmission.  This was my first experience at driving on the left-hand side of the road, as well as my first experience at driving a car with the steering wheel on the right-hand side of the car.  Driving on the left-hand side of the road was not a problem.  But remembering to use my left hand to shift the car was a different story altogether.   Good thing it wasn’t a stick shift.  My first instinct was to use my right hand on the column (which was the turn indicator) instead of the gear-shift on the floor between the front seats.  Then when I wanted the turn indicator I could never find it.  Just seemed like the totally wrong place for the turn indicator to be on the right-hand side of the steering wheel.

Shortly after we started on the winding mountain road Bill remembered that he had forgotten to take his daily medicine that morning, so we turned around and he went back to the boat and took care of that.  While there he also picked up his wallet.  We then added him to the car rental contract so that he could drive.  But I was enjoying driving this strange little car so we agreed that I would drive until we turned around, and then he would drive back.  That way we each had the opportunity to scare the other person on the extremely narrow winding mountain roads with sheer drop-offs hundreds of feet down.   In the US you would have guard rails on roads like these, but not here.

Great Barrier Island is a fairly large island, but it has very limited roads.  GBI is a backpacker or “tramping” destination.  Tramping is hiking.  GBI is also a camping destination and high-season is December and January.  The entire island is traversed with hiking trails of varying difficulty.  They don’t require well-constructed roads and they don’t need or want a lot of any type roads.  The Department of Conservation wants to keep Great Barrier Island as natural as possible.   Backpackers reach this island either by ferries or by airplanes that carry maybe 10 people per flight.  It is a very laid-back sort of place.  The island has no supermarket, no electricity supply (only private generators and solar panels), no main drainage or water supply (private wells and septic tanks only), most roads are unsealed, and gasoline costs nearly double the Auckland price.  Cell phone reception is very limited and there are no banks, ATMs or street lights. 

As we left Port Fitzroy (which consists of whopping 9 buildings including residences and businesses), we encountered a young couple walking on the road.  So we offered them a ride.  Heck, this is an island with only one road.  We must be going wherever they are heading anyway.  Turned out these kids were from Woodstock, New York.  This year they have been hiking in Iceland and in the Philippine Islands, and just recently arrived in New Zealand.  We haven’t seen very many young people from the USA traveling about in the Pacific, but have seen hundreds of European high-school and college age kids bumming about.  They usually travel on a very low budget.   Wish the American kids would get more into this travel-while-you-are-young idea because visiting other countries and cultures provides such a valuable life experience.   The Woodstock kids got out when we reached the Windy Canyon Trail, and we continued on our way.

I drove all the way to the southern end of the island.  We stopped at the Claris Texas Café for lunch.  Texas, it is not.  Texas taste, it did not have.  Texas food items, it did not have.  We have no clue why it was called Texas Café.  Kiwis are sometimes strange.

We switched and Bill drove all the way back to the northern end of the island.  We saw some spectacular views along the way --- the type views you saw in The Lord of the Rings movies.  Also looked down on some beautiful white-sand beaches.   However, about two-thirds of the road was unpaved (or unsealed as they say here); and we got tired of bouncing about on the loose gravel and were glad to turn in that rent car.  The only thing that I wish we had seen were the natural hot springs.  But that required another hour on the unpaved road plus one hour walk in and one hour walk back out.  Our time was limited because we wanted to be back on the boat before dark.  So we opted to forgo visiting the hot springs. 

Back to the boat for a steak dinner.  We checked latest GRIB files and weather looks good for the trip to Auckland area tomorrow.

December 4, 2008 Thursday

Latitude 36.37.267S

Longitude 174.47.491E

Distance sailed today:  45.3 NM

It was a beautiful day; bright sunshine and calm seas with light winds.  Dozens of dolphins (porpoises) played around the boat.  When we were about 10 miles inside the Hauraki Gulf a whale crossed our path about 200 feet directly in front of us.  There might have been 2 whales but we only clearly saw one of them.  Great day for a leisurely sail with beautiful scenery.  We motor-sailed with poled genoa and arrived at Gulf Harbour Marina shortly after lunchtime.  Gulf Harbour Marina is located on the Whangapararoa Penninsula about 13 miles north (across the water) of downtown Auckland proper.  We went straight to the fuel dock first and filled up.  We will not need fuel for months but the reasoning is that partially empty fuel tanks will get condensation inside and foul the diesel with water.  We never had to worry about this before because we have always been in hot climates where condensation does not form.  But with the cold nights and warm days here in the Auckland area, this condensation would be a problem.  BTW, diesel is very reasonably priced in New Zealand.  Much, much less expensive than gasoline locally.  

A very nice guy helped us at the fuel dock and then guided us to our assigned slip.  Since we are transient and liveaboard, we were assigned a slip on ‘N’ dock which is across the waterway from the yacht club, shops, offices and boatyard.  At least there is a toilet and shower facility right at the end of our dock; all other amenities require a dinghy for access.  After we were tied up in our assigned slip the nice man gave us a ride across the waterway to check in at the marina office.  Guess we will have to put the dinghy in the water so I can do laundry before our flight home next week.  All marinas in New Zealand are located in “no discharge” areas which means we cannot operate our clothes washer while in the marinas and must use the marina laundry facilities.  And the laundry facilities are across the waterway.  Taking the dinghy to do laundry seems so strange.  Not something we have ever had to do in any marina.

Supposedly there are a couple of small eateries and one very small grocery store within 20-minute walk from our slip.  And there is some kind of market held on weekends at the construction site of a new store being built near the end of our dock.  Since we will only be here less than a week before flying home, the limited things within walking distance or dinghy distance will fill our needs for the moment.   All other stores will require a car, a purchase which we will research after we return in January.  For now we are settled into our temporary home until April in slip N4 at Gulf Harbour Marina and very glad to be here.