December
2012
Re-Immersion
P’s sister
Deb comes north from AKL to welcome us home and the first night we immerse in
the moment of being home with a great yachtie meal at the top little Opua Yacht
Club where most arriving cruising yachties land.
The next
day we drive to Waitangi and do the tourist thing on the Treaty grounds before
heading for Keri Keri and it all feels just so great driving through the
parkland that is NZ, on superb roads. We
cannot help noticing it’s a first world country, the first we have been in
since leaving Europe with the possible exception being parts of Puerto Rico.
Walking
into a supermarket and recognizing all the labels of honest to goodness food is
not half bad with the dairy products and fine NZ wines standing out plus
marinated green lip mussels says P.
 |
| The green green grass of home - Keri Keri Bay of Islands |
One of the first things we do when we arrive in a new country, we get a simcard for the cellphone but in this case as we are home for good its ‘his & her’ simcards, noting that NZ is the most expensive country on the planet for mobile telephony with the competing systems using gross obfuscation via costly advertising campaigns to tell unknowing Kiwis they are getting superior services, not. Nothing has changed on this front. Next we need WiFi data connectivity and its no different to the cellphone just more expensive and far and away the most costly of the 30+ countries we have visited.
Opua is a great little spot for cruising yachties but its isolated from everything other than boating services with the supermarket and retail shopping in Paihia 7km distant, but no public transport, so all the cruisers are buying cheap Jap imports from a car dealer that has conveniently set up shop near the marina to service just cruisers. The deal is buy a car and use it for up to 6 months until around April 2013 when the cruisers all sail away and this dealer will guarantee repurchasing the vehicle paying 66% of the initial purchase price. So budget minded cruisers are buying a cheapy for $3k driving around the North and South islands for 6 months for just $1k !!! whilst big spenders are spending $6k and doing it for $2k. The guy must have sold 250 cars in the last few months and he seemingly even repairs or swaps the duds if buyers not satisfied.
We thought it all sounded too good to be true but there was just something that did not ring true when the guy did not seem interested in dealing with us when he established we were Kiwis. So, like a zillion others we bought a car on TradeMe and now we are mobile which is a nice feeling after walking and riding bikes for 6 years, but we better watch the waistline, particularly P.
Xmas
We had promised family we would sail to Wellington for Xmas and we accordingly asked the Quarantine Services for approval to relocate from Opua down to Wellington and this was agreed provided we tied to pole mooring at the Seaview Marina so WiFi can not get ashore. Booked the pole mooring and then waited for a weather window…. but you guessed it the weather window never came as the first half of December variously blew and drenched the month to tethers. So we vacillated on the merits of not sailing and convinced ourselves that it would be our luck we would get hammered on either the southbound or the northbound passage after sailing right around the planet, so why would you. P has memories of always getting hammered off the Wairarapa coast or Cape Palliser so we decided to stay anchored off Opua with P driving down to spend time pre-xmas with grandchildren and B flying down later.
As it happened the weather in the week before Xmas stabilised over Wellington with sunny hot swim every day record temperatures whilst another tropical cyclone that had hammered Samoa and Fiji turned down on Northland with severe gales and 45knot winds centered over the Bay of Islands until the morning of 24 December. As we are only anchored due to all the moorings being taken it was decided B would change her flight and she finally departed on the afternoon of the 24th with the stormy conditions still hovering but predicted to moderate that night. We took a punt and she departed leaving a fellow cruiser to visit the boat each day to check the anchor situation and to feed the quarantine bound WiFi. This is the add we prepared to hunt for cat sitters.
MEOW
CAN YOU PLEASE HELP ME…....
Hi my name is ships cat WIFI and I am in a spot. My owners are desperate to fly away for a week 21/28 Dec. So I need some kind person to look after me aboard your yacht or mine at anchor in Opua.
I am low maintenance and come with my own food supply and water plus my own easy care toilet with odour-free crystals. Being a long term live-aboard circumnavigating lady feline I am a breeze to look after as I sleep 23 out of 24 hours.
If you can help please give me a signal on my personal email
wifinz@gmail.com
or txt/phone 022 320 4973 to talk to my owners Barbara and Peter.
Meow WiFi
The low remained over the Bay area for the bulk of the time between Xmas and New Years Eve dropping large volumes of aqua pure, thankfully without wind, as Wellington sweltered. We returned 30th Dec to a very happy cat and a boat externally all fresh and clean from the rain.
New Years
Eve
The weather cleared on que during the last day of the year and we saw out the old year with the cat minders Canadian Colin and Mercedes his Spanish lady, aboard their monster 55ft long by 30ft wide catamaran “Segue” anchored between Paihia and Russell with a grandstand view of the most magnificent little fireworks display on a still clear cloudless night silhouetted by a near full moon. The international flavor aboard Segue was complimented by a wooden boat aficionado American and his Panamanian wife.
Happy New 2013
