Thinking of Kids
Date: Monday, March 26, 2007
Weather Today: Mostly Cloudy; Periods of Sprinkles
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

We are back home on Windbird now and immediately our thoughts turned to our kids. Heather, Jed, and Sam and still trying to find a rhythm that works for them. That beautiful grandson of ours is 65 days old today. We last saw him on Day 28 and he has really changed in the intervening five weeks. He is a little chub weighing in at over twelve pounds, but he is a demanding baby and is driving his parents crazy. We talked via Skype today and got to see Sam sleeping in the sling that wraps him next to his momma. He is really a cutie. Hopefully he will decide on some sort of schedule soon and give mommy and daddy a little relief. I’ve included a few pictures of him in the first week of his third month at the end of the log. We didn’t talk to Justin today, but we have been communicating back and forth via email as he manages our website and helps us when we have problems. We are also enjoying checking in on his blog on the web and seeing the pictures of him and of Jo in their new apartment in Venice, California. I’ve also included a few pictures of them and of Freckles with this log. Soon our thoughts must turn to planning for our departure from New Zealand, but for now we are just enjoying being home and thinking of our kids.

We have been away from Windbird for over three months and have been so busy for all of that time that we have hardly thought about the upcoming cruising season. Many of the boats here have already been out of the water to do the necessary bottom painting and are getting ready to go. With all of the boat activity now that we are back here, it is going to be harder and harder to think of anything else. Marie on Ranger, our next door neighbor, has arranged a sharing session on Wednesday. We will all bring our charts and cruising guides that we have for the western Pacific to share. Today Camdeboo headed out, and before long many boats will be heading north. Tomorrow we will get organized and figure out exactly what we need to do and after the meeting on Wednesday, we will get serious about planning for a new season.

070326 Web Pics–Kid Update

Boats On the Move
Date: Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Weather Today: Mostly Cloudy; Periods of Sprinkles–Again
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

The really good news is that our grandbaby Sam had a great day yesterday. On Sunday night, he actually slept through the night and awoke at 5:30 am with a smile on his face. He then continued to have a good day. This could just be a one of a kind day, or possibly Sam is getting old enough to figure things out. Let’s hope it is the latter and that there will be many more of these days in the near future.

Here in the marina, today was a day of movement. Our next door neighbors, Ranger, left midday to head to the fuel dock. From there they were pulled into the sling and then lifted out of the water. They had to wait while White Swam was put back into the water. It is obvious that everyone is getting ready for the trip north and that in the next couple of weeks here we will see boats going on land and back into the water daily. White Swan is now our new neighbor and Ranger, our old neighbor, is up on the hard. We will probably haul out just after Easter and be ready to go by mid to late April. Busy times ahead.

We got an email from Alan and Helaine letting us know that they made it back home safely. We hope they are enjoying their memories of our adventures as much as we are. Today we basically worked on organizational chores and then went to Reva’s for dinner with our friends Beth and Ken of Eagle’s Wings. They got back from their South Island travels yesterday and we got a chance to compare our trips during dinner tonight. Tomorrow is the crusier “Share” meeting when we all get together and share whatever information we have in terms of charts and books for this next cruising season. This meeting should get us all motivated for the months of cruising ahead.

070327 Web Pics–Boats On The Move

>From Whangarei to Whanga’rain’
Date: Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Weather Today: Rain and More Rain
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

I think our friend Dianna on White Swan coined the phrase Whangarain back in December. We were back in the States for the holidays and she was emailing us updates on Windbird. We were having beautiful weather in New England, but she was having rain and more rain here in Whangarei. Well, the rain is back. Sprinkles have left us and we are now having honest to goodness Whangarain. We are supposed to get 4 inches in the next 24 hours and some people are saying that the bad weather is going to be with us for another whole week. At least it is a warm rain, but it does make getting out and about a little difficult. We no longer have the rental van, so we are walking or biking everywhere or nowhere as we did today. We made it up the ramp for the cruiser share meeting at 2:00 and the rain cooperated by not pouring and blowing while we were meeting in the covered barbeque area. We had a great turn out and made some progress, but looking at charts in this weather was a little difficult. We combined our resources and are copying those things that we can to share. On Monday of next week we will look at charts again.

As we gathered our resources for the next season for today’s meeting we found we are better off in terms of charts then we thought, but we are definitely crusing guide deficient. When one of the other cruisers looked at our charts they asked us if we had hit the lottery. These charts are SO expensive here in New Zealand, but we explained that the charts were bought before we started crusing. That was when we were working and had a steady income. There will be no more of these beautiful charts for us. We are now on a cruising budget and we will have to “beg, borrow, and copy” what we can from now on. We are very thankful that for Christmas, our son Justin got us the Lonely Planet guides to Fiji and New Caledonia/Vanuatu. These won’t get us into the harbors, but they will serve us well once we arrive. In the absense of good cruising guides, we are sure glad to have these. I just finished tabbing the various sections of those guides. I was somewhat familiar with some of the names of the Fiji islands, but I have never heard of any of the Vanuatu or New Caledonia islands. Much to learn. And we will still need some sort of cruising guides to get us into harbor. We have a little cruising guide for Fiji, but we don’t have the similar guides for New Caledonia and Vanuatu. Today we found out that there is a Moorings guide for Fiji that we didn’t know about and there is a wonderful crusing guide for New Caledonia but it costs $105NZ. I think we will have to make it to New Caledonia without that one.

There’s not much else to report today. Mark spent the day on his computer updating our finances or lack there of. I spent my day continuing to update our photo files. I am still working on naming photos of New Zealand when we first arrived plus all of the pictures we took while visiting at home in the US. Maybe tomorrow we will start facing the boat work that needs to be done. But for now, we’ll pretend that it is not there and enjoy these slower-paced rainy days.

It’s Still Raining
Date: Thursday, March 29, 2007
Weather Today: Where’s the ark?
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

We have had an unbelievable amount of rain here in the past 36 hours. The marina bathrooms are flooded, some streets in town are underwater, and the road to the airport is closed due to flooding. Since we have not been off the dock since an early trip to the marina showers this morning, we are not sure what other problems there might be. The marina owner, Ray, came by mid-afternoon to tell us that we would have to use our head on the boat since everything on land was flooded. Then Beth and Ken of Eagles Wings reported the road problems when they returned from a trip into town. Actually we are enjoying the excuse to slow down and chip slowly away at small jobs that need to be done aboard Windbird. I’m not a lover of rain, but I really did need a good excuse to slow down and the rain has given me that chance.

Mark’s job for the day was equalizing the batteries. We have six 112 amp-hour 12 volt batteries that provide the power for everything on this boat and today was the day to equalize them. This is the first chance we have had to do this since leaving Boston as equalizing requires plugging into shore power if you don’t have a generator. Well, we don’t have a generator and we haven’t been on a dock since Boston, so today was the day. Shore power here is 220 volts, but our boat is wired for 110 volts as is the standard in the US. So getting shore power meant using a transformer which we had to borrow from another boat. All of the available transformers were taken when we arrived in December, so we have been using a little trickle-charger to help keep things running. We also have our solar panels, but there has been no sun this week! Now, what is equalizing? Basically it is running a high voltage charge through your batteries causing them to get so hot that some of the sulfate that has built up on the plates dissolves back into the battery acid. This frees the plates so that they can take a better charge. Probably more than you wanted to know about batteries, but there you have it.

My job today was putting together a photo album “booklet” of our New Zealand travels for our grandson Sam. Grandmothers have to do these things you know. I also called Sam’s other grandparents to check in with them and talked to my good friend Linda Stuart and her son Garrett back in Concord, New Hampshire. Little by little, I’m answering emails that we received while traveling and I am getting the things we brought back from the US and things we collected on our land trip around New Zealand put away–new books, photographs, travel brochures, etc. On a boat, every little thing must have a home and it takes time to make sure every little thing is in its place.

A Beautiful Fall Day in Whangarei
Date: Friday, March 30, 2007
Weather Today: Warm with Clear Blue Skies
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

It continued to rain during the night, but at some point it slacked off and by morning we awoke to the clearest blue skies imaginable. The blue skies and sunshine were certainly welcome after two days of solid rain. I spent the first part of the morning talking via Skype on the computer to my sister Patsy and her husband Joe, and my brother Dickie and his wife Conda. We hooked up our webcam so they could see us, but they are not yet brave enough to have a camera on their end. It’s fantastic to be able to talk to family back home and it is even more fanstastic that it is absolutely free. My brother and sister were together watching WVU play Clemson. In New Zealand, rugby and cricket rule, not basketball, so that is not something we see here.

Mark rode his bicycle into town today to pick up the spare motor we had ordered months ago for our auto pilot and to go to the post office to mail some things back home. It was our auto pilot that failed when we were attempting to leave Tonga. We were successful in getting a new motor sent to us there from New Zealand, but they did not have a second motor to send us that we could use as a backup. They ordered that for us, but when it came in we were in the US and they sent it back. We had to reorder when we came back in February, so we now have the backup motor ready to go in case of another failure. I spent the day continuing to organize things in the boat. I found items that could be vacuum-packed and stored away, so we got out the FoodSaver and did the necessary vacuum packing. This method assures that books won’t get damp when stored away and metal items won’t rust. We love it and use it often. It took most of the afternoon to get things packed away and change our spreadsheets to reflect the new location for certain items. By late afternoon, we were ready to get out and enjoy the beautiful day before it ended. We walked over to the Town Basin and visited with Judy and Roger of Hanoah (from Maine) and Arnie of Jade (from Hong Kong). I talked with Roger about our plans/non-plans for this next season and Mark talked with Arnie about the work we have to do while we are out of the water. We then borrowed the Town Basin dinghy and rowed out to see Artic Fox. We wanted to inspect their hull painting job and assess whether or not we might want to paint our fiberglass topsides when we are out of the water in a week or so. We had heard that Arctic Fox had used the New Zealand paint that promises that anyone can do a professional paint job, so we wanted to see the results. Their boat looks great, but we are still unsure that we want to do this.

Tonight and tomorrow night are the last two nights of a month long festival here in Whangarei. We were not here for most of the festivities, but they have put up a drive-in movie type screen and are showing movies outside tonight and tomorrow night. Since we had walked into town once today, we decided not to walk back for tonight’s move, “The Fastest Indian,” but we might go in tomorrow night to see “Happy Feet.” In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ll have to make it in to see that one. I just can’t resist penguins.

Note About Our Logs and Photos: During our month of New Zealand travels, we were struggling to keep our logs posted each day. We thought we had been successful, but when we got an email today from Alan and Helaine saying that many of our logs were not on the website, we couldn’t figure out why. On our computers, we could see all the logs, but then we are the website administrators. We finally discovered that any log that we have edited wasn’t showing up for others as these logs were marked as private. We have gone back and marked all of those as published logs, so hopefully there should now be a log for each day of the past month. There are also pictures with each log during our land trek. Just click on the one picture displayed at the end of each log and the total photo gallery for that day will come up. We apologize for the missing logs that should now magically reappear. We are still learning about this whole website administration thing.

Teak Decks and the Monitor Windvane
Date: Saturday, March 31, 2007
Weather Today: Warm with Clear Blue Skies
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

It was another beautiful day today, so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and drill some holes in our boat. Well, actually we didn’t drill holes but we did take out the wooden pegs in the teak deck that needed to be replaced. Mark started on the starboard side of the boat and will continue on the port side tomorrow, whether permitting. When you have a teck deck, from time to time you have to pull out the old pegs, drill deeper holes for new pegs and then put in new screws and pegs. Mark had already put a number of the new screws in when our neighbor Bob on White Swan suggested that he use caulk when putting in the screws. Duh! Why didn’t we know that? So Mark took out the screws he had put in and started again using the caulk. We put varnish in the hole when we put the pegs in and had always thought that was enough to seal things, but Bob and Dianna just finished redoing their teak deck and had done their research. Thank goodness for knowledgeable neighbors.

I spent most of my day polishing the stainless Monitor windvane. It had to be taken off the stern of the boat for repairs and this is the perfect time to get rid of all those rust spots. This is the device that steers the boat using the wind and we will be reinstalling it when we are out of the water. After I worked on this for a couple of hours, Mark returned from the marina store with a new product, at least new to us. It is called “Grunt Emer Gel” and promises to restore and clean metal, fabric, wood, fiberglass, gelcoat, lacquer, and enamel, and it promises to do this by just brushing or wiping it on, waiting a few minutes, and then rinsing it off. I can’t wait to try this one. Sure hope it does just half of what it claims. Of course, there are no ingredients listed on the container, so even if it does work, I’ll never know the magic formula.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s log that Scott and Pam of Starship returned from a trip to Australia late yesterday. Scott and Pam are the legally blind couple sailing around the world that I mentioned in logs when we first arrived in Whangarei. We were delighted to share with them a March 2007 Sail magazine that mentions them in the Cruiser’s Update section. When the Kanegsbergs flew home to the US they left behind their most recent sailing magazines that they had brought with them. We also found a center-fold picture in Sail magazine from March 2007 featuring a boat we are familiar with, Sensei. The picture was from the Baha Haha race that they participated in before heading across the Pacific. They are up in Opua, but Tim and Cynthia on Arctic Fox are going to see them next week, so we will send the magazine with them. When you are out here, you don’t get those sailing magazines, so the few that Alan and Helaine left are getting a good workout.

I’m writing this log early as we are going to the community outdoor film tonight. The feature film is “Happy Feet” and I’ve decided I just have to see it, even if I do have to walk home late at night. I’ll let you know tomorrow if it was worth it.

070402 Web Pics–Working on Windbird

Justin’s Getting Married . . . No April Fool
Date: Sunday, April 1, 2007
Weather Today: Overcast and Rainy
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I had a son. Today I have a son and a wonderful prospective daughter-in-law. Yesterday I had a dog, albeit that the dog has lived with our son Justin for the past four years. But at sixteen years of ago, going on seventeen, Freckles had to be put to sleep yesterday. Add to that all of the new information we have gathered today from fellow cruisers about options for the next cruising season, and things get just a little overwhelming. Just last night when I wrote my log, we were headed to see “Happy Feet” at the community open-air cinema and life seemed to simple. We enjoyed the movie and found the walk home in the dark to be no problem. The moon is almost full and it really lights up the evening world. The news about our dog Freckles was expected, but it is still very hard to part with a dog that became a family member. Freckles went out in style being buried by Eagles Rock in Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles. She was the cutest cocker spaniel you’ve ever seen and Justin took great care of her. Thank you, Justin.

And speaking of Justin, he is now engaged to Jo. That event also took place in Topanga Canyon, only a couple of days before Freckles was buried there. We met Jo while we were home in the Us and think she is the perfect match for Justin. We are so happy for both of them. Congratulations, Justin and Jo. Now we just have to figure out how we can get home for a wedding or how we can get them to meet us out here for a wedding. Stay tuned for that one.

Now that brings me to the next topic . . . Where in the world are we going to be in the next six months to a year? How are we going to get home and when? I keep saying that we just aren’t sure what we are doing next, but now we have the incentive to make that decision and will work hard in the next week to make some decisions. Tonight we went to the marina barbeque and had some great conversations with cruisers from all over the world. You can tell that it is time to leave here and the energy level is zooming. Everyone is talking about where they are going, so it was a perfect opportunity for Mark and I to mentally record the itinerary of many boats. Safina, our neighbor from across the dock, is a boat from Montreal. Jean-Pierre and Colette will be leaving in the morning and their itinerary sounds very close to one we have been favoring. Leave here and go to Great Barrier Island down toward Auckland, sail north to the Bay of Islands and wait for a weather window, sail to Fiji, then Vanuatu and maybe the Solomons, then to New Caledonia, and finally to Australia for the South Pacific winter. Head to Indonesia and Thailand then the Indian Ocean and South Africa during the next season. Felix and Monika of Makani came over the for the barbeque tonight. They are leaving here and going straight to Australia and then on to Indonesia, Thailand, the Indian Ocean, and through the Red Sea to the Mediterranean this season. Then there is Scott and Pam on Starship. They are leaving here and going to Australia, then to Vanuatu and back through the Torres Strait to Indonesia and Thailand. Then there is Windbird. Sorry folks, we still don’t know where we are going! Maybe tomorrow . . .

Our last thoughts tonight are with Sigi and Christie of Pleite from Germany. They are from Germany and were our neighbors in Nukulofa, Tonga, last October. Just two weeks ago they got their boat ready to head out for the next season and left Opua up north to go to Great Barrier Island down near Auckland. They were in a river anchorage at Warkworth, just north of Auckland, and while sigi was working in the engine room, a fire broke out with such intensity that they had to abandon ship. We learned about this today from someone who had met them while they were in Opua and had heard about their plight. These people from Kerikeri got on the internet to see if they could locate them and came up with our website since we had mentioned them in a log last October. They wrote us looking for information about Pleite. We immediately went to our German friends here at Riverside Marina and came up with a phone number and updated information on their whereabouts. Sigi and Christie have lost everything, but it is most heartening to know that there are people out there searching for ways to help them. Sigi and Christie, our hearts are with you, as you work to rebuild your lives.

Love That Skype
Date: Monday, April 2, 2007
Weather Today: Mostly Sunny Day with Some Liquid Sunshine Periods
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

Definitely the highlight of today was getting to see our grandbaby Sam via webcam during a Skype call. These little glimpses of Sam are what allow us to stay out here and still feel like we are watching him grow. It’s certainly not the same as being right there with him, but it does help us feel close to him. His Goldstone grandparents were visiting this weekend, so we also got to see them. It was so neat to see Sam actually “talking” to Jed’s mom. He is definitely developing a special language of Sam babble. As his Grandpa Donald said, “He really is quite charming.” We miss you Sam and love seeing you in our once a week phone calls.

The rest of our day was spent working on Windbird. We have committed to being taken out of the water this Wednesday, so we are trying to get the work done on the deck before then. Once we are out of the water, we need to put our energy into doing the necessary work on the bottom and sides of the boat. Mark completed putting plugs in the teak deck today and I sanded, then scraped, and then resorted to a varnish stripper on the hand rails. I got the one on the starboard side ready for a final sanding and will work on the port side rail tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon I’m going shopping with Marie of Ranger to do some major provisioning. I want to get the heavy stuff onboard before we are out of the water and have to climb up a latter to get things into the boat. As soon as we are done on land and they put us back in the water, we plan to leave Whangarei, so provisioning for the new season needs to happen quickly.

Safina left this morning bright and early and the space she left on the dock reminded us all that in two weeks time most of us will no longer be here in Whangarei. In between trips to the laundry room tonight, we have been working on our plans for the upcoming cruising season. We’re getting closer to making some final decisions and its looking more and more like we will spend the cruising season in the western South Pacific and sail to Australia or back to New Zealand next October or November. If we decide to do this, we will then start the trip home in May of 2008. That trip will take us through parts of Malaysia, across the Indian Ocean, around South Africa, to the coast of Brazil, and then back to the Caribbean and on up the East Coast of the US by April or May of 2009. It’s sounding like a plan, and now all we have to figure out is when we can come home to visit and when kids can come visit us. Mark’s been looking at flight possibilities all evening but hasn’t found the magic flights with low fares yet. He’ll keep working on it.

070402 Web Pics–Working on Windbird

S & S Day
Date: Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Weather Today: Bright Sunny Day, High 73 degrees F, Low Temp 53 degrees F
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

Our neighbor Bob on White Swan pointed out to us today that we have done nothing but “screw and strip” for two days. This screwing and stripping is serious business. Mark has just about finished putting new screws in the teak deck and I have finished stripping the varnish off the handrails. We will be moving out of our slip and on to land before noon tomorrow and our goal was to get the big deck jobs done before then. We think we have done that and are ready for the pull out.

The other major job that I wanted to get done before coming out of the water tomorrow was to buy as many provisions as I could for the next year and get them onboard before being hauled out of the water. Once we are on land, we will have to climb a steep ladder to get on and off the boat, and carrying an extra load is just no fun. Marie of Ranger took me with her to do shopping today, and we are $500 poorer and many pounds heavier. There is still much to buy, but I did get most of the heavy items today. The one thing I didn’t get to do was wash down the exterior of the boat. Doing this on land will be more difficult, so we might decide to come back into a slip before leaving Whangarei. That will give us a chance to do the last provisioning and to do the deck scrubbing that I would like to do. We might not be on a dock with water for another year, so taking advantage of the available water to do a thorough cleaning is important.

There was more boat movement today. Two boats left Riverside Marina and Ranger is back in the water. Nai’a from Nawiliwili, Hawaii has taken Safina’s place across from us. It looks like a lot of people used the Easter weekend as their deadline for either going back in the water or coming out. Businesses here will be closed on Friday and Monday,although some will be open on Saturday. Since most things will be closed, we sure hope we have thought of everything we might need for our work on the boat this weekend.

Late in the day today we had an unexpected visitor. Tom of Quantum Leap stopped by the say hello. He and Bette Lee just returned from the states today and he was great to see them. We went to Reva’s for Happy Hour but then left and went out for a Chinese Dinner with Tom and Bette Lee and Cam and Arnie and family from Jade. Cam and Arnie have two children, Mollie and Nancy, but Arnie also has a daughter from a previous marriage who is here visiting. Arnie’s daughter Charlotte and her husband Simon, along with their four month-old daughter Isabella, all visiting from England had dinner with us. Cam and Arnie know the chef at this restaurant and we got the royal treatment with dinner.

We hope to spend some time with Tom and Bette Lee before they take off on their tour of the South Island. Doug and Sylvie of Windcastle stop by tomorrow on their way back to Opua from Auckland. It is exciting to reconnect with good friends and continue our planning for another wonderful year of cruising in the South Pacific.

Note: Today was our son’s first Passover Seder and below you can see him in his very first yarmuka. His Goldstone grandparents were there for the occasion and we think he looks adorable in the yarmuka.

070403 Web Pics–Sam’s First Seder

Life On The Hard
Date: Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Weather Today: Bright Sunny Day, High 73 degrees F, Low Temp 53 degrees F
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

There’s not much variation in the weather here right now. They daytime temperatures range from 68 to 74 degrees F, and the nighttime temperature dips down to about 55. Sleeping is comfy under two polar fleece blankets, but I must admit that I get very chilly each evening as we sit in the boat reading. I wrap myself in a polar fleece, but I’m still chilly. It is not so chilly, however, that we close ourselved in. We are still leaving the companionway open and I’ll just hope that temperature doesn’t
drop any lower before we leave New Zealand.

We were lifted out of the water today and placed in our new home “on the hard” by noon. Carl, the son the marina owner, runs the travel lift and a hard-working young man named Shawn works with Carl. Shawn power washed the bottom of Windbird once out of the water and then he wet-sanded the entire bottom in less than an hour. The bottom of the boat actually looked cleaner than I expected, but had more growth than Mark had hoped for. But it is now sanded and ready for us to take the next steps.

Doug and Sylvie stopped by to visit in mid-afternoon. It was wonderful to see them both again and to catch up on what we have all been doing. We walked into town to get a bite to eat and share information about the upcoming cruising season, and then all too quickly it was time for them to head north to Opua. They will be heading to Fiji in late May or early June, so hopefully we will see them again there.

Tomorrow we will finish getting the bottom ready for painting and begin sanding the waterline. We are planning on raising the water line to accommodate the heavier loads that we are carrying while cruising. But if I do anymore food shopping, we will soon end up with all waterline!

070404 Web Pics–Windbird On Land