november 1 2004 : gulf harbor marina, whagaparaoa, new zealand
Well, after a busy weekend we have ourselves a new ride. A 1988 Volvo we picked up for the bargain basement price of about $1300 USD. Hopefully she’s got another 3000 miles or so left in her. We woke up early to head down to the Ellerslie Car Fair which turned out to be a great place to buy a car. There were hundreds of people there selling their cars. The sellers pay $20 to park there and they have different sections for different priced cars. The lot for the under $5000 cars was huge. We wandered around for an hour or so and were starting to come to the conclusion that we were going to have to spend about $4000 NZ ($2700 USD) to get something we’d be somewhat happy with.

Then along came this guy in a nice clean old Volvo for half that price. After a quick spin down the road we offered the guy $1900 NZ for it and we had a deal. So we went to the booth where they do the title check for you. The buyer pays $25 to have this done and it shows the whole vehicle history. Our car was owned by the same guy since 1995 but it appears when it was imported from Hong Kong the mileage mysteriously rolled back 60,000 km. We didn’t really see what difference it would make if the car had 210,000 km or 270,000 km on it so we let that one slide. Everything else checked out, and after paying another $25 to register it we were the proud new owners.

Today we just did work around the boat. Then this afternoon we went to pick up some Pizza Hut. Ali has been nice enough to eat pizza three times already in the last week. We got there at 4:30 and they were closed even though the sign said four o’clock. That’s when we realized that we have been off by an hour for weeks. We really don’t have much luck with keeping the right time these days.

The weather is still really cold. We woke up this morning to 50 degrees. That’s damn cold when you don’t have a heater. There is nothing romantic about waking up in the morning in the fetal position with your teeth chattering, and rolling over to see your wife laying there in a sweatshirt with a stocking cap on. Ahh, summer in New Zealand. It better start soon.

Today’s random New Zealand observation is about money. They don’t have pennies here. Instead of getting stupid pennies every time you buy something they just round to the nearest nickel. Today I think we came out 3 cents behind, but for the week I’m pretty sure we’re up about 2 cents. Just kidding. But really, why hasn’t the U.S. done this yet? Does anyone really care about a penny here or a penny there? How many billions of pennies are just sitting in jars next to peoples beds?

november 3 2004 : gulf harbor marina
The last couple days we haven’t been doing much. Pulling out all the thru-hulls yet again. This time in preparation for the stripping of the hulls. Basically the entire boat below the waterline and a bunch of areas above it as well, are going to have the gelcoat stripped off, and reapplied properly, along with a bunch of delaminated areas getting fixed. After all that is done and it is faired nicely we will have most, if not all of it, repainted. So despite the horrendous cost of all of this we are actually looking forward to the boat looking even better than new.

During all this boat work we haven’t come across any more cockroaches. So it looks like we were lucky this time, we just had the one stowaway and she must not have brought along her boyfriend.

november 5 2004 : driving around, north island, new zealand
We left the boat this morning at 9 for a weekend road trip. Started out heading north with a quick stop at the Honey Center and Café for Ali’s daily latte. The only thing of note there were the glass-fronted bee hives. Watching those gross little insects gave us the heebie-jeebies. A little farther up the road we stopped at the Dome Forest lookout. We thought we’d just drive right up but found out it was a hiking trail. Of course, seeing as we had on our best traction flip-flops we decided to hike up. After about twenty minutes hiking straight up we came to the conclusion that we really aren’t in the best shape. We trudged on though and after 45 minutes we reached the lookout. We had actually seen better views along the side of the road already on this trip, so slightly dejected we headed back down which thankfully, was much easier.

The destination for today was for the Waipoua Kauri Forest, which is on the western side of the North Island, so most of the day was spent driving through beautiful farmland across the interior of the island. Most of this land was what they would consider hills here but back home we would have called them mountains. The scenery was incredible around every turn. All the roads seem like you have seen them before in car commercials. Though maybe not a 1988 Volvo commercial. The speed limit most of the time is 100 km/hr (about 60 mph), but we were more comfortable driving about 70 (40 mph), plus it was the only speed that I could actually drive and enjoy the view so we were constantly pulling onto the shoulder to let a line of cars go by. After we got off of Highway 1 the traffic was much less, and we didn’t need to pull over very often.

The towns along here were tiny little farm communities that usually included a gas station, a general store, and a café. Promptly at noon we stopped for a couple beers. The town of Ruawai was about the smallest yet. The place we chose to stop at, since it was the only choice, was actually a café/bar/needlepoint/quilts establishment. After perusing what I am sure were some fine needlepoint materials we made our way to the counter and ordered two Lion Red beers. The girl working the counter was about our age and seemed excited to have someone ordering something besides coffee. She asked us where we were from and where we were heading, then said we should spend the night there. She said all the locals would be up after work. An hour later though, we had exhausted all the entertainment options in town and decided it’d be best to move on.

Next stop was in Dargaville, which the guidebook warned us was the last place to buy food before the forest. So we picked up some dinner (a bag of chips and candy bars). We wandered up and down main street for a bit and finally figured out what a bowling club is. We had seen dozens of signs for this around New Zealand. Turns out it is a game similar to bocce ball and the club has these perfectly manicured lawns for old guys wearing white shirts, white trousers, and white leather shoes, to play on. We watched them for a bit and then headed down the street for lunch at the Family Steak Restaurant. Two steaks and two beers later we were stuffed. Easily the best steak we have had in a year.

Back to the car and we finished the drive north to the park. It was pretty cool how one minute we were winding along a road through rolling green hills overlooking the Tasman Sea with no forest in sight and the next minute we were in the middle of it. The forest road had the highest concentration of road kill we had seen so far, so we figured this must be the place to see some wildlife. Turns out there is actually an estimated 70 million possums in New Zealand and they have been termed public nuisance number one on the islands. The Kiwis have t-shirts that basically tell you to stop for kiwis and speed up for possum. They’ve even managed to make possum fur into big business, selling all sorts of different possum fur items.

Anyway, we finally made it to the park at about five o’clock. We had called a couple days earlier and reserved a room. They have backpacker style accommodations which are basically little cabins with no amenities. It reminded me of a dorm room basically, with a shared kitchen a couple doors down, and shared bathrooms as well. You also bring your own sleeping bags, which we had stopped and bought on our way out of town this morning. Anyway, for $14 each (about $19 USD total), it was a great deal. There was a nice stream running alongside the campground and rabbits running all over the place. A quick walk around and we called it a night.

november 7 2004 : driving around
Yesterday we woke up early, seeing as our tiny sleeping bags weren’t conducive to lounging around in bed all morning. We were on the road by 7:30 and after driving a half hour up the road we were at our first stop for the day. The Four Sisters Kauri trees. The kauri trees are huge and extremely old. Most of them were cut down a hundred years ago so the remaining kauri trees are pretty special. The four sisters are a group of four kauri growing very closely together. It was a quick 5 minute walk in to see them and they basically looked like four big old trees growing closely together. Back to the car. A bit down the road is Tane Mahuta, the largest living kauri. The “God of the Forest” is estimated to be about 1200 years old. This tree was a pretty spectacular sight, but still, it’s just a tree. So a few minutes later we were back on the road looking for breakfast.

The only breakfast we could find was a very unspectacular continental breakfast at a small hotel in Omapere. The only good thing about it was the great view across Hokianga Harbor to the sand dunes. I had read that you could hire a ride over to the dunes and rent a board to go sandboarding. We asked a local kid about it and he told us just to drive down to the next towns wharf and there would be a boat there that would take care of us.

So off we went, and sure enough the boat was there. We hopped on and a few minutes later we were climbing to the top of the dunes with our boogie boards. My first couple trips down I rode it all the way to the bottom without wiping, but from then on I was eating dirt on every ride. Ali rode pretty good too, though we were both finding sand in all sorts of places later.

The weather had cleared in the morning and was the best we had seen since we’d been in New Zealand so it was cool just to hang out on the dunes for a while and get some sun. The local kids were all over going swimming even though the water was under 70 degrees. We passed on that one.

Back at the car we hit the road again. Eventually we hit Paihia which is on the opposite side of the island in the Bay of Islands. A nice little touristy town with a bunch of shops and restaurants. We plan on visiting the Bay of Islands on the boat before we leave NZ so we just did a bit of shopping and had lunch before heading south again for Whangarei.

We got to Whangarei around five and didn’t have any idea where to stay. After driving around town a while I pulled into a driveway to turn around and realized that the driveway was for a nice little motel. After asking the receptionist if they had satellite TV we got a room for the night. We were tired after the long day and were excited about having television for the first time since my mom visited in Bora Bora. Unfortunately, their sat TV consisted of only seven channels. So after watching four reruns of The Simpson’s and a movie we had already seen, we crashed.

Today we stopped for a quick breakfast in downtown Whangarei. Since it is Sunday there wasn’t much open downtown though, so we took off and continued south. Our only goal for today was to get to Sheep World by two for the big sheep show. Sounds exciting huh? Along the way today we basically just tried to head south without taking the main highway. It’s not really that easy in NZ since the island is so narrow there aren’t a whole lot of road choices running north to south besides Hwy 1. But we did find a number of small roads that ventured off along the coast. One town we stopped in, Waipu Cove, had a great beach with a really nice surf break running a few hundred yards along it. We stopped and had a seat there and watched dozens of surfers ride the waves. It reignited my urge to surf, so I’ve made that next weekends objective.

We stopped in a couple more towns along the way and made it to Sheep World around one o’clock. After seeing thousands of sheep all weekend (there are 45 million on the islands which have a population of 3 million people) we figured maybe we could actually learn something about them. The place is basically a big petting zoo with sheep, goats, pigs, cows, and mini horses. Kind of fun, but the real attraction is the show they put on. They had sheep dog demonstrations which were really good. The first one had a dog round up these ducks and run them through an obstacle course. Alright, maybe the ducks have done that so many times that they knew exactly where to go, but the next demonstration was better.

There was a flock of about 30 sheep in a field about 200 yards away. The guy gave the dog a couple of instructions and he took off. We could see him take this long round about approach to the sheep so they wouldn’t see him coming, then he popped up and chased them down the hill towards us keeping them all in a tight group the whole time. Every time one would try to escape he would run over and cut him off sending him right back into the group. Eventually he got them all into the pen. Then it was time for the other dog, which was a different breed, this one is for getting rough with the sheep. He was the one that actually got the sheep to file into a much smaller enclosure in the barn. When the sheep were all bunched up, this dog would actually jump on top of them running around on their backs and barking at them.

Anyway, it was pretty cool. I would like to see the dogs that actually work on the big farms up in the hills, they are really amazing. After that part of the show they sheered a sheep and waxed on and on about how the Kiwis hold all the sheep sheering world records. I guess that stuff impresses the visiting Australians or something. Then came the part that we had come for. The baby sheep feeding. Ali had seen a picture in the brochure for this place showing a girl holding a baby sheep and feeding it with a bottle, and that’s what she wanted to do too. They handed out the bottles and then opened up a door at the other end of the barn and a whole bunch of baby sheep came tearing in. They were cute and Ali got to hold them and feed them, so the day was a success.

We also found out this weekend that our odometer stops working as soon as the trip odometer reaches 108. And also that it is in miles and not kilometers. Meaning that our car has over a quarter of a million miles on it, or roughly 450,000 km. Wow! And that’s just the miles that have actually shown up, who knows how many have been driven since the odometer broke. We have no idea how anybody could possible drive that many miles in New Zealand. Just off the top of my head I don’t think it’s even 1000 miles from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island. That previous owner must have had one heck of a commute to work.

Work on the boat starts tomorrow morning. We’re excited to get going on it now. Having basically resigned ourselves to the fact that it’s going to cost a small fortune, we just want to get Bum fixed up and looking good for the rest of the trip.

november 9 2004 : gulf harbor marina
Yesterday we decided to investigate the cause of the water that was somehow leaking into the bilges from below, despite the fact that we were not in the water. We knew from the initial inspection of the boat that there was water in the keels even though they are supposed to be hollow and dry. We drilled two 3/8 inch holes in each keel and they took nearly an hour each for the water to stop pouring out of them. Mike Menzies, the guy who owns the company working on the boat, joked that we’d have to tie the boat down now to keep it from flying away. And he’s only half kidding. I have a feeling that once we are all done here the boat is going to sail a lot better.

The grinding of the hulls began today and so far things look pretty good. The laminate all looks dry, so the delamination problem, at least on the starboard hull seems to be just from poor application of the gelcoat. We wereabout to walk out the door to head downtown for the day when our Volvo mechanic showed up. We just had a few minor things to take care of, but things I still had no idea of how to do, so I watched over his shoulder and asked questions so hopefully at the next haulout I’ll be the mechanic. He got right to work, then ten minutes later I turned around and he was gone. Three hours later I went out searching for him. I found him and managed to get him to come right back to the boat and pick up where he had left off. He worked for about an hour this time, then needed to go back to the shop for something and now two hours later I sit here writing this, waiting for his return.

november 12 2004 : driving around, north island, new zealand
Road trip weekend again. Today we left for the Coromandel Peninsula. Right after we got through Auckland we turned off and headed towards the coast on a small side road. The drive was nice though we thought the drive last weekend was more scenic. There were quite a few great spots today though. After stopping at a few small towns along the way we arrived in Coromandel Town. We checked out a couple of places to stay and were a little disappointed by the high prices for small old rooms, but then found a great new place called the Anchor Lodge just on the edge of town. They had normal rooms for around $100 but also had a backpacker lodge with rooms for $55 NZ ($40 USD). Tiny little room with t.v. and you share a big dorm style bathroom with everyone else.

It’s nice that you can travel around here and not have to spend a fortune every night for a room that you will only be in for a few hours to sleep. After checking in we took off up the road a little bit to check out the Driving Creek Railway. It was a small railway that winds it’s way up into the hills to a great lookout at the top. It was built by a guy in order to transport the yellow clay that he used for making pottery back down to the bottom of the hill to where the kilns were. Over the years they have been replanting the natural habitat of the area including kauri trees. After that it was back down into town for a couple beers. The bar was pretty cool, but the best part was that it was B.Y.O.F., meaning they had no kitchen so you could go next door to the pizza joint and they would deliver right to your barstool. Perfect.

november 13 2004 : driving around
The big plan this morning was to find pancakes. We were both in the mood for some reason. As usually seems to happen whenever we are really in the mood for something, we couldn’t get it. There are at least five cafés in Coromandel Town but apparently at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning only one of them is open. And this one wouldn’t serve pancakes until 8:30. Who ever heard of a restaurant that has a certain time that they will begin serving pancakes?

So we skipped breakfast and headed north to drive up to the tip of the peninsula. The road wasn’t paved but we were sure the Volvo was up for it. After we got to the halfway point we decided maybe it wasn’t. So we circled back around to the other side of the peninsula and back south to Coromandel Town once again. Pancakes were now being served.

After breakfast we drove south to Whitianga via the 309 road which once again was a gravel road. I’m pretty sure every bolt on the car is now loose. We found a nice little place to stay in town and quickly packed up the car to visit Hot Water Beach and the Cathedral Cove. Both are best visited at low tide which was in a half an hour. The beach was a lame tourist trap. Apparently there is some underground volcanic activity, so if you dig a couple feet down into the sand hot water will fill up the hole. There were about 100 people standing around ankle deep in cool water looking stupid. We watched a couple guys surf for a few minutes and took off for the cove.

Cathedral Cove was a cove that is only accessible at low tide through a giant rock archway. It was pretty cool but the weather sucked all day so we just took a look and turned around. Overall kind of a boring day. The drive was alright, but we think the views were better last week.

The best thing that happened today was when Ali was getting cash at the ATM. There was a guy standing a few feet behind her but she thought it was me. This particular ATM had a cartoon picture showing you how to cover up the buttons very carefully when you enter your PIN number. So because she thought it was me standing behind her she made a very dramatic gesture of covering up the buttons and looking over her shoulder. That’s when she realized it wasn’t me. Meanwhile the guy behind her looked at her like she was some sort of paranoid freak.

november 14 2004 : driving around
Today was going to be cliff diving day. Right up until we woke up and it was dark and pouring rain again. A friend of ours had given us directions to a secluded spot for cliff diving but with the crappy weather we just decided to head for home instead. We took a slightly different route home and the scenery would have been pretty good we think if we had been able to see it. We stopped for breakfast, this time I switched to having a steak and cheese pie since the breakfast food here is a little strange. They like to pile everything up in a big wet mound on your plate. I never thought about it before but I tend to like my food laid out separately. The bacon here also comes served as a big ball of fat, not those nice crispy strips I’m used to.

Anyway, back on the road a few minutes later the Volvo had her first mishap. A blown out rear tire. We had been hearing strange sounds back there all morning, but only when I made left turns. Simple solution to that is just not to make too many left turns, right? Actually, I thought it sounded more like the shocks, which I assumed weren’t in the best shape anyway, so who cares. So the tire blew out, but it wasn’t like we skidded off the road or anything, it just flattened.

We pulled over right next to a farmer who was feeding his pigs. He asked us if everything was alright and we assured him it was. Then he said he’d be up at the house if we needed anything. So I opened up the boot and grabbed the spare, which is a full size one and actually still had air in it. Next I opened up the compartment that holds the winch and tools in it. It’s a big compartment that was nice and clean. And empty.

So I hiked up to the house about two minutes after telling him we were fine and asked him for help. We hopped in the truck and drove down the driveway to see that in that short timespan Ali already had a guy stopping to help her out. After he saw she was taken care of he took off. Those friendly kiwi men. No, I’m only joking, actually we have seen quite a few cars with flats (due to all the gravel roads I suppose), and they always have a second car that has stopped to help out. Back on the Volvo we got the tire replaced relatively easily, said goodbye to our new farmer friend, and drove home. Pretty uneventful weekend overall. Crappy weather tends to do that though I guess.

Also been meaning to mention a strange side effect caused by us draining the water out of our keels the other day. Beginning the same night that we did that, our email on the boat stopped working. The radio sounded fine but we couldn’t get connected no matter what. After two days of that it finally dawned on me what had changed. I don’t know all the technical jargon for it, but basically the boats antennae uses the water (usually the ocean) as a ground. So while we were hauled out of the water, both this time and while in Panama, our radio (and thus, email) continued to work perfectly. And that was because it basically couldn’t tell it was out of the water, since there was still so much water in the keels. So as soon as that water was gone, so was our email. As it turns out, we have internet here at the marina and so we can still get all of our email, so I won’t be having to pump the keels full of water again.

A couple pictures to give you an idea of why we are having work done on the boat. The first one shows one of the many areas of blisters that are mainly just cosmetic eye sores. In it you can also see how the boat is not smooth at all, meaning it wasn’t faired properly I guess. That will all be smoothed out and looking better when it’s done. That’s something that as first time boat buyers we had no idea to be looking for and nobody pointed out to us, but both hulls look just like that and will be quite a bit of work to have faired correctly this time.

The second picture shows one area of delamination that is occurring. It is the only one that we have opened up to have a look at so far, but there are at least a few more we have found around the boat. Basically, that piece my finger is on is supposed to be stuck to the core, but as you can see there is nothing holding it to the core at all and so it is delaminated. We are waiting to hear back from the builders as to what they intend to do about it. We’ve got our fingers crossed that they will be concerned about the quality of their product.

november 15 2004 : gulf harbor marina
Just running around doing odd jobs today. Top priority this morning before driving to far was to get another spare tire for the car. We stopped at one place but the guy didn’t have the right size so he sent us next door to their competitors. He was a really nice guy though and Ali and I got to talking to each other about how nice everybody here in NZ has been. We decided that the only non-friendly Kiwi we have come across was an Asian lady who worked at the little train place we went to the other day. Anyway, we stopped at the next place and the guy came out to have a look at the tire. Just to make sure of the size he took a look at all the tires and told us that we had three of one size and one of another, “Which one would you like mate?” We opted to make a set of four this time, so he replaced the smaller one with the correct size, and we’ll use the small one for the spare now. For about $30 USD we had a tire, had him mount it, and replace it on the car. All in about ten minutes despite the fact that he had been in the middle of something else when we pulled up. Another nice Kiwi.

Then we drove a little ways down the coast to a Spectra Watermaker dealer where we finally bought some of the correct filters. We talked about our trip a little bit and then he gave us his card and told us to call him if we had any problems with the watermaker. After that we drove back towards home and stopped at an auto junk yard to pick up a jack and a wrench crowbar thing. He had exactly what we needed and we drove home.

Back at the boat, Pete, one of the guys working on the boat, asked us if we would like some Red Snapper. He had been in a fishing tournament all weekend and was busy filleting a bunch of fish. Pete is probably the funniest Kiwi we have met. His speech is so different from everybody else. He talks super fast and uses every bit of stereotypical Kiwi slang you can imagine. “Yep, Yep, no worries mate.” That sort of thing. So as we said thanks for the fish today he says, “Ay, ya ya yay, ticketyboo mate.” Ali and I just about started laughing because we really had no idea what that meant. It’s almost like he just makes up sounds and they just spill out of his mouth. So that’s about it for the day, but I should just say that the Kiwis are truly the friendliest people we have come across anywhere and we are really enjoying them and their country. Ticketyboo.

november 17 2004 : gulf harbor marina
So right after I write a log about some of the weird things they say here I hear on the radio this morning about a brand new New Zealand Oxford Dictionary coming out today. Apparently this edition includes 10,000 words that are attributed as unique to the Kiwis. 10,000! Remember there are only like 3 million people in New Zealand.

Today was one of those days that you just have to laugh at yourself. Picture this. The boat is sitting in a parking lot. I was busy taking the last two thru-hulls off. The two I had been putting off doing for so long because I knew it was going to be a disgusting job. Let’s just say they were in the second bathroom. On my way out the door with a bucket full of nasty smelling water I pass Ali, who is in the kitchen doing dishes. As I walk past, she is emptying water from the sink, using a plastic cup, into a bucket sitting on the floor, which she will then have to carry outside, down a ladder, and over to the grassy area nearby to empty. This is because underneath the boat a worker is busy grinding away the last of our gelcoat. And of course the grinding is so loud that we can’t hear one another from five feet away. Yep, the glamorous life of world travelers.

Yesterday we drove down to Auckland again. First we visited the Victoria Street Market. It’s a market that is in an old warehouse district type building. Actually, market is probably not quite the right word. It was actually just a mishmash of crappy little stores. The shoe stores had either size 2 or 16, and the t-shirt shops only carried small and XXL. And a postcard was simply overpriced. So if you visit Auckland you can give that tourist trap a pass.

After another incredible lunch at the Mexican Café, we drove down to the waterfront where we found a well stocked chandlery to get some of the boat crap we need checked off of our list. We have found prices for some things here incredibly high and we aren’t sure why. For removing rust on steel around the boat we use Nevr-Dull, which is usually around $6 a can. Here it is three times that. And then there is silicon/caulk, which you can never seem to have enough of. A tube of 5200 (or something equivalent) usually runs around $16, but here it is about $27. But then just about everything else is basically the same.

We happened to show up at the marine store a little bit before some free safety seminar they were giving there. They had pizza and beer for free, just for showing up. But believe it or not, we were too stuffed for either. We did gladly accept the free gift bags right before we ran out of there. Phew, that was close, we almost learned something about being safe on our boat. They probably would have just ended up scaring the hell out of us.

Tomorrow is only Thursday, but we are taking off in the morning again. We are bad, we just can’t seem to stick around and work for more than a day or two at a time. Tomorrow I have my first surf lesson. I’m psyched. Then we are heading down towards the Bay of Plenty area which is just a little bit south of where we were last weekend. There’s a ton of stuff to do down there. I may even get a second surf lesson in.

november 19 2004 : driving around, north island, new zealand
Yet another New Zealand road trip is underway. Yesterday morning we took off and first drove across the island to Muriwai Surf School. Yes, I was finally going to get to ride a wave. My instructor was a very friendly, talkative guy and was pretty much exactly what you would expect out of a thirtysomething surfer. We got into our wetsuits and went outside to go over a few things. He had me get on the ground and practice the move from laying down to standing up on the board. I did that one time and he said, “Alright, looks good, let’s go get in the water.”

It was really windy and there were some big messy waves out there, totally unsurfable type waves for a good surfer, but perfect rolling whitewater waves for a beginner. We walked out into the water, I hopped on the board, and before I knew it he was yelling at me to paddle, then pop up. First wave I hopped up and was actually riding the wave. For about three seconds. My problem wasn’t so much my falling off the board as it was I couldn’t stay with the wave and I would end up losing speed as the wave rolled on past me. Finally after about an hour of continually doing that I got up on a wave and found the sweet spot on the board. The spot where the board is planing perfectly and for the first time I could really feel the power of the wave pushing me on. What a rush. After finding the sweet spot the first time I was able to find it every time. I caught a few more waves before we called it a day. I had heard that surfing was an incredible workout but I wasn’t prepared for how worn out I would actually be. My shoulders were burning and I could hardly push myself up on the board anymore.

The rest of the day was pretty much spent driving south to Rotorua, or Roto-Vegas, as the locals call it. I can’t for the life of me see the similarity but it is a pretty touristy place with plenty of hotels and things to do. We got into town, found a decent hotel to stay for a couple nights, and went out to eat at the Pig & Whistle, an old police station that has been converted into a brew pub.

Today we woke up early as usual and drove to Hell’s Gate, which is billed as Rotorua’s most active thermal reserve. Hell’s Gate is a park with a walking trail leading around a bunch of different bubbling lakes and pools. It was pretty cool to see this sort of thing but it was quite possibly the nastiest smelling thing I have ever had the pleasure of inhaling. The place is full of sulfur deposits and after the first half of the walk we pretty much doubled our walking speed in order to get out of there as fast as possible. Even Ali, who is usually ripping on me for acting like a baby about unpleasant smells, was gagging and coughing. I really thought she might puke. Then we get to the end and find the place has a café. How anybody could possibly eat food while breathing that air I can’t imagine.

Next stop was to take a gondola ride and a few luge rides down the mountain. The luge was one of those plastic sled type things with handlebars. It was some good fun and you could actually get going pretty fast on the things.

november 21 2004 : driving around
The weather held out for us for a second day in a row. A new record since we have been here. We left Rotorua in the morning and took a few hours to drive to Mount Maunganui. We went straight to the beach to try and revive our quickly fading tans and after a couple of hours of watching everybody surf we took off to find a place to stay for the night and a place to rent a board. We found a nice place right across the street from the beach. A couple blocks away we found the surf shop, rented a board and headed back to the beach. I quickly found out it was a lot harder without an instructor. I did managed to catch a couple waves. Although I probably should have rented a wetsuit as well since the water is the coldest of our entire trip so far, mid-sixties. By the time I came out of the water I couldn’t stop shaking for an hour. Yet I could watch kids play in the water all day. Kiwis must get used to it I guess.

Today we woke up to what seems to have become the standard Sunday morning weather, rain. We left the hotel and drove along the coast for a couple hours, with me hoping the whole time that the weather would clear and we could have a repeat of the day before, but it wasn’t to be. We stopped at a roadside flea market where we figured we’d get a good laugh at all the junk that people try to sell at those things and yet within 5 minutes I had a bag full of books that I had been wanting to read. Guess I can’t laugh at my mom anymore for going to them.

november 23 2004 : gulf harbor marina
Warning: Boat work update ahead. Well we thought that the worst of it was over, but yesterday Mike came by to finish tapping the boat. Now that it is finished being ground down to the laminate he could have a good look at it. Tapping the boat is done just to find delaminated areas. You tap the boat with a small hammer type thing and you can clearly hear the difference between an area that is properly adhered to the core and areas that are delaminated.

Mike figured this should take about an hour. Two hours later he was still tapping the port hull. The port hull isprobably close to 20% delaminated by the looks of it. There are dozens of areas, many are small, about the size of a fist, but most are quite large. It is especially bad around the areas where the keel meets the hull, and around the saildrive and rudder. All of these areas are obviously extremely important to the safety of the boat at sea. He then tapped the starboard hull and thankfully things were much better, though still crappy. That side had about a dozen spots, nearly all of which are quite small. Eventually he ran out of time and so he will be tapping the rest of the boat above the waterline tomorrow. A prospect we are now dreading.

Another point about this delamination. Mike asked us today if we had the boat inspected before we bought it. Of course we did, by a well known surveryor who will remain nameless for the moment. He has written a couple of books about multihulls, dozens of technical articles for sailing magazines, and done inspections for years. So we figured he would do a good job for us. We have no way of proving it of course, but it now seems like he simply missed the delamination at the time of the inspection. We can’t say with 100% certainty that there was delamination at the time of the inspection, but Mike says that it is clear to him that even in the one delaminated area that we have ground out already (the one pictured previously), that the area was never adhered to the core. Therefore it should have been caught during the inspection. Yet after tapping the hull, the surveyor wrote that there was, “No delamination found at this time.” We will be contacting him and will let you know what his reply is when we get it.

We also talked about the state of our keels. Mike was basically appalled at how poorly they were constructed and adhered to the hulls. As you can see in the pictures there were large holes in both of them and the glass holding them on to the boat was way underdone. The plan to fix those and make them bulletproof is to lay a full three layers of glass over them staggered up to a foot past where the old glass ended. He said that no matter what he would not have let us go back in the water with them the way they were.

So things aren’t looking too good right now. Costs keep escalating and work keeps getting more involved. Luckily, we are in the right place to have this done and feel very confident in the people we have working on the boat.

Ali and I got in on the work yesterday as well. We removed the rub rail. We took it off because that seems to be the area where the blistering is the worst. They seem to just follow the rail right down the side of the boat. So they will be grinding that area and taking care of the blistering. The funny thing about the rub rail on this boat is that it wasn’t even in a position to protect the boat. One guy put it this way, “The hull is protecting the rub rail.”

The problem we had with doing this seemingly simple job was that they were riveted on. Since on the inside of the boat there is a vinyl headliner covering the hull along where the rivets would pop through, we had no choice but to drill the rivets down inside the hull and leave the backs of them alone. If we had pushed them through they would have been pushed right through the headliner. The rails were also caulked on, and so while I pulled it back Ali would cut the caulk with a blade. While doing the port side, no matter how careful we were, we still had big chunks of gelcoat popping off. We then did the starboard side and did it without having one crack or break. It’s becoming more and more clear to us that the port side of this boat is built much worse than the starboard side.

november 26 2004 : gulf harbor marina
It’s been a busy week on the boat. The big project this week was removing the mast. Ali and I removed the sails and folded them up so we could store them inside. We actually had the rigger help us with the jib, since neither of us had any idea how to remove it. In fact, we actually hadn’t even realized that the jib pole was one of the main things that hold up the mast. The rigger pointed out to us that a plastic cap that holds a pin in place at the bottom of the jib roller was missing. Then went on to show us how easily the pin could slide out now that the jib was loosened. Oh well, that seems to be the riggers job, to try and scare the hell out of you by explaining that every piece of your boat is undersized, faulty, or just not strong enough.

So we got all the sails off, we removed the boom, and unhooked all the wiring. Then the riggers showed up with a little crane truck. Within a half an hour we had removed the mast. When the rigger was up the mast securing it to the crane he threw a line down to me on deck and said to tie a bowline knot around the jib pole. Of course, I only know about three knots, and don’t know the names of any of them. So I tied one of those and he looks at me and asks, “Is that a bowline?” I just shrugged my shoulders. His assistant was grinning, and once the rigger had turned away, he just said, “That’s not a bowline.” Oh well, I guess that’s just one more thing you don’t have to know in order to sail 10,000 miles.

While this was going on, Mike was busy tapping the rest of the boat. Once again it seems the port hull is a piece of junk while the starboard side came through with only a couple tiny spots of delamination. The port side had over a dozen. Right now we haven’t really decided exactly what we are going to do about it. The delamination is obviously much worse than we ever expected. If Charter Cats steps up and does the right thing then we would probably have them all grinded down to the core and laid up properly. If not, we may end up just having to fill the delaminated areas with epoxy.

So after actually doing some work on the boat this week, we felt we earned this weekends getaway. Of course, the weather decided not to cooperate with us. We had gale force winds, temps in the 50’s, and plenty of rain. There was even one downpour as we were driving along that turned into a hailstorm. Really nice. And then, around 11 in the morning we were driving along some tiny little road that had been circling us all over the place for an hour without seeing a town, when all of the sudden there was a roadblock ahead of us. It turned out they were looking for drunk drivers and had me blow into a breathalyzer. Seemed like a strange time and place to be doing that sort of thing, but maybe people around here have a few beers with their breakfast, I don’t know.

We got to the town of Hamilton in the afternoon and just wandered around downtown. Not much to see or do here, but tomorrow we are heading over to Raglan to watch the Rip Curl Surf Competition. I would think that with the huge winds the last couple of days the surf is going to be big tomorrow, so that should be cool.

november 28 2004 : driving around
The weather really doesn’t want to cooperate with us lately. Yesterday we woke up to blue skies, by the time we showered it was cloudy, and when we left the hotel it was raining. The rest of the day it rained at least once every twenty minutes. We drove down  to Raglan to watch some surfing. Luckily the parking lot was on a big hill overlooking the water. So we were able to stay in the car and watch. Of course, a lot of the Kiwis were still walking around in shorts and t-shirts as if it was the most beautiful warm day they had ever seen. With temps around 55 degrees we were just happy the heater works. The surf was pretty big though and it was fun to watch.

In the afternoon we went into town to walk around. We had lunch at a cool little bar and restaurant. There was a bunch of paintings on the wall done by one of the people who worked there. One of them looked almost exactly like the picture up above in the Nov. 12th log of the hills seen through the fence. We made the lady an offer and bought it. We are starting to wonder how we are ever going to get all of our souvenirs home.

We watched some more surfing in the afternoon and took a drive around the area on a gravel road. It was some of the best scenery we have seen so far, and almost completely deserted. It amazes me how as soon as you get off the busy main highways in New Zealand you are left entirely alone on nearly every other road. I guess it makes sense though that the people that live here are more interested in getting where they are going than in tooling around admiring the scenery.

Today the weather continued to be crappy and rainy so we just drove straight home to the boat. The big plan was to get some stuff done on the internet, which once again isn’t working here at the marina. Glad we aren’t paying for that service. So we drove to the only nearby internet, which is at the bowling alley, and got that taken care of. Now we are just sitting on the boat trying to figure out what else needs to be done before we leave on Wednesday. The answer seems to be not much since we were able to get so much done last week.

When we got our email today a lot of people wished us a Happy Thanksgiving. It was strange how different it was for us this year. Last year we were feeling pretty homesick and it felt strange not to be with family eating turkey. But this year, if nobody had mentioned it, I don’t think we would have even realized it was Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s because we are going home next week. I don’t know. So last year we were having lobster bisque gravy and this year I had a steak sandwich and Ali had a chicken wrap at the Loaded Hog Bar. Not exactly an American style celebration, but certainly fitting for the two of us.

We also received some very sad news today. We found out that my cousin’s wife gave birth to fraternal twins a few days ago, but just a couple days later the baby boy, Owen, died. The good news is that his sister, Sarah, is doing well. So again our thoughts are with our family and this time we are happy that we will be home soon to be with them.

november 30 2004 : gulf harbor marina
Last log for November, and last one from New Zealand for a while. We are off tomorrow for the U.S. We leave here on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. and arrive in Minnesota on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. Weird huh?

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