Gets your heart going to see a bridge that isn't on the charts. This one is being built across the river. We had to go through a very skinny pass between the unfinished sections.

Made it! At the guest dock at Whangarei Town Basin

We got a pile mooring for the first week, then we're moving to a dock.

Not a bad view from our mooring.

Yay! We’re finally here. Gnarly time getting here. 30 knot winds, made just getting out of our slip in Marsden an adventure. Also we’re waaay upriver now. The last bit to get here the water depth went as low as 9 feet and that was at high tide. They are also building a new bridge that will eventually be a drawbridge, but for now it was a very narrow slot between two half bridges that we had to thread through. But we’re here!

Tomorrow, we move from our nice “guest berth” in from of the marina office, down about 150 yards to a “piling mooring”. In other words we will be tied between two pilings in a line with other boats along the bank of the river. The only way off the boat will be by dinghy. The good news is the dinghy dock is only about 30 yards away and our car is parked just up from that. But it will be a new adventure.

Moonrise as seen from Charisma

We’re sitting here looking at a beautiful, almost full moon, rise over the cliff on the other side of this little cove. The horizontal orange streaks of sunset are fading into the blue-soon to be indigo-of night. So peaceful.

Aretha is singing in the background and we just finished a grilled steak and sautéed mushroom dinner. Not bad.

I’m now seeing the glistening, glittering, silver stripe of moonlight reflecting off the water behind us.

The Gannets are diving all around us and Ann is searching the water for sight of a blue penguin. No sighting yet, but we’ll let you know. She has seen a Kiwi, so she’s one up on me so far (not including card games in which she is two up).

Tomorrow-a little cove just out side of Marsden, then up river to Whangerie on Thursday. That’s where we’ll stay until April. In the mean time, home for the holidays, then back to NZ for some boat work and then land cruising.

It never really stops. Today we learned the super strong (cough, cough) Harken backstay adjuster has a broken roller bearing. Sounds like a defective part, but companies rarely cover these after more than a year and it’s about 4 years old. But a bearing like that should never break!

Ann did a huge boat clean up, emptying drawers and cabinets and spraying for mold and drying everything out. Huge!

I picked up our new outboard propeller. That should help a lot in the comfort department.

We’re waiting on some other parts as well. A year’s worth of wear and tear costs money and time.

Hopefully we’ll get to do some touring tomorrow, but we also have to clean up the dinghy. Inflate it, hose it out, etc. It also has a damaged tube that will need some professional care at some point I think.

Oh, and I got a quote for new sails from Doyle/New Zealand. Not too bad. They have a 25% off special right now because this is the off season down here, so we’ll see on that. Charisma’s current ones are 25 years old so she’s gotten good wear out of them. Maybe time for new ones that will be more trustworthy in a storm.

Seems like there are a lot of those 😉

But, that’s the reality of living in a boat that really sails. There is a lot of wear and tear. I’m fairly convinced that a month of cruising takes about a year’s toll of regular day sailing (the kind where you sail on weekends) on a boat.

Anyway…today we did the following:

-Ann took out all the cushions and laundered the covers and washed the foam. They all had saltwater on them and would never dry out unless we could remove the salt. Unfortunately the sun decided to hide behind some clouds so the cushions are not completely dry – here’s hoping for a sunny day tomorrow! -Ann cleaned all of the shelves on the port side of the boat. This is the side where the chainplate keeps leaking so mold and mildew can be a problem. So all shelves and the shuttered doors got a good scrubbing. -Ann did laundry -I bought some boat parts that we haven’t been able to find. Fairly trivial but very important stuff that we haven’t been able to source in Polynesia like clevis pins and cotter pins. -Had a rigger down and he did an end for end on the main and jib halyards and put new splices in them. I can splice, but for such an important splice I wanted a pro job -I re-did the tag line on the yankee jib. There was a 3/16 wire. It was fraying and I didn’t like how it chaffed the headfoil when it furled, so I changed over to Dyneema which I spent a couple hours putting two splices in (Ann says they look very professional and she watched the do-it-yourself YouTube video so she should know). It’s much softer and won’t damage the headfoil as much. -The rigger and I took off the backstay adjuster. We have a Harken mechanical adjuster and about the time we left Mexico it jammed. I’m guessing the grease inside mixed with salt and just created a glue, but will know tomorrow after the rigger takes it apart. I would have done it, but it takes a specialized tool that I didn’t want to have to fabricate for just one use when for 30 bucks (the cost in time he’ll spend opening it) I can get him to do it.

I think we did a couple other things but they escape me for now. More stuff for tomorrow. The dinghy motor is getting a new prop and I’m getting a block and tackle rig so I can haul myself up the mast. I need to change the steaming light and in general want to be able to go aloft when need be. I’m also going to have the rigger do a “one hour inspection” of the rig. They were offering this for $30. I’m going to get him to go to the top and come down inspecting all the swage fittings to make sure none are failing.

OK, enough techie boat talk for now. I WILL at some point write up a “what works/doesn’t work” bit, but for later.

Ta ta for now.

Yesterday was a rainy, cold day. Today the sun shone brightly. Seems appropriate here in Opua as we await the arrival of the sailing vessel Adventure Bound. Adventure Bound is the sailboat that went to the rescue of Windigo, the boat that rolled in the storm coming from Tonga. To go to their rescue Adventure Bound had to turn into 50 knot winds and bash back north. No easy task in that storm.

They stayed nearby Windigo until the large container ship and ultimately the New Zealand Navy could rescue them. The detour cost not only time, but equipment failure too. We hear that their wind vane was damaged in the high winds and waves. The cruisers gathering in Opua have patiently tracked Adventure Bound’s progress (through two more gales!) and are very excited about their arrival. We have just heard Adventure Bound on the VHF making their way to the Q dock. Cruisers are family and very supportive of each other. A welcome card was signed and donations were gathered from cruisers as well as local merchants to help Adventure Bound with repairs as well as to tell them how proud we are of them. The boat yard has offered a free slip for a week. The local grocery store has a bag full of goodies. There are boat cleaning services and even two nights at a local hotel awaiting them.

Our job: present the gift to Bruce and Marcelle on behalf of the cruisers. This has kept us near the marina all day. The local TV station has had a camera man nearby ready for the big arrival. We hope to be able to go to Q dock and pull in their lines. Time will tell. A quick side note: Adventure Bound is also a Tayana 37. Bruce, from Adventure Bound, says he wants to change their name. He told us that the very first time we met them in Papeete. He thinks it is a ridiculous sounding name and when he can afford to, he intends to change it. On the radio a few days after the storm, he reaffirmed this stand acknowledging that who wouldn’t want to be rescued by ADVENTURE BOUND?!?!? Perhaps if they had been named Tinkerbell their services would not have been requested. I think we should come up with the top ten new names for Adventure Bound! Evening update:

Adventure Bound has arrived in New Zealand to the loud cheers of many fans at the yacht club. Bob took the TV camera man and rowed over to the Q (Quarantine) Dock with the champagne and bag full of good wishes and donations. Many people were concerned that this “infraction” of Q dock rules (only Customs officials are to have access to the boats on the Q dock) would land Bob in trouble with the local authorities. Bob was confident that an apology to customs officials (if any could be found on a Sunday) for pushing the rules after the fact would be appropriate. As of this moment no apology is needed. Customs are no-where to be seen until Monday morning. Bruce and Marcelle were thrilled with the goodies and happy for the welcoming hug that Bob represented.

Now the heroes sleep comfortably tied up to a dock for the first time in 19 days.

Entering the cave

Town of Pahia near our marina

Today we got away from the boat for a while and took a road trip inland to our first real sightseeing trip. We went to the “Glow Worm” cave. Sounds cheesy, yes? But, it was a fantastic tour.

First off the cave itself was huge and deep and beautiful. This was a guided tour, but with a twist. The cave is on private property, so the family runs the tour. They are very respectful of the land, so the tour is low key, but very informative. The cave itself has been dated to 100 million years based on the size of the stalagmites inside.

Then there were the glow worms. Little worms about 3 inches long. They live in their larval state for 10 months during which time the tip of their tail glows. Anyway, once in the cave, the highlight was the guide turning the lantern off several times as we moved through the cave whereupon the entire ceiling of the cave glowed with bluish green spots. It looked like the milky way on a clear night. Amazing.

So now we’ve done our first road trip. Our other news was we bought a car. It’s a Mitsubishi Mirage. Since we’re here for about six months, transportation is necessary, especially since we’re going to tour the countryside while we’re here. There’s a service called Cars for Cruisers that sells used cars and then guarantees to buy them back-less $2000-after the six months. So for a little over $300/month we have a car to tour the country. Nice!

So, we didn’t get up until 1000 this morning. Turns out the passage took a bit more out of us than we thought. We’ve heard that from some others too. We’re pretty close to getting back up to speed though. Our final two days coming in were with little sleep. It’s often that way on the end of a passage as you get near a coastline. This was compounded with the fact that the weather was deteriorating a second time during the trip. We ended up in a second front the last day. Rain, wind gusting to 35 knots, etc. But at this point we were nearing the coast so we had to keep alert. Neither of us were able to get much sleep as there was a lot of traffic during the day and into the night. Big ships coming down the coast and intersecting with our course, so a lot of radar work watching them and deciding how best to avoid them. Not too easy since we were intersecting at a fairly narrow angle.

Customs in NZ was fun. The folks are really nice but they take everything. NZ is very careful about what they broadly term “bio-hazard”. This includes growth on the hull as well as anything that might be able to grow and compete with native plants and animals.

Customs itself was pretty easy, although at the end of the meeting the customs guy casually asked if we had any pepper spray or other such product. We did have some bear spray (since you don’t need a license in the States) and he said we’d have to give it up. It’s illegal here. So that was our first confiscation. Then he left and said quarantine would be by the boat soon. After about 20 minutes the quarantine guy came in and went through his list with us. He was very nice, but just held a garbage bag open as he went down the list; honey (“that’s Mexican honey, in the bag”), meat (“in the bag”), vegetables, bananas (“in the bag”), eggs, onions, garlic, ginger (“bag, bag, bag and bag”). Pretty much stripped us of anything fresh. Garbanzo beans, and popcorn were the grains that were taken. We had seen rice, lentils and such on the list but he didn’t ask for those. Funny how they manage to make it seem like such a nice experience while at the same time taking all your fresh stores. The Kiwis manage to do everything with a smile. It’s a very pleasant place with wonderful people. But the one stop check in (all on the Q – Quarantine Dock) was a nice change from roaming all over new ports looking for the necessary officials to check us into their country.

New Zealand looks just like Petaluma, only farther.

We’ve only been here a few days, but we’re really enjoying the place and the people. Everyone is so nice.

It feels really strange though to be:

-Wearing long pants -Wearing a jacket -Wearing shoes -Using blankets -Turning the heater on at night before bed -Driving a car (we rented one and on the wrong side of the road!)

We’re in a beautiful area named Opua. In a week or so, we’ll be heading down to Whangerie where we’ll leave the boat when we come home for the holidays. We drove there today. It’s a pretty good size town, so a good place to work on Charisma after the last year’s wear and tear. We need to haul out and paint the bottom and then renew the varnish (much of which is peeling from the tropical heat).

In Whangerie we bought a prepaid cell phone and a wifi wireless device (both from Vodaphone) to drive internet on the boat. My iPhone is way too expensive to use. Talk about simple. It took all of ten minutes to have phone, wifi device and load both with minutes of use. AT&T could really learn a thing or two from these guys. You can reload the minutes at any store or gas station. This way we know exactly how much we’re using/paying and won’t get one of those surprise $400 phone bills.

Teaching old dogs, new tricks. Here’s a good one. One of the nav lights we use when under power went out on the last night we used it. There’s a young guy here named Falcon who has been cruising with his family literally all his life at this point. I think he’s about 23 years old. So, I asked him if I could pay him to go up the mast and change the bulb. I’m too big for the winches on Charisma and I thought I could just winch him up and get it done. Well, he asked me; “what are you going to do if you have to go up sometime when you’re in the tropics at some uninhabited island?” Me; “Er, um, ah, I don’t know?” He said he’d come over and help me rig a block and tackle so I could haul myself up. I had always thought that I would be too heavy to hoist myself up, but once he got a 6:1 block and tackle set up, I sat in the bosun’s chair and voila, I could pull myself up with one hand! So, tomorrow I go up with a new bulb. Nice to know I now have the capability. Thanks Falcon!

This evening we went to a “cultural event” as it was termed. It was a historical play created to teach the history of New Zealand from the first Polynesians who came from Tahiti through the late 1800s when British Settlers came to terms with the Maouris (more or less-it’s complicated). Anyway, it was done in a beautiful ancestral house, hand carved to represent all the dozens of tribes in New Zealand. Really well done and fun.

So we now have cultural and a new phone. “Sweet as” (which is the saying down here for “cool”).

Good on ya mate.

Position: Opua, New Zealand

At the quarantine dock. You have to wait here with your yellow "Q" flag up until customs, immigration and quarantine all check you in. Took about three hours, but there were about four boats all checking in at once.

The view from Charisma in the Marina at Opua, New Zealand

Yay! We made it all the way from California to New Zealand! Now that's worth a beer to celebrate.

This is a delightful place on the Northeast tip of the north island of New Zealand.

Last night we battled through one last weather front with several associated squalls and 25+ knot winds. It’s gotten to be “business as usual” to get up in the middle of the night to make sail changes and adjustments, so we just did it and soldiered on, but the big difference is that we never had a chance to go back to sleep since we were on plan to make landfall this morning. We got in at 0800 local, got checked in with immigration, customs and quarantine, then signed up for a slip for a few days (which includes showers!!). A little lunch and we were back on Charisma in the early afternoon for a nap. Next thing we knew it was 2000 local time and John from Orcinius (bless him) was outside the boat calling us. Turned out there was a group who were going out to dinner and he came down and got us. If he had not have woken us, we would have missed a great meal out with many of our friends.

OK, I’m rambling because I haven’t had enough sleep yet. Going now. More detail to come, but WE’RE IN NEW ZEALAND!