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On the South Island again, we had brunch in Picton. The ferry had finally gotten us to our last-minute motel... after midnight. We spent a lovely morning strolling through the small touristy town and enjoying their hospitality. The bay is completely protected from wind and waves. Sadly, that protection means it usually takes 30 km of motoring to get here. Paragliders soared the ridge above town while we waited for our bus back to Kiki.
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The Cook Strait ferry had an industrial approach for foot passengers. At one point while threading our way between tightly packed trucks toward this steel wall, we were convinced we had gotten lost. Other passengers told us to keep going ;-) Once the wall finished opening, the ferry line's bus took us right to our motel.
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Our ferry back to the South Island was delayed, so we got an extra day in Wellington to enjoy. We took the little red cable cars up and down Wellington's Mount Victoria. You can see a little bit of Wellington Harbour out the windows. At the top, we enjoyed the botanical gardens and the planetarium show about Maori navigating to Aotearoa.
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Even without a full tour, the WETA cave was entertaining. These folks made the props for the Middle Earth movies. Here you can see the armour of the Haradrim from The Return of the King.
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We made a delightful visit to Hobbiton, between Auckland and Wellington. The inviting comfort of the winding paths, individualized architecture, and vigorous greenery inspired us to improve our own neighborhoods. The locals provided the walking staff for the rare individual who leaves a Hobbit Hole for adventure.
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Our tour of the Waiheke wine country was cut short by a downpour. Luckily we had just arrived at StonyRidge for wine tasting. Peter sussed out a way to sort both ourselves and our e-bikes while we waited out the storm. Later, we had a lovely gluten-free dinner together at MudBrick, before heading on to more adventures.
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We toured the Waiheke Island wine country on e-bikes. The weather started to get a little threatening as we approached the far eastern end of the island, so we decided to turn around before reaching the old tunnels
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Our vacation started with lovely weather and a charming brunch together with Peter and Elizabeth. Peter shared his experiences with e-bikes, and we marveled at the delight of reaching the top of a hill with energy for more.
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We head out for a vacation from "boat work in exotic places" before dawn. The crescent moon leads us through the pair of Norfolk Island Pines to our approaching taxi.
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Clark's custom carpentry has squeezed more storage into the pilot's berth. A shelf doubles the usable area - and also gives more room at the foot of the berth than the previous arrangement. The new shelf promptly started holding the electrical work (still in progress).
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Kiki is once again fully rigged, with a modern radar mounted far from our heads above the stays'l. We got the jib furler overhauled, and added a furler on the inner forestay for the stays'l, which we expect will make solo sailing easier and safer.
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This was our first time replacing a mast on a boat - and apparently Kiki's first time as well (even though she is older than her captain). The reassembly went quite smoothly; it was *not* Ropetek's first rodeo.
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Aluminum can take care of itself without paint, and we did not find a viable way to get the mast and boom painted here. We decided that the shiny bare metal look was better than the banged-up paint we had.
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Brooksie coats the mast with Citristrip. We saw a redneck on youtube who showed that wrapping the stripper in plastic and letting it soak overnight would take multiple coats of paint off the aluminum at once. It was still *lots* of work to do twelve meters of mast and five meters of boom - each with multiple nooks and crannies.
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Kiki rests at dock while her mast, boom, and standing rigging have their spa vacation with Ropetek. We have no record of her stays and shrouds ever being replaced. Experts recommend replacement every ten years, and Kiki is 34 years old. We're happy to get her back to "ship shape and Bristol fashion" ;-)
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Captain and crew watch while Richy swages the shiny new inner forestay. We're switching our staysail from hank-on to furling, on this stay, so this stay will be permanently mounted to the deck. (The previous owner had kept the inner forestay tucked off to the side by the forward port shroud, so he could tack his giant genoa jib more easily)
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Inspired by a photo we found of another Crealock sailboat, we're converting the "double" pilot berth (out of sight to the left) to a single, with built-in storage. The new bulkhead is already decorated with our power-cutoff switches.
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Brooksie sorts through the spaghetti of wiring that we inherited. With this compartment cleaned out, we can move the house batteries here to the center of Kiki's electrical system. Until now, every circuit has had to detour three meters fore and three meters aft to get to the old battery compartment at the forward end of the salon. That detour was a prime suspect in our travails with the solar charge controllers. We are shortening many long wires, and replacing old corroded wire with new marine grade wire. Work is in progress, and results are encouraging so far.
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While Kiki is "on the hard" in this boatyard, we can't live aboard. (In Tonga, they let us live aboard on the hard) We found a very economical camper/mini-RV/hostel spot just 15 minutes by bike from the boatyard. Our hi-vis vests do double duty as bike safety and yard safety equipment.
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While working in the boatyard, we put all Kiki's contents into a storage unit down by the Nelson airport. We forgot to bring back the fenders while we had a van, so Clark had to fetch them by bike.
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These original equipment sensors measure the speed and depth of the water below Kiki. Replacing the broken speed sensor without letting the water in was a key motivation for getting Kiki up out of the water and onto "the hard" at the boatyard.
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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our beloved family!
This has been an amazing year for us - a year ago we had barely arrived in Santa Barbara and begun our delightful time there. Spring turned toward summer and we started further south. The early hurricane season in Mexico diverted us away from the "Coconut Milk Run" to lovely Hawai'i. Covid restrictions led us to skip past Kiribati and the Cook Islands to Samoa. After a charming month in Apia, Samoa - we hopped to Vava'u, Tonga as soon as they opened their borders. We enjoyed two weeks there, when a perfect weather window opened for the crossing to New Zealand. With (finally) no storms threatening, we dawdled from Opua down the East Coast of New Zealand to Sunny Nelson on the north end of the South Island.
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We have settled down for a bit of relaxation before repairs begin anew. Here, the Captain is set up with sweets for the holiday, and FFXIV on the starlink.
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Nelson's "Queen's Garden" has a charming Chinese garden (sponsored by Huangshi, China) tucked away up this waterway. The traditional spiral path of life weaves between the larger garden and the walled chinese garden. I think this symbolizes the sister-city relationship weaving together Nelson and Huangshi.
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"Meet me at the steps". A helpful sign informs us that these steps up to the cathedral are a traditional meeting spot for locals. The gardens around the cathedral and steps have a surprising number of California redwoods, which grow enthusastically here.
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The view when safely docked in Nelson Marina. We have been aiming for this spot since Hawaii, when Al and Lucinda told us how much they enjoyed living here.
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This is the view from a well-protected bay called The Anchorage. We spent a peaceful night here, only to be awoken by flotillas of kayakers enjoying their summer holiday. Wakeful sounds in the park inspired
this soundtrack.
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We spent our first night on the South Island in a little bay in Abel Tasman Park, behind Tonga Island. This was comfortable until the wind shifted. The next day, waves built up bigger and bigger, until we decided to seek calmer waters.
The sounds of water and birds soothed us to sleep.
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Our weather forecasters told us that conditions for crossing the Cook Strait were as good as they could get. Waves and low clouds came along with the tailwinds and favorable currents. The log records "spicy" sailing - as we reached nine knots with just the main on third reef and the staysail. That is about the least amount of canvas we can put up and keep sail balance.
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This the closest we got (so far) to Wellington. Since Samoa, Wellington was the one city we were sure we would visit. But wind and tide wait for no sailor, and they were just right for crossing the notorious Cook Strait.
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Sunrise at sea. We jumped all the way from Gisborne to Wellington bay in one three-day sail. There's not much in the way of stopping points between.
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In Gisborne, we got to dock next to a traditional waka. The hulls and crossbeams are lashed together in the traditional way.You can see Kiki behind on the left.
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It had been a long time since we'd seen dolphins. Sailing down the East Coast of the North Island, we came across a small pod. Lizann identified them as the native variety, with grey bellies.
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Arriving at Gisborne Bay. We carefully planned to arrive during daylight, because (like so many Kiwi ports) there are many hazards to navigation waiting to catch the unfamiliar visitor.
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Foggy at Gisborne Bay. Gisborne is the same distance from the equator as the Bay Area is. Nevertheless, we were shocked by the foggyness we found there. Thanks to planning ahead, we are securely anchored out of the way of any traffic.
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The view when sailing by spectacular Cathedral Cove. It took just a couple hours to sail here from Whitianga marina.
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This is the site of the Gemstone Bay snorkeling tour. Lizann and Clark suited up and visited each of the four little can buoys you can see in the photo. The yellow catamaran came by with kayakers to tour this bay and adjacent Cathedral Cove.
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We hiked from Whitianga to Gemstone Bay. It took about five hours, including a delightful rest stop at the Macadamia farm, the cutest motor ferry, and Shannon's ferry rowboat. Jillian at the macadamia farm and Shannon both bent over backwards to take care of naive visiting hikers who had underestimated the length of zigzags on their hike. (that's us)
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The view of downtown Whitianga from our hike to Cathedral Bay and Gemstone Cove. Kiki is in the marina near the center of the photo, but hidden by the tree-covered promontory.
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Our journey so far. We were startled when Google Map's default view of our daily log locations was FULL PLANET.
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Auckland downtown, viewed from the ferry back to Kiki, after a full day of touristing. We parked Kiki in Half Moon Bay marina, about six nautical miles east of downtown.
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The Auckland museum and war memorial. We thought we would be in and out in an hour or two, but we were engrossed until it was so late we decided to take busses back to Kiki instead of the ferry. The descriptions of polynesian migration and their sailboats struck close to home.
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Lizann found this verdant boardwalk through a reserve in downtown Auckland.
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This nook in an Auckland rose garden is surprisingly faithful to Roman garden design. The statues, water feature, alignment to the cardinal directions, and entrance trellis - all harken back to the time of Caesar.
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The up close and personal meerkat adventure tunnel was a highlight of the Auckland Zoo.
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Outer Whangarei harbor is already protected from weather. We never went upriver to town - just anchored overnight and went on our way down the coast.
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As we sailed out of the Bay of Islands, we watched a schooner tack. We were impressed by how close to the wind it could sail, in spite of being square-rigged. In the top left two photos, she's close hauled on port tack, getting ready to turn her nose through the oncoming wind. In the right two top photos, she's caught the wind from the starboard side with her head sails and the topsails. In the bottom left two photos, she gets all her sails set for starboard tack. In the last pic, we can see her, a motor yacht on the left, and a parasailor towed aloft by a speedboat on the right.
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Tutukaka was a nice stop. Here we're looking back out to sea through the narrow channel that protected us from wind and waves. The town was small and friendly.
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Our Maple Leaf is just worn out after 10,000 nautical miles. It's hard to believe we've sailed that far ... until it gets in your face like this.
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We had an energetic sail down the East coast from the Bay of Islands. Lovely weather, and there are stopping places close enough to each other that we haven't had to sail at night since arriving in Aotearoa (New Zealand).
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Our beloved water filter has reached its end. Long live the new filter! We didn't actually track it but I guess we filtered around a thousand gallons of water for drinking and cooking through our MSR Gravity Guardian. Gradually its filtered water flow got less and less, until we were shocked by the speed through the backup filter (that we picked up before leaving California).
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Panorama of Ururpukapuka island from near the old Maori Pa (fort/lookout). We spent a couple afternoons tramping around the well-maintained trails.
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They say there are over 144 islands in "The Bay of 100 Islands". We explored the biggest one on foot by day and slept in Kiki by night.
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On the ocean side of Urupukapuka island. The cliffs were dramatic, and they had no guardrails.
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The local flora fascinates. This magnificent tree has both lichen and a dangling growth which we could not tell whether it was part of the tree or not. When we anchored down below, the gnarly trees made Lizann exclaim "We're in a Ghibli movie!".
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Kiki relaxes at anchor in Paradise Bay of Urupukapuka Island. We're well protected from swell and strong winds here. When the wind does pick up, it swirls around the hills and swings us back and forth. Here, we're looking down from the "Paradise Bay loop trail". When we arrived, Kiki was the only boat in the bay; we got company as time went by - up to six more boats at one point.
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We took a vacation from our vacation; while Clark and Kiki hung out in Opua, Brooksie and Lizann bussed down to Hamilton and toured a few of their local attractions. Somewhere in this photo is what passes for a hiking trail in New Zealand. When Ruakuri's waterfalls trap a tourist, they play for keeps.
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One of the attractions around Hamilton is the "Hairy Feet" farm where several Middle Earth scenes were filmed. A Wizard is never late. Nor is she early. Radagast and Gandalf (inset) share a bench with Lizann and Brooksie.
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Near the Shire, but a little more wild than that. The very spot where Bilbo gets Sting, as documented by the handy photo provided by Hairy Feet.
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The very spot where Bilbo finds Sting. We decided that Kiki is not the spot for elvish swords. If orcs approach, we'll have to detect them with our radar instead.
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Hamilton Gardens has a steampunk rowing blimp. Clark was delighted. The Gardens also have re-creations of italian and egyptian style gardens. This made a charming part of a road trip vacation from our vacation.
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No update is complete without boat repairs. This photo shows the bottom side of Kiki's binnacle with its cables and Morse levers. The binnacle started making an occasional "clank" on our last passage, down from Tonga. We hoped that we could just tighten a loose cable, but no such luck. Repair postponed until next haul-out. As a backup measure, we tested out our emergency tiller (for the first time).
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The Bay of Islands Marina gave us a little treat as welcome. We had to supply our own Final Fantasy XIV. You can see the laptop and controller, but the starlink internet access is out of sight. At dock, the foul weather gear gets a chance to dry out - their sleeves dangle in the middle of our living space for now.
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