NZ Land Logs 46, Year 2: Justin and Jo Got Married Today!!!
Date: Thursday, April 5, 2007
Weather Today: Rainy Day
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

Note: Actually the date of the wedding was on April 4, 2007. We were just totally confused by the time difference and didn’t find this out until their first anniversary.

The big news of the day is that Justin and Jo got married. Just a few days ago Justin and Jo got engaged and this morning we received an email saying they were getting married tomorrow. Somehow with the time difference, tomorrow became today. So Justin Bryant Handley and Joanne Elizabeth Hunt are married. Here’s what Justin said in his email to us. “We had the wedding today up in the canyon and it was really beautiful. We went up with the woman who we found to marry us – Leslie Brokian (a wedding officiate which is just that – someone certified to do ceremonies that isn’t a religious official or lawyer) and our witness, Kesahangli, who is a French woman who lives up in the hills, that we met because she was giving away free Jade plants. She is really brilliant and our best new friend in LA so far. We went to the top of Eagle Rock (there is a good picture at http://hiking.meetup.com/196/photos/?photoAlbumId=110657&photoId=815769 – we were at the very peak) and had a beautiful ceremony where we did a Celtic hand fasting (we actually ended up using Freckle’s leash and a piece of lace from the theatre for this) and exchanged vows and rings, and now… I’m Married!” As soon as we received this email we called Justin and Jo on Skype and got to see them on the webcam. They looked so happy, all smiles and showing off their wedding rings. The hope is that now that they are married, Jo will not have to return to England on the 27th when her Visa is up. But since a wedding certificate is necessary and it takes almost six weeks to get one, she might have to fly back to England and wait for the paperwork process before returning. We sure hope that doesn’t have to happen. I have included the picture of Eagle Rock with today’s log and a couple of pictures of Justin and Jo taken in the past couple of months. Congratulations, Justin and Jo. We only hope that your years together will be as happy as ours have been. Jo is from Haslemere, Surrey, England. Her parents live there and she also has a brother and a sister in England. I believe she is the oldest child, but I’m not completely sure about that. Justin’s great, great, great, great, great grandfather, John Biggs, arrived in the United States from England on May 21, 1773, so through this marriage, Justin is sort of completing the circle. Maybe we’ll have to amend our cruising itinerary to include a sail to England to visit with Jo’s family. We are hoping that the bride and groom are going to join us in Fiji in June so we can celebrate together. When we mentioned to friends that we had offered to have the newlyweds join us for a honeymoon in Fiji, the friends had a big laugh about honeymooning with parents. We told Justin this and he assured us that they are going to take a quick trip into Mexico this weekend as an official honeymoon and that the trip to Fiji will just be a wedding present “visit.”

Such excitement. And now for the duller, but still interesting, moments of today. The morning started off sunny and we watched our “twin”, Wings and Strings, get put back into the water. Wings and Strings is a Tayana 42 just like Windbird, except that it is an aft, rather than a center, cockpit. We both have black bottom paint and a green waterline and shear stripe, the same anchor, and the same dinghy. At first glance it is hard to tell us apart, but Wings and Strings has green canvas whereas Windbird has tan. Therein lies the difference. After watching Wings and Strings get launched, we went next door to the Anchor Motel to see our friends Tom and Bette Lee of Quantum Leap. We heard they had come looking for us yesterday, so we went to see what they wanted. We ended up deciding to take part of tomorrow to do a road trip with them out to the Whangarei Heads. This is the point of land at the entrance to the Whangarei River and we have been told that they views are fantastic. We will work on the boat in the morning and do the road trip in the afternoon. After our visit with Tom and Bette Lee, it was time to get serious about working on the boat, but then the weather switched from sunny to cloudy and rainy. It rained off and on all morning and then continuously this afternoon. We had hoped to clean the topsides of the boat today, and since we were going to get wet doing this anyway, the rain really didn’t stop us. We had tried for months to clean the yellow near our waterline, but nothing we used made a difference. I bought a product here called Boat Waterline Cleaner and it proved to be nothing short of miraculous. It is diluted oxalic acid and it cleans like a dream. We finished the cleaning and then borrowed Roger’s car to go into town and do some shopping. All stores here are closed tomorrow for Good Friday and on Sunday for Easter. The marina is officially closed on Monday, as well as many other businesses. Just as the Easter weekend ushers in spring in the US, in this part of the world, it is the official end of summer with winter coming on quickly.

At the end of today, our boat is cleaner (a bigger accomplishment than it sounds) and our family is richer with the addition of a beautiful and talented new daughter. Welcome, Jo!

070405 Web Pics–Justin & Jo Get Married