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   APRIL , 2010
A BUSY 2 MONTHS


February 1 – March 24, 2010

What a whirlwind two months!  We left Bella Via at the Town Basin Marina in Whangarei, New Zealand, and flew to New York, USA, to begin our annual visit home with a five day stay at the apartment of our daughter Jenn and son-in-law Jass.  That time was followed by four weeks in our home city of Windsor, Ontario, another four days in New York, and eleven days in Nelson, British Columbia with our son Jeremy and his fiancé Jenn Sabean.

What a pleasure it was to spend quality time with our family and good friends.  Thanks so much everyone for making our visit home such a great one.  Here are some highlights:

  • Meeting the new grandchildren of good friends and the fiancé of a beloved godchild
  • Skating in Central Park in Manhattan
  • Speaking to a grade 4 class in Manhattan about “Living Your Dream”, and to our local yacht club about our adventures
  • Spending two weeks glued to the television watching the Winter Olympics, which were being held  in Vancouver, British Columbia
  • Hosting an engagement party for our son Jeremy and his fiancé Jenn Sabean
  • Attending the biggest art show in North America in Manhattan and gaining a new understanding of contemporary art through the eyes of our artist son-in-law Jass
  • Enjoying the view of the Kootenay Mountains through the front window of Jeremy and Jenn Sabean’s house in Nelson, British Columbia
  • Walking in Nelson and skiing in the Kootenay Mountains
  • Visiting the Klondike Silver Mine in British Columbia where our son works as a geologist, and touring the mill

Here are Jennifer and Paul skating in Central Park on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.  They are dancing and just beginning a twirl, much to the delight of the skaters on the right.
Mary celebrated her recent birthday with her five sisters and sister-in-law Linda (3rd from left) at a slumber party hosted by her sister Theresa.

We were all gathered at Mary’s sister’s house for the final Olympic men’s hockey game between Canada and the United States.  Here we are when the final goal was scored by Canada in overtime, which gave Canada the gold medal.  Go Canada!.
We travelled a circuitous route through the mountains to visit Jeremy’s mine in Slocan.  We followed Kootenay Lake on the way there and returned via Slocan Lake.  Here we are enjoying the view of the Kootenay Mountains at a scenic lookout on Slocan Lake..

Here are Jeremy and Paul at White Water Ski Hill in Nelson, BC.  We seemed to bring snow wherever we went in the two months.  New York, Windsor, and the Kootenay mountains around Nelson all received more snow while we were there than had fallen all winter.  In fact, the snow in Windsor lasted the entire four weeks of our visit and stayed white and beautiful.


March 24 – April 4, 2010

Our international flight left at 1100h on Monday, June 22 and we arrived in New Zealand at 0500h on Wednesday, June 24.  After a three hour bus ride from Auckland, we arrived at the boat just after noon.  We had some concern when we neared the boat on its pile mooring because we could hear an alarm sounding inside the boat.  It took a few minutes to determine the source – the water maker (desalinator), which has an automatic flush feature and flushed with fresh water every five days while we were away, was indicating “salinity probe failure”.  Our friend Bob, who owns the chandlery in Whangarei, had been out to the boat just one week ago so we knew that this was a fairly recent problem. 

Paul stopped the alarm and we went about unpacking and putting the boat back together.  The water maker would have to wait for a bit as there were other priorities.  Everything that had been dismantled from the cockpit (anything that we didn’t want stolen or blown away or broken in possible strong winds), i.e. wind generator blades, fishing rods, tool boxes, cushions, safety life ring, needed to be reattached and/or stored in its usual place. That left the inside of the boat available for reorganizing and unpacking. 

As to the cleanliness of the boat after two months away – the inside wasn’t too bad.  Mary had cleaned before we left and covered some of the flat surfaces and the settee in the salon with blankets.  Some salt dust was evident, especially on the floors.  But the outside of the boat – oh my!!  The deck was filthy with dirt and the cockpit, which was exposed to an eastern quadrant wind, was just as filthy.  It had obviously blown a lot from the east!

The fridge and freezer had been emptied and turned off before we left, and one priority was a quick trip to the grocery store for dinner and breakfast supplies.  The rest of our freezer food had been stored at our friends’, Bob and Leone, house and it would be a day or so before we would be able to retrieve our package.  Paul offered a restaurant meal for dinner but we didn’t really want to go out once we arrived – it was so nice to be home again.  A warm, cooked chicken and a salad from the grocery store gave us all we needed in a good meal that evening. 

We managed to stay up until just shortly after 8 p.m. and had a wonderful night’s sleep back aboard our floating home.

We ended up staying at the Town Basin marina for almost two weeks.  We were still on the pile berth, which meant that we needed the dinghy to get to shore and to haul fresh water from the dock in our jerry cans.

In the midst of all that needed to be done to get Bella Via shipshape again for cruising, we managed to find time to socialize with dear friends:

  • Di from Kerikeri Inlet was in town with her school debate team and we met her at a restaurant on shore for a lunchtime coffee and tea break.
  • Geoff and Daphne, long-time Comedy Net friends from Australia, were in Whangarei visiting Daphne’s mom for her 90th birthday.  We met Geoff and Daphne and her mom, Violet, for lunch and then they took us in their hire car for a huge grocery shop.
  • We had Bob and Leone over for dinner as a thank you for watching the boat and storing our freezer food.
  • Our Whangarei friends, Dave and Margaret (currently starting up a business in Australia), were home for one week and we had a couple of outings with them.  Dave will be returning to New Zealand in mid-July to do the passage to Tonga with us and Margaret will be flying into Tonga when we arrive.
  • Hilton and Melva drove in from Tutukaka to have afternoon coffee and tea with us.  Melva brought us a load of delicious tomatoes from her garden.

The water maker problem turned out to be a faulty salinity probe and necessitated a one week wait for delivery of a new part from California.  Once it arrived, Paul had it installed in short order and all was well with our desalinator.
The last two days of our stay in Whangarei were spent at the dock instead of the pile berth.  We plugged into shore power and had fresh water available.  This made it easier to scrub the outside of the boat and for Paul to perform routine engine maintenance.  By now, we were very anxious to ‘get out cruising’.  If you are a regular reader, then you will have noticed that we spend ‘way too much’ money and work ‘way too hard’ when we are near towns and cities.  After all, we are retired!

April 5, 2010

At high tide on Monday morning, we left the dock and motored the twelve miles out to Whangarei Heads.  There was an easterly swell just outside the entrance but we found a comfortable spot to drop the hook for the night near Urquhart Bay just outside the channel markers.
In the morning we left for Kawau Island at the entrance of Hauraki Gulf.  There was not much wind and we had to motorsail the entire 40+ miles but it sure was a beautiful day and it felt so good to be out on the water.
As usual, Paul set three fishing lines, two of which were attached to our down rigger.   Although we continue to use the down rigger quite regularly, it hasn't been as successful here in NZ as it was in Australian waters.   Paul had set two lines, one 10 feet above the other.  We were in 160 feet of water and he had the cannon ball down 40 feet.   The cannon ball is 10 pounds of lead and in this case, nicely coated in an orange coloured rubbery plastic.  It should also be noted that the cannon ball is dropped into the water attached to a 100 foot length of stainless steel wire that is wound onto a spool.  The stainless wire is approximately 100 pound test or more. 
The lines had been in the water for about three hours with no hits and Paul was taking a nap in the cockpit while Mary was at the helm (our usual passage making positions).
All of a sudden both reels attached to the down rigger started screaming with that wonderful sound that means "fish on".   By the time Mary whipped around in the helm seat and Paul popped his head up and looked in the direction of the down rigger, a couple of very unusual events occurred.   First, the reels stopped running out, as if both fish got off and second, the shaft of the down rigger was pumping up and down and its spool was spinning madly, all of it making a loud clattering noise.   This was for barely two seconds until the cable reached the end and "pop", the down rigger arm gave one final dip toward the water and recoiled back up with a thump and everything went slack and silent.  What the heck had just happened!   Paul reeled in the lines and they both had their lures still attached.  He then reeled in the slack down rigger cable, about a hundred feet worth, and there was no cannon ball attached.
We knew that the cannon ball had not snagged the bottom because we were in deep water and, in this case, the bottom was 50 feet deeper than the total length of cable that is on the down rigger
Could it be that some massive fish is still trying to digest 10 pounds of plastic and lead?  We are now without a functioning down rigger!  That is our fish story for this month.  We hope that you enjoyed it.

April 13, 2010

We stayed at Kawau Island for several days and then travelled to Islington Bay at Rangitoto Island.  Rangitoto has the youngest volcano in New Zealand – it is 800 years old.  There are several walks on the island and we walked one of them one day.  We plan on walking to the summit of the volcano next time we are at this island.  We will pack a lunch and make a full day of the walk.

The weather has turned foul for a few days.  When it clears, we plan on heading out to Great Barrier Island again for some spear fishing and relaxation.

 

    Journal 2009
    
Whangaparapara