october 1 2004 : en route to tonga
Not much to report on for this passage. It’s been pretty slow going most of the time. Back in Tahiti one of our to do’s was to get the bimini support welded since one of the two main supports is almost completely cracked through. We asked around at all the yacht stores we went to but had such a hard time communicating that we finally just gave up. Figuring that it held up this long what’s a couple more passages.

Then the other day after raising the main we realized that that was probably a mistake. We watched the support flexing every time the boat rolled a little bit and the crack seemed to get wider every time. It’s a little scary since so much is relying on that arch. The dinghy hangs on the back of it and the traveler for the main runs along the top of it as well. Not to mention all the solar panels that sit on top. So basically if that thing ripped loose we could be in a lot of trouble. Therefore we have decided not to use the main on this passage. We are really hoping that we will be able to find a welder in Tonga. If not, I’m not sure what we are going to do about it. For the most part on this passage though, the screecher has been the only sail worth using anyway.

We have managed to catch a couple of nice mahi mahi on this trip. No matter how many lures I buy the only one that works is my old generic pink and blue squid that is half missing from being eaten by fish. The hook is so rusted it looks like it could fall off at any minute, but they love it.

october 2 2004 : en route
Today was shaping up to be an overall pretty boring day mainly motoring along in light winds. We decided to watch a movie and two minutes in to it I saw a big fin cut across the surface behind the boat. We ran outside and saw something big swimming alongside the boat. He swam up to the front and began playing in the bow wake just like a dolphin. Only he was at least 15-20 feet long. It was a whale playing in our wake! He surfaced a couple of times before drifting back underneath the boat. We laid down on the trampoline and watched him swim between the hulls just a couple of feet under the water. He was half the length of the boat. After a couple of minutes he drifted off. He surfaced a couple more times and then was gone. That was a rush. We got out our identification book and determined it was either a false killer whale or a pilot whale. From the location and size of his dorsal fin we think it was a false killer whale (plus it just sounds cooler). After that it was back to the movie for the rest of the afternoon.

october 5 2004 : nuku’alofa, tongatapu, kingdom of tonga
After another long boring passage in which the wind only showed up for the last day. Once again we had to slow the boat down the night before so that we wouldn’t arrive at two in the morning. As the sun came up we found ourselves surrounded by small islands. Tonga is actually 160 islands, but only a small percentage are inhabited. We came into Nuku’alofa and tried to call the harbor master on the radio but got no response so we anchored and I took the dinghy in to see him. There were at least six customs agents in the office involved in some heated games of Checkers. They told me to move the boat into the inside harbor where I could tie up med-moore style like in Pape’ete, and that they would come down to clear us in.

Back at the boat we upped anchor and headed in. Before we had even dropped the anchor we had two car loads of guys watching and waiting for us. So of course it took us half a dozen tries to get the anchor to set. I dinghied to shore with a stern line and tied us off, then ferried five big Tongan men to the boat.

They all jumped onto the boat wearing their big work boots and promptly got mud all over everything. The rug inside the door was a big blob of brown mud. I looked at Ali and she was smiling and welcoming everybody aboard, though I knew what she was really thinking. The paperwork was a piece of cake. The Agricultural inspector, who didn’t even take a look at our food, needed to collect $20 Tongan. They all seemed perplexed when we explained that we just pulled into Tonga and therefore didn’t have any Tongan money yet. They eventually agreed that $12 USD would be okay. Sure, I thought, what is the exchange rate.

Then a few minutes later the Health inspector showed up, and not knowing about the exchange that had just taken place, he asked for his $30 Tongan fee. Once again we explained how we didn’t have any Tongan money yet. So he said well maybe $25 USD then. Well it doesn’t take a math major to figure out that according to the previous transaction, his $30 should only be $18 USD. We pointed this out to him and he just played stupid and agreed to the $18. Everyone was very nice though, and I think it is just part of their little game to try and extract a couple extra dollars for their own pockets.

After the boat was all squared away we headed for town. First stop was at the bank to get that Tongan money. Found out the exchange rate is .52, so we didn’t get ripped off too bad. We found a nice café that we decided we’d go to for breakfast tomorrow. We did a scouting mission through a couple of grocery stores. Stopped and had ice cream. Then decided to walk down to this Italian place that is supposed to have great food.

It was another mile down the road and when we got there we found they were closed. It was about three o’clock and just like everywhere we have ever been we couldn’t find a place to eat. In every country besides the U.S. the restaurants open from about 11-1 and then again from 6:30-10. That’s it. If you want to eat at any time other than those you can’t. We trudged back into town and wandered past a couple more closed restaurants until we eventually were almost back to the boat. We finally found Billfish Bar and Restaurant, though until 6:30 it would only be the Billfish Bar. So with empty stomachs we sat down and celebrated another completed passage by drinking the local brew, Royal, on tap. Thoroughly exhausted and a little drunk, we hobbled back to the boat for dinner. Ali had a candy bar, and I had two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

october 7 2004 : nuku’alofa
The last couple days we have been enjoying Tonga. Yesterday we went downtown, which is basically just a few square blocks of two story buildings with a little bit of everything. We had breakfast at Friends café which is a great place. The food was the best we have had in months. Not to mention we are finally out of French Polynesia and back into the real world, where the price of things is somewhat based on common sense.

Next we walked over to the market. There was plenty of arts and crafts, lots of handcrafted whalebones, fruits and veggies, and Ali bought a nice big table mat intricately weaved out of palm fronds. The lady was sitting there making them as we watched, which always makes us feel better. One store back in Ra’iatea was selling “authentic” carved wooden bowls that had MADE IN INDONESIA stickers on the bottom. Anyway, she told us it took her a week to make this mat, which seemed like a bit much, but she was nice and I really liked her mustache, so we bought it.

After learning my lesson the day before about waiting too long to get lunch, I set out in search of my pizza fix. We found it at Pazzo Pizza, and even though we weren’t especially hungry I ordered up a large. It was a vast improvement over French Polynesia’s attempts but still not quite up to par. Though I am sure to return at least twice before we leave.

Today I had one main thing on Ali’s to do list. So I set off in search of a welder, figuring we just might want to use the mainsail on our passage to New Zealand. I went in to the customs office and a nice lady drew me a map to the gas company where I could find somebody to do the welding. The map she drew had just three cross streets and looked nice and close. Two miles later I was starting to wonder if I would ever get to that third street. I eventually found it and they told me they would come by in a couple of hours to have a look at the boat. I walked back out to the road and flagged a taxi down. He drove me back to the boat for $1 and when I apologized for only having a twenty and asked if he had change, he just smiled and told me no problem, consider it a gift. Nice.

Then two minutes later the welder drove up. He wanted to have a look and see what the job would entail. He looked around and then said he would be back in two hours, after apologizing profusely that he couldn’t do it sooner. Ali and I were still shocked by the fact that we were getting it done at all today. With an hour to kill, we went over to the Billfish for lunch. Man, I can’t tell you how much we enjoy low prices. We ordered an appetizer, lunch, and dessert, not to mention a couple beers each and it cost what just the beers would have in Tahiti. After lunch our welder showed up right on time and did a great job. We are all solid again and can shake the dust out of the main now.

october 9 2004 : nuku’alofa
Didn’t do much yesterday. Went into town for another big breakfast at Friends café, walked around town a little bit, and then came back to the boat to finish up work on the bimini.

Last night I woke up at 4 a.m. and they were still partying across the harbor. The Japanese fishing boats seem to never sleep. They are up drinking and playing cards 24 hours a day. Maybe the life of a fisherman isn’t so bad.

In the picture below you can see what the style of dress is here in Tonga. The men wear a wraparound skirt called a tupenu and generally over this they wear a pandanus mat called ta’ovala. I’d say more than half the men are wearing this including all the school age kids. The women wear basically the same thing except instead of the mat, they sometimes wear a kiekie which is like a belt with decorative strips of woven pandanus. They are very religious and conservative here in Tonga. Men face a $20 fine for not wearing a shirt in public.

october 11 2004 : nuku’alofa
We didn’t do much over the weekend. On Saturday we went into town to get a few groceries since we knew the whole town would be shut down on Sunday. While we were there we decided to pop in to a video store and see if they would rent us some DVDs. For the $25T ($12 USD) initiation fee they said sure. So we rented five pirated DVDs for $10 and thought we were all set for a day of doing nothing on Sunday. Unfortunately two of the movies stopped working right in the middle. The last one, Open Water, was an independent film about a couple of scuba divers whose dive boat accidentally leaves them behind. We were really enjoying the movie and then just as a shark was about to attack them the movie died on us. You have to love a rental store that only rents pirated movies.

Saturday we also took the dinghy over to Pangaimotu, a small motu about a mile away. There was an okay beach over there to lay around and snorkel at. There was also a nice little beach bar called Big Mama’s Yacht Club.

Today we rented a car and set out to see the island. We had stopped in at Avis back on Friday and handed over my driver’s license so that they could take it to the police station and have me issued a Tongan driver’s license for just a $15 fee. That’s a pretty slick way of skimming a few bucks off of us tourists. Although it was nice of them to make it valid for an entire year just in case we come back.

After we got our fix of breakfast at Friends café again we headed out. First stop was back to the boat to pick up our empty diesel jugs and our laundry. We dropped the laundry off and got the best price we have seen yet, $15 for about four loads. Ali was smiling. After that we went sightseeing.

We stopped in the village of Talafo’ou to see the famous fishing pigs. At low tide the coast turns into a tidal flat along here and the pigs have learned that they can wade out into the muck and dig up shellfish. This is what our Lonely Planet said. We weren’t too sure, but as soon as we got there we saw dozens of pigs digging around out there. They would sniff around and then just start digging down into the mud with their snout. They would get a big pile of mud on top of it and flip it back over their shoulder. Eventually they would be so deep their eyes were just barely above the mud. It was pretty funny, and we have a thing for pigs anyway. I should also mention that the island is teeming with pigs. They are walking free all over the place. In fact, along with dogs, they were the biggest hazard of driving here.

After that we stopped at the Ha’amonga’a Maui Trilithon. It’s a big coral structure made out of three stones each weighing around 40 tons and was built around 800 years ago. There was also a big stone that the chief used as a backrest and to protect himself from being attacked from behind. Nice little tourist stop.

Next stop was the Houma Blowholes. The swell wasn’t too big today but every few minutes a good one would roll in and explode against the coral limestone wall and shoot giant geysers through the holes which along with the general smashing of the wave was a pretty impressive site.

We also spent a fair amount of time trying to find a place to have a beer, with no luck. Seems that if you want to drink on Tongatapu you will have to head for town. The only thing out around the island is churches. Without exaggerating, I would guess we saw at least 100 churches today. And 98% of new construction is building more churches. This reminded us of the Bahamas, where even the poorest towns with people living in shacks, had at least three brand new churches.

We were on such a roll finding all the tourist sights today that we decided we had to go find the three-headed coconut tree. It was listed in the Lonely Planet, and even though we had no idea if this is even abnormal, we drove around looking for it. We figured that since it was listed in a guidebook it would probably have at least a plaque at the base of the tree. Wrong. After driving by where it should have been three times, we looked up along the side of the road and saw it standing there all by itself, no plaque to commemorate this marvel of nature. I was a bit embarrassed, but still ran across the street to get a picture. In the picture you can see we rented the most pimpin’ car on the island again. Yep, we saw everything Tongatapu has to offer today.

One other thing we saw was this house draped in Minnesota Twins fabric. At first I thought maybe they were showing their team pride since the Twins are in the playoffs right now. But after seeing the Green Bay Packers, the Chicago Bears, and the Miami Dolphins, we figured they must have just gotten a really good deal on some cheap fabric for window coverings.

october 12 2004 : nuku’alofa
Last night we finally got to try the Italian restaurant that we walked down to on our first day here. The food was delicious. My pizza was called the SuperTop because it had all the toppings and was supposed to be a family size. The waiter wasn’t sure if I knew what I was talking about but I assured him I didn’t want a medium I wanted a family. Needless to say I’ve now got some cold pizza for the beginning of the passage.

This morning while we still had the car we finished off the diesel and went to the bakery. The bakery here is great and super cheap. For about $10 we got more donuts, cookies, and bread than we should be able to eat. The rest of the day all we have to do is clear out of here. It looks like we will be leaving tomorrow.

A guy on the boat next to us hired a weather routing service to figure out the best route to follow on this passage and he offered to share it with us. We gladly accepted, though now I am having nightmares about it since we usually don’t pay much attention to weather and have always been fine. I hope these weather people know what they are talking about. This will be our first passage, since the Panama to Galapagos fiasco, that isn’t a leisurely sail along the trade winds. On this passage we can expect a lot of wind more on the nose, which needless to say, we really don’t like too much. Oh well, after this passage we get a nice long break in New Zealand. We cannot wait, with any luck we will be there in about eleven days.

october 15 2004 : en route to new zealand
Third day out on this passage and I can finally write a log. The first two days the wind was just off the nose and the boat was really bouncing. I have never been so seasick. For 48 hours I couldn’t keep anything down, not even a sip of water. But when I woke up today I was perfect. Ali wasn’t feeling it too bad. She was smart enough to take a Dramamine before we even left the harbor. She probably wished she were sick though, so she wouldn’t have had to listen to me moaning and complaining the whole time.

That is really about all there is to tell about the first couple of days. We finished off that pizza pictured above along with the cookies and cupcakes. We also found the best passage food ever when we were in Tonga. Back home we call them pot pies, but around here I think they call them meat pies. Call them whatever you want, I call them delicious. If I can expect a lot of those in New Zealand I will be a happy man.

Let’s see, what else? Ali has been feeding the birds our moldy bread, we nearly got run over by a ship 300 miles from land, and we have been making good progress on the passage so far.

Last night on the charts there was a tiny speck listed only as a rock. It said the depth was unknown and I figured it was just a submerged rock, but we altered course to pass a good six miles away from it anyway. At four a.m. I looked over and could see a mountain, even in the dark. As the sun came up two hours later we saw a huge island, at least a mile long. I wonder how many boats have run smack dab into that thing in the middle of the night. It is on a direct line between Tonga and New Zealand. After that we started giving everything a wide berth. Reefs that were marked with a depth of 130 feet, didn’t matter, we steered well away from it.

We had also considered stopping at Minerva Reef which is a nice big reef that is well sheltered inside, about 300 miles SW of Tonga, and 60 miles west of our rumb line. But since our progress was good and the weather window looks like it could close down on us at any time, we decided to press on by it. So that’s it for now, six days to go hopefully.

october 18 2004 : en route
There is really nothing to report about this passage so far. The winds have been light the last 3 days from behind and we have been either sailing slowly or motorsailing. At the moment we have around 450 miles to go so it looks like our earlier hopes of 6 more days could be more like 8 or 9. The winds are supposed to spin around and be on the nose for the next couple of days which could make forward progress a little tough and after that when the winds are back in the right direction they die down again.

A friend of ours on another boat hired a routing service for this leg of the trip. This is basically a company that gathers all sorts of weather information and along with your boat speed formulates a plan for you to follow that will supposedly give you the fastest, safest sail to your destination. It is pretty cheap at only about $60 for the Tonga to New Zealand leg. Ali and I do virtually no weather forecasting. The only thing we get is called a GRIB file through our email. All we have to do is hit a button and a little map pops up. I highlight the area I am interested in and send an email. An hour later I get an email that I double click on and it automatically pops up right on my charts. All this tells me is the forecasted wind speeds and directions for the next few days.

Anyway, our friend has been forwarding us this weather info from the routing service and so far they haven’t given us one unique piece of information. And they’re gathering weather info from probably 100 different sources. Some cruisers do the same thing, literally spending hours every day gathering weather data. I always found it especially amusing in the Bahamas. Why, when you are only a couple miles from a safe anchorage at any given time, would you spend your entire morning listening to weather forecasts and downloading weather faxes and who knows what else? We would hear people talking about it every single day and could never understand it.

My point is, I don’t have a clue about weather forecasting, and yet by downloading this one simple email every couple days I know as much as the guy who spends all day with headphones on trying to listen to a weather forecast over the radio from 2000 miles away, or a company that specializes in weather routing. I only mention this because in every book about cruising they drone on and on about how to read weather faxes, and what it means when a high pressure system moves over a low pressure system, when the pressure is dropping, blah blah blah blah.

Oh, here’s some interesting news. The other night we found a stowaway. Seems in Tonga we may have picked up some new friends. Cockroaches! In all my life I had never actually seen a cockroach until Tonga. Then one day I saw this giant nasty creature crawling along our line holding the boat to shore. I flicked him off into the water hoping his friends were watching and wouldn’t try the same thing. Then a couple nights later I found one running around in the cockpit. I scooped him in a bucket and threw him in the water too.

Then on our fourth day out at sea I was going to wake Ali up for her watch when I flicked on the hallway light and saw him running around and disappear into the bilge. I grabbed him, ran outside, and flicked him into the water. We were both really grossed out by this little turn of events. I laid in bed and couldn’t sleep because it felt like they were crawling all over me. After about an hour of this I heard Ali up on deck trying to get the sails to stop flapping around so I went up to help her. I accidentally surprised her as she came around the corner just as I was coming up the steps and man did she scream. I guess she was a little on edge about the creepy crawly critters too. So right now we are just praying that that was the only one onboard. Though they say, where there’s one there’s more. I hope not.

october 20 2004 : en route
Holy crap is it cold! The temps have been steadily falling ever since we left Palmerston a few weeks back. Now it is just getting unbearable for us tropical babies. Last night it got down to 62 degrees. That’s the coldest we have seen since we left Minnesota, only in MN we probably put on shorts and t-shirts when it got to 62. This is one thing that we really came unprepared for. I’ve only got two pairs of pants and three long sleeve shirts. Ali’s got a few more things that she used to wear for pajamas but have now become daily wear in layers. This morning Ali admitted to me that last night she even took to turning on the oven to warm it up in here.

The passage continues to suck. The wind is just constantly out of the south, right where we need to go. It hasn’t been that strong though, which is good. The last couple days we have been sailing SW, so for every 50 miles we sail we are only actually getting about 25 miles closer to Opua, our intended destination.

october 21 2004 : en route
Just to fill everyone in on the plan for the next few months. First off I should mention that the Pacific Cyclone season starts in November and lasts through March. That is the reason we will be spending five months in New Zealand. That and the fact that there is so much to see and do there. After clearing in at Opua in the Bay of Islands we will sail south to Gulf Harbor Marina which is a bit north of Auckland. We plan to buy a car soon after getting there. New Zealand makes the process of buying and selling cars, as well as registering and insuring them, very simple. And basically you can buy a cheap car, drive it for a few months and resell it again for practically what you paid for it in the first place. Much better alternative than paying to rent a car all the time.

Then in Gulf Harbor we will be having some pretty extensive work done on Bumfuzzle. We have blistering and osmosis issues that we need to have fixed. It is a major problem and requires some major work. So far Charter Cats, the boats builder, is not being any help, but I will talk more about that as the work progresses. We haven’t talked much about this before because we are waiting to get some expert opinions so we know exactly where we stand. Anyway, that will be going on in November along with the dozens of other small projects that we have on our list of things to fix.

Then in December we are flying home for a visit. Basically a five week jaunt around the U.S. from St. Paul to Chicago to Portland, and back to New Zealand at the beginning of January. Hopefully at that time the boat work will be done because then we want to spend the next couple months just exploring the islands by land. Around March we will get the boat ready, spend some time cruising around Auckland and the Bay of Islands before heading for Australia. So that is the plan. Now we’ll see how well that all works out.

Finally a break in the monotony. We just got buzzed by the New Zealand Air Force. He had to do two fly-bys since we didn’t have our VHF on. Ooops. He wanted our names, boat information, as well as where we intend to land. So I guess the Kiwis should be all ready for us when we get there now. We were too slow with the camera. It would have been a cool picture because he really flew down low and close even though it was a big plane.

october 23 2004 : opua, bay of islands, new zealand
After a much longer than we had hoped for passage, we arrived in Opua around noon. This is the most important port for yachts clearing into the country and we were amazed at how well set up it was. There is a huge quarantine dock where we found ten other boats tied up waiting for their clearance from customs.

First a quarantine officer came aboard and went through the boat pretty thoroughly. Since we have basically no food left on the boat it was a pretty painless process. After going through everything the only thing he took was a small bag of popcorn. He also took our bag of garbage and had us empty out our vacuum cleaner. That was it for him. Then customs came on, had us fill out some paperwork, and because we are flying home in a month he just gave us a three month visa and told us we would be issued another three months when we flew back in. So we are in. Five months of passage free living.

We then moved over to a mooring, quickly dropped the dinghy in and headed for shore. Opua isn’t really a town, there is just a little general store and a restaurant. Which luckily for us, is all we needed today. First we walked in to the general store and marveled at the selection of normal food. An entire aisle of candy bars, chips, and even real milk! We grabbed a chocolate and a strawberry milk and downed them in about a minute. The first real pasteurized milk we have had in a year. I would have never thought it could taste so good.

Then it was time to get some beer in our belly. The restaurant was a nice place. The local lingo is going to take some getting used to though. Like most of the world they call their french fries “chips,” and ketchup is just “sauce.” We had been warned that the ketchup has a weird flavor, and it does. It tastes sort of fruity.

The weather here also merits a mention. The temp today was about 65 degrees, cloudy, and windy. It’s freaking cold! The locals told us this was a bit unusual so hopefully it turns around soon. Oh, and the water temp is down to 64 degrees. Our coldest ever I think. I knew it was cold today when I looked over and saw a bird in the water that I thought looked a lot like a penguin. So I grabbed the guidebook and sure enough it was a little blue penguin. I have a feeling we are going to lose our tans in a hurry. I took a whole bunch of pictures of the Bay of Islands as we were coming in today, but because the weather was so crappy they didn’t look very nice either. So I’ll wait and hope it gets sunny in the next couple of days before we head south for Gulf Harbor.

october 27 2004 : gulf harbor marina, whagaparaoa, new zealand
Well after a second day in Opua in which we didn’t do much other than take a nice walk around the surrounding hills, we headed off on an overnight trip down to the marina where we will be spending our time for a while. The trip down was really uneventful. It started off nice enough with the sun finally coming out and it warming up a bit. But by late afternoon the clouds rolled back in and the temps plummeted again. We overheard a conversation today in which a local was talking about how the local birds are in a feeding frenzy because the cold weather has them thinking that winter is approaching again. So I guess even the birds are a little uncomfortable with the cold temps. We woke up this morning to 58 degrees in the bedroom. No, not even Ali can warm me up from that cold.

Anyway, we pulled into the marina early yesterday morning and went straight to the Ripples Café for some breakfast. The marina here has a café, a chandlery, and a ton of different boat shops for every job imaginable. After breakfast we went to check in at the marina office. There we found out that the marina costs $17NZ per day (about $11 USD). Quite a bargain as far as we are concerned, though a bit expensive for NZ from what we hear. To put that in perspective, the Fort Lauderdale marina we stayed at was $60 a day and even in Nassau Bahamas it was $40.

Let’s see, what else? The marina is huge, with over 1,000 slips but it is not a liveaboard place so the vast majority of the boats just sit here empty. Also, because our boat is so wide the only spot that can accommodate us is at the end of the pier which is over 200 yards long, making for a really long walk. But we are being hauled out on Friday so it doesn’t really matter. Anyway, we’re off now to pick up our rental car. We are driving down to Auckland on Saturday for a car auction where we hope to buy our own wheels.

A funny thing happened when we were coming into the marina yesterday. I hailed the marina on the VHF to ask for our berth assignment. The guy at the marina asked me to spell our boat name, so I gave the old, “Bravo Uniform Mike Foxtrot Uniform Zulu Zulu Lima Echo,” which I memorized so I might sound like a captain of a boat if needed. Then there was some confusion about whether our berth was C73 or D73. At some point he asked me, “Was that Delta 73?” I answer, “No, that was C as in… (this is the point Ali and I looked at each other wondering what the hell the word for C was) …umm, C as in Cat?” We were both cracking up because we knew I sounded like an idiot. The guy comes back on laughing and says, “Okay, so that’s Charlie 73.” Charlie! Of course! I knew that one.

october 28 2004 : gulf harbor marina
Alright, so we got the rental car yesterday and immediately began driving all over the place. We found the main strip nearby which had a whole bunch of fast food restaurants as well as a bunch of miscellaneous shops. We found an auto parts store and picked up these tiny little fuses that go in the watermaker. Somehow we blew one of these on the passage down from Tonga and having never seen one of these fuses before we of course had no replacements.

Next we decided to see a movie. About halfway through it the power died. They gave us free tickets and sent us on our way. Seems the whole area lost power. So we took off for the next town down the road, Orewa. There we found a really nice little secondhand bookshop and an electronics store where we finally got a bigger memory card for our camera. Our old one could only hold about 10 pictures, so whenever something exciting was happening we would be taking pictures and reviewing and deleting them all at the same time.

Today we drove south down to Auckland for the day. It felt great to be in a real city again. It really reminded us a lot of Seattle. Not least of all because of the Sky Tower which we had to check out just to get some pictures of the bay. We had a nice two beer lunch at the Mexican Café, which looks like a real dump from street level, but is actually a nice little place with great food. Our first real Mexican meal in a year.

Other than that we basically just wandered around the city. I’m sure we’ll be back there a few times. When we were at the Sky Tower we asked one of the guys that worked there where we could find a shopping mall. We are still walking around in flip-flops and really need some shoes and another blanket for this cold weather. He gave us some vague directions and somehow we managed to drive directly to it without getting lost. So a couple more hours wandering around shopping and we called it a day. Tomorrow we are supposed to get hauled out but we are hoping to postpone until Monday because there is a car auction we’d like to go to instead.

october 30 2004 : gulf harbor marina
We weren’t able to postpone, so we got hauled out yesterday. Everything went smooth as usual. We were a little scared to see what we would find once the boat was out of the water. However it seems the blistering and delamination hadn’t gotten much worse. The guy who is going to be doing the work on the boat immediately got to work grinding into the blisters to see what the extent of the problem is. Apparently it’s not as bad as it could be, but it definitely isn’t good either. One thing he did find was that every problem was basically caused by plain old fashion poor craftsmanship by the builder, Charter Cats S.A. Our main fear was that the boat had osmosis damage, which would mean there was water in the core, but fortunately the large bubbles aren’t osmosis they are just delamination.

Basically that means the gelcoat didn’t adhere to the core, but the core is dry. If this is all just a bunch of mumbo jumbo to you, just imagine what it is like for us trying to stand there and pretend like we know what the hell he is talking about. Finally we had to explain to him our background and ask him to talk to us like we are eight years old. So I am learning a little bit. Mainly what I am learning though is that this is going to cost us a fortune to fix. So far Charter Cats hasn’t been very helpful.

Today we went to a car auction. We bid on two cars, neither of which we really wanted, and fortunately we were outbid on both. There weren’t very many cars available today for some reason. Tomorrow we are going to try a car fair. And if we still don’t have any luck, there is another car auction on Tuesday. I should also mention that I’m doing a great job driving on the left and handling the round-abouts. Even with Ali saying, “Stay to the left, stay to the left!” while pointing to the right. It can be a little confusing sometimes.

It’s kind of nice here how you barely ever have to stop while you are driving. Instead of four way stops they just have these round-abouts that you merge into, then drive around the circle until you come to the street you want and turn off there. We need more of those in the Staes. Besides driving on the wrong side of the car and roads, the only thing weird about driving here is their give way to the right rule. Basically, if you are driving along and are going to turn left but have a person coming in the opposite direction who wants to turn right onto the same street, you give way to them. That’s the one they warn you about constantly since the rest of the world does it the other way.

Random observation on New Zealand. People have this thing about walking around barefoot. It seems that about 1 out of 3 people are barefoot at all times, even inside shopping malls, grocery stores, or in movie theatres. It’s the kind of thing we would have expected in the islands but here it is only like 60 degrees.

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