Navire's blog

Motu Wi, Hauraki Gulf December 22 Janet This is it. The sun is shining at last. We are in a sheltered anchorage. We are happily whiling away the afternoon, swimming, sipping ice-cold beer, the wet weather gear draped around lifelines, finally rinsed. In internet range, both our tapping away on our computers, arranging social life for the next couple of stops.
This is more like the cruising life we signed up for.
Yesterday's taste of scallops inspired David to give our scuba gear its first outing of the season. Getting set up to dive is quite a palaver. Every piece of equipment had to be adjusted, and our memories scoured for details of how to assemble it. I learned to dive 40 years ago around the coast of Wellington, diving regularly then, but less frequently in recent years. David trained about nine years ago on a trip we took to The Cook Islands, but hasn't done many dives since.
Fully dressed he staggered to the rail, threatening to expire of overheating with all that neoprene tightly wrapped around his body. He was loaded with tank, weight belt, fins, snorkel, and scallop bag. He lowered himself into the water, struggling to get his fins on, and mask and snorkel in place. He slowly sank below the sea, large air bubbles bursting through the surface, partly from his heavy breathing, and partly from a leaking tank valve. A new tank is on the shopping list.
I watched the bubbles zigzag around the bay and hoisted our dive flag, so no marauding speed boats would come near us and unwittingly shred David with their propellers. Ten minutes later David popped up holding his bag above the water, triumphant. I seared twenty succulent scallops for dinner that night.
Leaving Wellington several months before we cast off from New Zealand, was David's inspired idea. Setting sail to Tonga in 2010, we finished work in late April and left Wellington a week later. The pace was full on and we didn't stop and really unwind until months into the trip. This time we aim to be acclimatized before we head offshore.
Even so we are finding its taking a long time to get into the rhythms, rituals, and routines of life at sea. And there's the physicality of it all. We were pretty tired at first. Only now in week four we are taking the time to write and swim but we're still spending lots of time planning routes to the next place, scouring charts for hazards, calculating distances and travel time, interpreting weather forecasts, and identifying suitable anchorages, bit trickier than finding a car park.
Coffee From time to time in these pages I will capture moments unique to living on a boat. Take this morning, all I wanted was a cup of coffee. First I light the stove and it flares for a moment then goes out. For once the gas cylinder has not run out when it is dark, a howling icy southerly blowing (the gas cylinders are kept in a box outside at the back of the cockpit) or driving rain soaking me the instant I venture out. Or worse, not noticing the flame has gone out part way through a baked dinner or the cooking of a luscious chocolate cake, leaving quietly sinking into a pancake. Bugger, David is still asleep so I can't change the gas bottle without making clanging noises that reverberate through the boat. My coffee waits.
He's up. I change the cylinder.
"Coffee? I offer.
"Yes please" Oh. No coffee. Where did I stow the spare coffee? I check my trusty provisions notebook that has the location of each item of food -'Under locker 9' it says.
Bugger again. This means taking out all the stores from locker 9 and lifting out the floor. Half an hour later coffee is served. Just as well we have all day.
PS We are North of Auckland now at Muhurangi. I imagined I'd have hours and hours to write these blog posts, swimming, and a few jobs but the days just go in a pleasant haze of meals, games of rummy tiles, and socializing with Obsession, a boat we met in Tonga.

Great Mercury Island to Happy Jack Island December 20 Janet I love looking out the back of the boat and seeing the scenery drift past as the boat swings at anchor. We are at Elephant Cove on Happy Jack Island on the Western side of Coromandel, and, yes, its raining again.
Its strange, we've been away three weeks now, but neither of us feels like we are quite yet immersed in this new life of ours. Its been a busy time aboard ship, continuing to cut our ties to land and do boat jobs in preparation for going offshore, running from anchorage to anchorage, mainly because of weather; either storms coming our way, or favourable weather enabling us to sail somewhere. Like today, we picked up what was supposed to be a Northeasterly to at least get to sail some of the trip around the top of Coromandel Peninsular.
But we motored the first few hours, then picking up a breeze as we rounded Colville.
We are both tired too. It could be post trip-preparation exhaustion, or maybe just the end of the year weariness. I know a day will come and we'll feel more energized and we'll just "be" in this lifestyle.
Happy as an oyster at Happy Jack Island Sunday Dec 21 "These are rock oysters!" I cried with delight. We were standing on the shore of Happy Jack Island when I realised the shells encrusting the rocks under our feet us were a food source. I grabbed a large rock and smashed the shell of the biggest oyster I could see. I wrested the soft, almost liquid, flesh from the shards of shell, rinsed it in the sea and placed it on my tongue. Salty, soft, sensual, fleshy.
I only ate a dozen, just in case there was some algal bloom around that we didn't know about. (There wasn't) The island's geology was stark evidence that we were sailing around an area that used to be riddled with active volcanoes. Elephant Cove is clearly a former crater, surrounded on three sides by extraordinary formations. The lava must have flowed down over rocks that have then eroded away leaving dramatic arches reaching out over the shoreline.
We leave this lovely place late afternoon as the wind is shifting, and motor over to its neighbour Motu Wi. We tuck right in against the Pohutukawa-lined shores, calculating the tide and depth to work out how close to shore we can anchor. No other boats here. Apparently this will be completely different after Christmas when every anchorage for 200 miles will be dense with yachts.
I'm lying in the cockpit when we are rudely disturbed by the noise of runabout that parks almost on top of us. It's driver immediately gears up and jumps in the water. I grumble about how inconsiderate these motorboat people are. But I don't stay grumpy for long. When the diver surfaces David waves him over and asks if we can buy some of his scallop catch, and the good man gives us three of his small catch of 20. I sauté them in white wine and butter, serve with a chilled pinot gris in the cockpit. They taste of summer.

:position 36 36s 175.46e Great Mercury Island December 17 Janet “Cheers,” Our glasses clink.
We gaze around Mercury Cove. We can finally see it in its full glory, the green grass of the fields, the Christmassy red and green of the Pohutukawa reaching out across the sand, the sky blue sea, all these features till now only seen in muted greys through curtains of mist and rain.
“Its like life has been mostly in black and white since we left Tauranga, and now its in full colour.” I say to David.
Maybe my mood will go from grey to full colour too. The weather had been gloomy inside the boat too. A valid perennial bone of contention between us is my lack of sailing ability, how I avoid some of the heavy work outside, and the anxiety I get around this. This creates conflict and makes me feel like crap because I know I should be dealing with these things. 5500 sailing miles – I should have nailed these skills by now. Time to step up. I’ve made a plan, listed all the things I need to come up to speed with, even maybe one day become good at enough to become a reliable crew member. It’s a long list. I’m sure Titus, the skipper of the boat I raced on at Seaview, will be nodding as he reads this. I know from the few deck skills I have come to grips with that I get enormous satisfaction from the achievement.
This sailing business doesn’t come to me intuitively, not like cooking where I have an innate understanding of it, and know without thinking what I need to do, naturally fine tuning things as I go. So with pen and paper in hand I gazed at the mast, at first a mess of lines, fat blue ones, skinny blue, clean red, dirty red, some I know like the main halyard and others I haven’t used like the spinnaker ones. I draw and label them all to help cement their purposes in my brain.
Next task I tackled was the fuel system, all those hoses and taps, the configurations of which I need to alter when we change the supply from the aft diesel tank to the front one. All the more complex because the engine doesn’t use all the fuel that comes in but has an over flow that has to be directed to one or other tank, and this is to be watched to ensure it doesn’t overflow into the cockpit. Thanks to the diesel engine course I did last year I could look at the engine where the fuel hoses go in and out and know that I was looking at fuel filter and understand what it does. I used to look at this metal monster of an engine and have no idea of its inner workings, and just walked away.
Other tasks on my list include reefing in high winds (I can do it at anchor in no wind!), the front end of the anchoring, deployment of storm sails and getting really good at launching the dinghy off the foredeck. I’ll be a more competent crew member and we’ll be a happier ship.
The next day dawns sunny and warm. We spread our wet salty sailing gear on deck to dry and open all the hatches. I lower our sweet little dinghy into the water, the third we have owned on this vessel (See Navire Pacific Journey for the story of the loss of the original one and the making of the replacement in Tonga). Today I do this almost entirely unaided, another of my deck-skills goals. Using the spinnaker halyard I winch the dinghy up and over the rail without having it bash into anything. It’s hovering in the air out to the side of the boat but my arms aren’t long enough to hold it out from the hull and slowly release the halyard on the winch to allow the dinghy to gently land on the sea. I call for assistance.
We row across the little inlet we are parked in, right outside the twin mansions of Fay and Richwhite, who own this whole island but deign to let us mere yachties land and wander around on its shores. “BJ’s the name,” the farm manager greets us as we land and he introduces us to the island. BJ is from Ngawi and has bought his family up to warmer climes. He likes remote places.
“How often do you get off the island?” David asks.
“Oh yeah, we go to New Zealand every so often,” says BJ.
“I’ve got 2 bars!” “Well I’ve got three,” retorts David. His phone is much older than mine but it occasionally gives him the satisfaction of better reception.
Like rabid teenagers we gaze at our phone screens as we climb one of the island’s golden hills. We’d packed up phones and laptop and dongles so we could get an internet hit. One of our highs is checking the blog site. Last time we looked at YIT we had 78 followers.
“I’ve got five emails,” “I’ve got eleven.” We are not competitive understand.
That urge momentarily sated we drop down the other side of the hill to the eastern coast of the island.
You’ve seen this picture on a postcard. Gnarled Pohutukawa reaching down to the white sand, just touching the deep blue Pacific Ocean lapping the shore. Well, we are there. This is my first ever visit to a Coromandel beach. Avert your eyes for a moment. We have our first swim of the trip. Naked. Standing on the beach I love the softness of the air on my skin, the warm breeze caressing it. I feel the sun’s warmth, its rays touching parts that haven’t seen daylight for many a year. We wade into the water, scaring off the skates that are basking in the warm shallows. I’m in first.
Cabin moments “The butter’s getting soft.” Later in the day David has ventured into the galley, making us fried bananas, lemon curd and cream. There is a famous early English navigation saying about sailing to the Americas. You sail south till the butter melts then turn right to cross the Atlantic and catch the favourable winds and currents. We have adapted this to the southern hemisphere, travelling north we know we are near the tropics when the butter starts to melt.
December 20 David looks up from his keyboard where his vision has been focused since the moment he woke. “You can’t put those up, its not Christmas yet.” I’m decorating the cabin with our half dozen Christmas ornaments and a few filaments of tinsel. “David – its December 20th, the rest of New Zealand put them up in November.” “Oh, I suppose,” he said, and went back to typing his blog.
We barely know what day or date it is, let alone that Christmas is around the corner.

Tuhua Island to Slipper Island By the time you get this you will no doubt be recovering from the excesses of Christmas, the joys and maybe traumas of the day. I am a week or so behind with this blog posting - life is surprisingly busy at sea.
Tuhua Island – four hours sail north of Tauranga December 11-13 We woke to a dawn chorus, the boat gently swinging on her anchor, not hindered by bow and stern lines firmly attached to a marina. We too are less tied to the land. Yesterday we learned that Turners had sold our car. It felt liberating, no more WOF, insurance, registration, or expensive repairs (for the moment we’ll just overlook the fact we own a boat which eclipses all those factors).
Time to explore this new island. We lowered the dinghy into the water. I rowed as if I’d had one too many vodkas for breakfast. I hadn’t rowed for so long my coordination had evaporated, on some strokes my left oar missing the water altogether! This skill should be imprinted in my DNA. I grew up in Island Bay with a dinghy on the beach, the island my playground. I accepted David’s offer of rowing tuition.
The dinghy nosed up the beach. I leapt into the water to grab the bow and pull it to shore. I didn’t gasp, my toes didn’t immediately go numb. Yes!! “Right, let’s carry the dinghy up the beach,” suggested David, pointing at the high tide mark several metres up the sand. “Sure,” I took hold of my side of the dinghy. Nothing happened. I sent instructions to my arms and back again, nothing there. We struggled up the beach, my side of the dinghy mostly dragging in the sand. And this is without the outboard engine. Was it only four years ago I could carry my side of our much heavier dinghy in Tonga, engine and all? This evaporation of strength has not been an isolated experience. It is frightening how much muscle tone you lose when working in a sedentary academic job. Climbing the mast, I can barely haul myself up the first rungs, let alone hang on up there for more than a few minutes. Pulling in the sheets, I can barely winch the sail right in. But watch this space, I’ll have biceps to envy (for a middle-aged woman), before this trip is out. We meandered along paths through forests of ancient Pohutukawa taking one of the shorter walks to a lighthouse above the bay where we are moored. It was good to stretch our legs.
As we stood atop the outermost cliff on a promontory above the bay I spied Westerly sail in to the bay Great, we’d only met one other boat so far, and here they were. I start thinking about what I will serve with drinks.
Slipper Island Coromandel Janet December 13-16 We could have stayed at Tuhua for a week and explored the island’s crater and lakes, but the wind was forecast to shift and the bay would no longer be a sheltered haven. We headed north to Slipper Island on a grey oily calm sea, visited by two dozen dolphins who played with our bow, almost caressing it as they darted in and out. Four hours later we arrived and tied up to a mooring. The weather was not looking good.
“If the mooring breaks we start the engine. We can motor back into the bay and try to reanchor, otherwise we motor up and down the channel all night taking watches.” David outlines our emergency plan for the night.
We are on a mooring we don’t know at Slipper Island, part way up the Coromandel Peninsular, and its gusting 35 knots, gale force. It’s okay during the day but now night is falling and we are talking about doing an “anchor watch” where we take turns at staying up and keeping an eye on our position. We are trying to set the radar and GPS alarms that would alert us if we move too far. One good thing about his anchorage is that we ahv a long way to go before we hit rocks…If our mooring breaks, and we end up on the rocks, our trip would be over in a moment.
It’s raining, again. We’ve been stuck inside all day, lurching drunkenly around the boat, swaying in the Easterly swell, which wraps itself around the island. We light the diesel heater, wrote and played Rummy Tiles.
“Just like Wellington, only warmer,” I grumble to David, who looks up from his computer, nods then goes back to writing his blog.
To console myself I cook. Smells of cinnamon, lemon zest and star anise permeate the cabin as I make fig paste. Then I transform Christmas cake, laced with rum, into chocolate-coated truffles for a Boxing Day BBQ with friends in Auckland.