One quiet afternoon, I was just relaxing on the boat. Then, all of a sudden, I hear a yelp come from outside. It turns out our friend Camille dropped her phone in the water and needed help diving for it.
Because we were in New Zealand at the time, the water was supposed to be really cold, but when I dove in it was actually refreshing. We had masks and fins already, so I slipped them on quickly and started diving. Also, I couldn’t see anything because it was so muddy, and I accidentally slammed into the ground. Luckily, the ground was soft and didn’t hurt that bad.
After diving with Camille for a little while Alex got out the Huka and we took turns using that. When I got to use it, it seemed like I was never going to find it. All I wanted to do was get out and dry off, but I really wanted to know if the phone would still work even though it was sitting on the bottom for an hour. Then, after all this time, I see it, and so I grab it and shoot to the top.
That night as I lay in bed thinking about what happened earlier that day, I realized that as long as I keep trying, anything is possible.
Day before yesterday we did some crew swapping with Iguana (our buddy boat). Tim went with Jack on Iguana on an overnight passage up to Three Kings Island, which is north of North Cape and a notorious fishing spot. Camille stayed with the boys and me on Exodus in a nice protected spot in Mangonui Harbor. There is a cute little tourist town here with a few restaurants and shops and a community cat that keeps them “mice free,” at least according to a little sign on one of the shops.
Yesterday, our friend Briana drove up from Opua to join us for some wine drinking, window shopping, cooking, and general female camaraderie. I joked with Tim before he left that he should take the boys too, since they would be seriously crashing my girlfriend time. It turns out to be a really good thing they were here with us.
After a shore excursion, we were arriving back to Exodus, and as Camille was climbing out of the dinghy I caught a brief visual of her phone teetering at the edge of her pocket. And while I’m yelling, “Your phone! Your phone!” I watch it fall out, splash into the water, and quickly disappear. I had that sick feeling when it really hit me what had happened, but I’m sure I didn’t feel half as sick as Camille did when she realized it was her phone that took the plunge. We called the boys out to quickly get in the water to help find it, and we dropped a GPS waypoint on the chartplotter so that we would maintain a rough idea of where the phone splashed down as Exodus swings about her anchor. Brenden was in the water first. He dove down and came up with a report that it was only about 10 feet deep, and he was yelling for someone to toss him his gloves, because his hands were freezing. You’d think 10 feet would be a piece of cake for them to recover a dropped object, because I think Brenden’s record is 42 feet to salvage a wayward plate. But the problem was the visibility, which was so bad Brenden said he almost hit his face on the bottom.
Camille was quickly behind Brenden into the water and the two of them tried for a while, but both became discouraged. It was just too hard to search for it while free diving when you had to be right on the bottom to see anything. So, Briana and I became convinced that we needed to get the hookah out it order to find it. Camille wasn’t totally on board that it was worth the effort, since she was the one that already had the first hand experience of trying to find that needle in the haystack, but Briana and I persisted. Especially Briana. She had used our hookah before (at Minerva Reef) so she was willing to be the one to use it. However, Camille is a diver and after a couple of questions about how the hookah works she decided she was comfortable doing it.
The hookah is basically a gas engine that drives a compressor. So, instead of carrying a tank of compressed air on your back like regular scuba diving, when you are using the hookah your air source is at the surface and you are connected to it by a long hose. Alex became a really important part of the process at this point, because I had never set up the hookah before, and because Alex is often Tim’s helper in all sorts of things, it turned out he had a good idea of how to set it up, start it, and operate it. One of Camille’s questions was, “where is the air intake?” since she was rightfully concerned about the possibility of breathing in the engine exhaust fumes. Alex remembered that the flag pole doubles as an air intake pipe so that it’s pulling in air from further away from the engine. So, he got that out and quickly attached it.
The hookah definitely made the search easier, but it was hard to stay on the bottom, so Camille asked for a weight belt. It turned out that Tim took our weight belts with him, which seemed reasonable to me at the time. We had absolutely no intention of doing any diving while he was away. So, Alex dug out one of the weight belts that actually came with the hookah, but then we realized we didn’t have any weights either. So, Briana and I searched around and the only thing we could come up with that would fit in that belt was some galvanized shackles in the linen closet, a.k.a. Tim’s spares locker. It wasn’t much weight, but it helped a little bit. Brenden was very interested in the status of the search and kept an eye on Camille hoping she would come up with the phone. I asked him if he would get in and help some more, and he slowly moped over to grab his gear as if I was forcing him to. I quickly said, “well, you don’t have to, of course.” But I had put the thought back into his brain, and I watched him continue to think about it and go over and test the water again to try and decide what he was going to do. When Camille gave up the search, and I started to tell Alex to shut down the hookah engine, Brenden made it clear he was getting back in for one more go at it. We all cheered him on, and I speculated that he had visions of being the hero dancing around in his head. He was in the water just a few minutes when he came up with a carrot stick that he found on the bottom. We had tossed a bunch of dried out carrot sticks overboard the night before, so we got a chuckle over that find. He kept searching and searching and we were all getting a bit defeated when we saw Brenden’s arm extending out of the water holding the phone. It was such a triumphal moment and we cheered and high fived and joked how Brenden could pretty much name his price for his recovery reward. Chocolate or ice cream? We still aren’t sure what he’ll choose.
Later I asked him what he was thinking, that is, what made him get back in the water and keep looking for it. I sincerely think he was motivated by those visions of being the hero, but he surprised me with his response. He said he was just really curious whether or not the phone would work again. I have no idea if it was a genuine response, but either way, I am pretty happy with it. He wasn’t flashy, and he didn’t play up any drama. And then there’s Alex, who did so much to help us with the entire process. We joked how he had one of those behind the scenes crucial jobs that just doesn’t get any of the glory. He gave a slight grin. No fanfare there, either. They both kept it real. My dad will be proud.
-D.
Brenden recovers the phone! (OK, so this was a staged reenactment, but I think it’s pretty representative of the real moment.)
P.S. We still don’t know if the phone will work. It is made by Caterpillar, and is actually a waterproof phone, but when Camille opened it up, there was still water inside. She dried it out and now it’s still sitting in a container of rice. Hopefully, this will turn out to be a happy ending.
After almost two years since leaving home, I made a momentous switch during my run yesterday.
I switched the unit of distance on my Garmin from miles to kilometers.
What!?!
Friends at home might be thinking that is blasphemy while my non-American friends are probably thinking, “Well, it’s about time.”
It was actually an uneventful switch, made without much thought. Basically, I was going for a trail run and the sign said it was 4.3 km to Rainbow Falls, and since the markers were in km, I figured I’d track my progress in km as well. Only after the fact did the significance hit me. I am now officially part of the rest of the world. Soon I’ll rattle off kilometers, kilograms, degrees Celsius, etc., without that awkward pause we Americans usually have as we’re mentally doing to the conversion to our crazy, yet intuitive to us since we grew up with it, system of units.
But in the meantime, while I still DO need to do those conversions in my head, I’ll take advantage of an unforeseen benefit. You see, when the pace shows up as min/km, instantaneously I have no idea how fast I’m really running, because I need to do the conversion first. And after awhile runners mush brain kicks in and I can’t even do the conversion to min/mile to save my life. This means I can’t judge myself for running too slow, even if I want to. And yesterday’s run was most enjoyable. It was along a track (aka trail) from the Kerikeri basin to Rainbow Falls passing Wharepuke falls along the way. The track is well maintained and there aren’t too many steep sections, so it was perfect for a run. The canopy was pretty thick, though, so my Garmin kept losing lock on the GPS satellites. For long section of the track I only got credit for the distance as the crow flies, but I’m trusting the signs: 4.3 km each way.
Preface by Mom: We went to the Kawiti Glowworm Caves the other day, and this is the resulting writing assignment. Homeschooling on a boat, one of the things the boys miss out on is group projects, so I’m going to start having them do some projects together. This was our first experiment with this concept.
Glow Worms
Glow worms aren’t exactly worms. They are the larvae of a fungus gnat. The glow worm likes to live on the ceiling of a cave so if you go spelunking, watch out! They might fall on your head.
Glow worms are small worms (2.5 cm) that have the ability to make their tails glow. They glow for a reason, but we’ll get to that later. Glow worms eat insects that fly around in the cave while it rains outside. That’s right Glow worms live in caves, how else could you see their glow.
The glow worm starts out as an egg laid by a fungus gnat. Then the egg hatches into a larvae after about two to three weeks. The larvae catches food in a web that it makes and lives like that for three to six months (depending on how much food it gets). After the elapsed time spent as a larvae ,the glow worm spins itself a cocoon, and staying like that for about two weeks before transforming into a fungus gnat. The gnat doesn’t have a mouth, so it has to find a mate and lay the eggs in about three days before it dies.
Now back to the glow of the worms. The reason for this glow is… wait, wait, wait. Let’s start with the web they spin below them. It can get from 2cm to half a meter. The reason for this web is to catch insects in them. What are the chances of a bug flying through it? Very low, but that’s when the glow comes into play. The glow attracts the insects toward the web, and when the insect gets stuck in the web the glow worm sucks it up and eats the insect. Now that its eaten it dims its glow to save energy.
If you ever find a glow worm, do not touch it. If you do, the sticky webs will probably stick to you and their light will dim. Same happens if you shine a bright light directly at them. Also their lights take a long time to brighten back up, which takes about four to five hours. So when you come across glow worms, please be careful for other people might enjoy them.
My first run of 2015 was an 8-mile run/walk along road, trail, and mangrove boardwalk. Following along Russell Heritage Trail #4 I had no idea how far I had gone because when I stopped to pee in the woods, I forgot to restart my Garmin. On the way back I kept the Garmin running the whole time, even if I stopped to snap a photo or pee again, because let’s face it, my pace is simply not important anymore and I really wanted to know how far I’d come. Eight miles round trip. I felt exhilarated and ready to face the new year. But then I got back to the boat and the boys had just gotten up and hadn’t started their schoolwork yet. When I urged them to get started, they moaned and complained, and I tried to pass along my leftover post run exhilaration to them, but they simply weren’t having it.
When someone asks me how homeschooling is going, I usually reply that it’s going quite well. We’re pretty efficient about it and the boys seem to have a reasonable grasp on all the important skills and concepts we go over. What I usually don’t say is that there are a few things that I don’t like about our implementation, but I’m not really sure what to do about it.
The biggest thing is that my kids hate science. I can’t get over it. Science. My consistently favorite subject in school, especially the physical sciences because they actually explain how things work, and like, make predictions and have equations that you can apply to real life and stuff. I loved it. They hate it. And I can understand why. On Exodus science has been reduced to reading a boring textbook and memorizing vocabulary words. I would probably hate that too. When we do have all of the right materials on board to do one of the prescribed experiments the boys fight it every step of the way, and at first, I couldn’t understand that. I mean, this is the fun part of school, right? But then I thought about a major difference between public school and our home school implementation: Public school is for a set number of hours each day and home school is for a set amount of work each day. If the boys finish their work quickly, they have more time to play. So, at public school spending some of their set amount of time on lengthy science projects is fun because the alternative is the more boring parts of school like reading and writing. For us, spending time on lengthy science projects is a pain and boring because the alternative is finishing up everything quickly so they can go play. I certainly am NOT going to make our school days a set number of hours no matter what, so I wasn’t really sure how to solve this. I want science to be fun, but if doing an experiment adds an hour to our school day it will simply never be viewed as fun.
So, I did something I almost never do, I asked for help. While driving into Kerikeri with a friend, a former teacher actually, she asked me how school was going, and I skipped my script of how it’s going well and honestly shared with her how I was at a loss about this science thing. It took her all of about 30 seconds to come up with a great suggestion: What about saving the experiments up and then every week or two dedicating a full school day to them. So simple. So brilliant. I loved it, and it may just save science for us.
It also got me thinking about some other things, so I’ve also decided to periodically dedicate a day to doing joint projects with more of a local theme. For example, the other day instead of doing their usual school work I gave them a project choice: 1) Fill out a worksheet on glowworms and then write an essay about it, 2) Make a timeline of the history of New Zealand with illustrations, or 3) Do Russell Heritage Trail #1 and take pictures of all of the sites and then make an electronic photo album with captions. They chose #1 because they viewed it as the easiest, but they wrote a decent essay and worked together on it.
Admittedly, there’s a lot of learning that goes on aboard Exodus that isn’t lumped into the category of “school,” so even without these changes I’m sure the boys are doing fine. But there IS this thing we do called “school,” and the way we’ve been treating science within that framework has been ruining it. I’m excited about these changes and a few others I have brewing in my mind all spurred on by simply sharing my problem with a friend. I really need to do that more.
These are the four main townships in The Bay of Islands, and here’s my take on them so far.
Opua — 1) This is an international port of entry, so it was our necessary first stop. The clearing in process was swift and efficient. They took all our frozen meat, fresh vegetables, dried beans, and honey, but that was well understood ahead of time, so we weren’t too grumpy about it. 2) The marina is large, but it has a limited number of berths suitable for a catamaran. The laundry facilities are clean, and every machine worked when I was there. It costs $4/load to wash and $3/ load to dry. More expensive than home and American Samoa, but quite a bit cheaper than other places we’ve been. There’s also an ATM machine in the laundry room. And did I mention all the machines work? Shower facilities are modest, and you have to leave a $20 deposit in order to have a key and then on top of that you have to pay for hot water. My showers typically cost $4, but it was nice to have high pressure water. The ladies in the marina office were always pleasant and helpful. 3) Any sort of boat related service you can imagine is right there in the vicinity of the marina. Chandlery, sail maker, outboard mechanic, welder, etc., etc. It’s pretty expensive for parts, but it’s nice to be able to get what you need. 4) The only grocery store, a small general store, has high prices, but it’s easy access to fresh baked bread, milk, limited produce, eggs, and most other staples you want to grab without bothering with a trip to Paihia or Kerikeri. 5) Options for eating out are pretty limited. There’s a small cafe open until 5pm, which is where we spent pretty much our entire first afternoon drinking wine with some of our friends who had also just arrived. You can get pizza at the general store on Th, Fr, and Sat evenings, and it is good pizza, but a little expensive. We did this for Tim’s birthday. The last option for dining out is the Opua Cruisers Club, which is open every night except Mon and Tues, however, we never did frequent this establishment. 6) The anchorage is large, but it’s a pretty crappy anchorage. It’s at the mouth of a river and the water is pretty dirty, so we never made water there. The current gets pretty strong, up to 2 kts at times, so it’s not unlike anchoring in the La Paz channel back in Mexico. When the wind picks up from the East the fetch can get quite large, and if the current is in the opposing direction there can be substantial standing waves. 7) There are sailboat races every Wed and Fri evenings, and although we never participated, we were an unintentional obstacle for one of them. It had been a particularly blustery day and Exodus wasn’t behaving and was swinging out of sync with all the monohulls and I guess we came pretty close to hitting s/v Iguana, so Tim spent some time finding a spot to reanchor. I had been in Kerikeri all day and when I got back there was a sailboat race going on and we were anchored pretty much in the middle of the channel. We got serious dirty looks from some of the captains, but surprisingly nobody said anything. I spent the afternoon in hiding with a glass of rum. 8) Staying in Opua without a car can be a bit isolating, since there’s not much there but the marina and all of its services. However, in the Bay of Islands, it seems to be the home base of all the international cruisers, so you can almost always find a friend amidst the crowd of boats. 9) There is a hiking trail along the water that leads from Opua to Paihia. I have run/walked it a couple times, but never made it all the way to Paihia, because the last bit is right along the water and must be done at low tide. 10) A bicycle trail along an old railway path (including at least one tunnel) leads south out of Opua. You can find the trail head right next to the boatyard. I’ve run a few miles down it, but it goes on quite a bit further, being a bicycle trail and all. 11) The Marina Shop, a marine insurance broker located in between the cafe and the laundry room, lets you use their wifi for free. Seriously, they just give out the password, and they haven’t changed it since we got here. So, you can get your internet fix for free while having a latte or getting your laundry done. 12) Although there’s really not much of a town in Opua, there is a small school, and some yachties have been known to briefly send their kids there.
Paihi — 1) Paihia is the closest town from Opua at about a 10-minute drive 2) It’s possible to anchor off the town with westerly protection, but we have yet to do that. Since we bought a car, we simply drive in when we need to. 3) This is your quintessential tourist town with very little character. Every other shop is a souvenir shop, and the cafes and coffee shops feel like they belong in an airport or a strip mall. Cruise ships periodically bring mass amounts of people, and the town puts on a craft market especially for them. 4) The library has free Wi-Fi, but don’t even bother trying it when the cruise ship is in town, because it seems the cruishippers would rather stand around the library grounds checking their Facebook pages than explore the town. 5) Two small grocery stores (Countdown and Four Square) are easily accessed in the middle of town. There is a huge Countdown store just outside of town that has been closed due a dispute between the landowner and the store owner. 6) A small farmers market takes place every Thursday afternoon. 7) There is a restaurant called Alongside with a huge deck right on the water with nice beer and tasty snacks. The evening we were there the outdoor heaters weren’t on, but they gave us blankets to wrap around our shoulders. Also, a “pitcher” of beer is a glass of beer, and a “jug” of beer is a pitcher. We learned this the hard way. 8) We also had dinner at Jimmy Jack’s, a BBQ place. It was OK, but I would not recommend the prawn and avocado salad. 9) New Zealand seems to put great emphasis on the signing of a treaty between the British and the Maori back in 1840. The Waitangi Treaty grounds are right near Paihia. In fact, it’s about a 3-mile round trip run along the water from the Paihia wharf to the Treaty Grounds. 10) Right past the Treaty Grounds is a small parking lot at the trail head to Haruru Falls. This was a nice and not too challenging hike that took about 1-1.5 hours each way. The waterfall is not a very large drop off, but it’s a wide fall in a horseshoe shape, so it was still a pretty nice view. We were there after a serious rainstorm, so the flow rate was high, however, the water was a yucky brown color from the runoff.
Kerikeri — 1) Technically, Kerikeri is not “in the Bay of Islands” since it is inland a bit and not right on the coast. But it is the largest town in the area and one frequented by all the yachties staying in Opua, so I wanted to include it. It is about a 30-minute drive from Opua. 2) There are wineries with tasting rooms near Kerikeri. And the wine’s not half bad. 3) Kerikeri is where you have to go if you have serious shopping to get done. There are two large grocery stores at either end of town, a Countdown and a New World. And don’t ask for a shopping cart if you need one, because they are called trolleys or trundlers. 4) There are several cool clothing stores, and by cool, I mean they have overpriced clothes for teenagers, and we popped into one to get the boys new flip-flops. Except they’re not called flip-flops, they’re called jandals. 5) You can find stores equivalent to The Container Store and Home Depot right in Kerikeri, and in the nearby town of Waipopo you can find stores equivalent to Target, Best Buy, and Big 5. 6) They seem to love their stationary stores in Kerikeri. There’s no fewer than 4, and those are just the ones I noticed. 7) There is a McDonald’s and a Subway. The boys were more excited over the Subway than the McDonald’s. I guess it’s been longer since we’ve seen one of those, since they have a McDonald’s in Papeete and Pago Pago. 8) We savored coffees and desserts at La Taza del Diablo, which is a coffee shop with a great vibe, but it did take them about 30 minutes to bring our coffees. 9) The nearest Vodaphone store (think AT&T mobile) to Opua is in Kerikeri, and we purchased phones, iPad sim cards, and computer dongles, so we can be totally plugged back into the grid. We couldn’t get AT&T to unlock our iPhones, so we just bought little cheap Nokias, and we are having to remember how to text using just the number pad. Later, we also learned that you could buy Vodaphone sim cards and dongles at the Marina Shop, the place back in Opua that lets you use their Wi-Fi for free.
Russell — 1) I love this town. Unlike the others, it has history, charm, and character. Like Paihia, it is also a tourist town, but it does a better job at not rubbing your face in it. 2) There are two anchorages to choose from. The main Russell harbor is called Kororareka Bay, but our guidebook steered us away from that one saying, “lots of private moorings, ferries and a large number of recreational and commercial vessels coming in and out make this a poor anchorage.” So, we anchored around the corner in Matauwhi Bay, where there are also lots of private moorings close in to shore, but the bay is shallow a long way out making lots of room for anchoring behind all of the moorings. 3) Getting to the town of Russell is easy from Matauwhi Bay. Just tie up your dinghy at the small dock attached to The Russell Boating Club then take the short walk (1/4 mile) to town. 4) The museum is worth a visit, and we picked up the Heritage Trail guide for 1.50 which gives a map of a few hikes and descriptions of historical sites along the way. Heritage Trail 1 is just around town. 5) Heritage Trail 2 takes you up to the northern tip of the peninsula called Tapeka. We did a family hike up there, where there is a great picnic spot and beach where the boys played paddle ball. 6) Heritage Trail 3 takes you to Long Beach. I followed this on one of my morning runs, and Long Beach really isn’t very long, but it’s a pretty spot, and a trail at the north end takes you to a nudist beach. So I hear. 7) The town is packed with great restaurants and shops, but it’s pretty expensive. 8) They call their waterfront walkway “The Strand” and it’s lined on one side with the aforementioned restaurants with outdoor seating and a tree lined grassy area on the other, between the walkway and the rocky beach. We spent Christmas here, and there were a lot of people on holiday, and on a marginally sunny day the grassy area was packed with sunbathers, while I was wearing jeans and a light long sleeve shirt. I guess I still haven’t fully acclimated to the cooler weather. 9) Our first evening in Russell we had dinner at Hone’s pizza. It’s a great little outdoor pizzeria, but the pizzas are small and thin crust, so not too filling. When we got back to the boat Brenden said he had 5 pieces but he’s still hungry. 10) Right near the Russell Boating club is a Mulberry tree, and on more than one occasion we’ve enjoyed a fresh berry snack on our way to town. There is also a community garden and a large grassy area, great for playing paddle ball. 11) There are two small grocery stores in town, both Four Square. 12) We would totally make this our new home base rather than Opua if I could figure out where to dump trash and where to do laundry.
Yesterday, we also visited the town of Kawakawa on our way back from the Kawiti glowworm caves. However, I’m not even giving this town billing in my blog title. Let’s just say there’s a reason this town’s main claim to fame is their public restroom and an equally good reason why no restaurants are listed in the guidebook. If you need to stop for lunch, just pass this town on by.
Urupukapuka is a mouthful of a word that means “a group of puka trees” in Maori. It is the largest island in The Bay of Islands, and so far, we’ve been there twice. Once in mid-December when it was basically a deserted cruiser’s paradise and once during the holiday high season between Christmas and New Years Eve when the Bay of Islands erupts with a flurry of local boating traffic. I never did go for a run there, but the island had trails galore and I did go for a few short hikes on trails that were marginally runnable (spell check says that’s not a word, but I protest), so I have filed that knowledge for future reference.
The island lies mostly in a NNW to SSE direction and the bays suitable for anchoring in are mostly on the west side. However, our first stay there we started at the large bay on the southeast side called, appropriately, Urupukapuka Bay. We ventured there because the weather forecast was for substantial wind from the NNW and this seemed a suitable bay. There was one other boat there already, and being a large bay, it gave us the feeling of remoteness. Our first shore scouting excursion the boys and I found that the beach had nice soft sand, even though it was mostly buried underwater at high tide. There was a small stream with a bridge and a large grassy area surrounding the beach. It turns out that it’s a Department of Conservation (DOC) campground, and apparently you have to get there by boat if you want to camp there. Obviously tent camping only, no camper vans. There are a couple of clean outhouse style bathrooms but there is no where to dump trash. The camp policy is carry your own trash, I mean rubbish, out, so that doesn’t help those of us on boats looking for a place to dump our trash, I mean rubbish.
There are fences between the flat grassy camping area and the surrounding hills presumably to keep the sheep contained. However, the heaps of sheep poop on OUR side of the fence was evidence that either the sheep get out and party or they let them graze that grassy area in a controlled fashion. We are still not sure which one it is. The boys and I walked up the hill to the west and separated a bit while we each found our own views to admire. Or maybe the boys just ran around and wrestled in the sheep poop. What quickly became obvious about this island was the extensive network of tramping trails that had something for everyone. Short and easy to long and strenuous. Whatever you felt like conquering, this island had it.
The best part about this anchorage, though, was the scallops. Tim and the boys found a well populated spot out in the channel and pretty much gathered their daily allowance every day we were there. Now, I don’t dive for scallops myself, but from what I have gathered it is much different here in New Zealand than other places we’ve been. Here, the scallops are just scattered about the sea floor, and the hardest part about gathering them is finding them in the first place. Once you spot one, though, all you have to do is pick it up. Contrast that to French Polynesia where you basically had to pry the scallops loose from the coral and sometimes it could be quite a workout. The daily scallop limit here is 20 per diver, but there is also a provision that a single diver can collect rations for up to two “safety” people who stay in the dive boat. I’m not sure they did much to contribute to anyone’s “safety,” but the boys would go along and sit in the dinghy so that Tim could collect 60 scallops instead of just 20. Our go-to scallop dish is basically just a light sauté in butter, wine, and garlic. Heaven. We also dabbled in making spicy scallop rolls, which were one of my sushi bar favorites in our past life when we used to do things like go to sushi bars.
Due to a shift in the forecasted wind direction, we moved around to the other side of the island and spent some time at Paradise Bay. We were one of three boats in the bay, and our first night there we saw up to about 25 kts of wind, which is generally nothing to worry about, especially if there isn’t any fetch and you’ve got enough anchor chain out. This side of the island wasn’t as picturesque, but we did get a chance to go ashore and do a little exploring when there was a break in the weather. The boys even played catch with a baseball high up on the hill in the middle of the island. When finally heading back to Opua we had mentally marked Urupukapuka Island as a place we’d definitely like to visit again.
When we returned a couple weeks later, though, we could barely access the island. After Christmas, we got a little craving for some more scallops, so we headed back to Urupukapuka for a few days. The wind direction made Paradise Bay the better anchorage option, but we were absolutely floored when we rounded the corner and had full view of the bay. There must have been 40-50 boats crammed in there. Technically, we didn’t even anchor in the bay but right on the edge where we got a fair amount of swell wraparound. I didn’t even leave the boat, but Tim reported back that over at the campground there were wall to wall tents; that there wasn’t even space between the tents to walk. The boys collected scallops and we high tailed it back to Russell as soon as we could.
So, Urupukapuka island is a wonderful spot. However, the week between Christmas and New Year’s should be avoided at all costs. Unless you like crowds, of course.
I never thought much of New Zealand wine at home. In my California-centric repertoire I had only thrown back the occasional Chardonnay from the Hawke’s Bay region, and I would have told you it was crap. However, I’m starting to learn that there’s a lot more to New Zealand wine than what makes it to the grocery store shelf in the U.S., and I’m liking what I’m finding so far. A couple days ago a few girl friends and I headed out for an afternoon of fun and wine tasting to a group of wineries located near the town of Kerikeri in Northern New Zealand. The day was an overall win, even though it poured down rain on us a few times. The friendships forged and strengthened that day were the real highlights, but the wine and the winetasting experience are worth sharing as well.
The wine region — The most famous wine region in New Zealand is Marlborough, which is the northern most part of the south island. That region is known for superb aromatic Sauvignon Blancs, but that’s not where we are. We are in the far north of the north island, in the wine region known appropriately as Northland. In the wine region section of my Lonely Planet guidebook, it’s not even listed, but it is an honest to god wine region even if the wineries are small time operations and few overall. This happens to be where the first grape vines were ever planted in New Zealand even if Hawke’s Bay and Marlborough are now far overshadowing. I think the biggest challenge to wine growing in this area is the humidity from the closeness to the sea. The far north of the north island is a narrow peninsula with no point further than 50 km from the ocean. However, the growers here love their product and are committed to turning out quality wine, even if in low volume. As far as the most prominent grapes, according to http://www.nzwine.com/regions/northland…
“In terms of wines styles, the regions tropical Chardonnays, popular Pinot Gris and vibrant Viogniers are leading the white wine growth, whilst red wines include spicy Syrahs, stylish Cabernet / Merlot blends, peppery Pinotages and complex Chambourcin.”
Two grapes I personally hadn’t heard of before then were Pinotage and Chambourcin. But that day I got an education. Pinotage is a South African grape that is a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsaut, but I hadn’t heard of Cinsaut before either. Chambourcin is a French grape that was traditionally used as a blending grape due to its strong tanins, but now they are making wines with it outright, and it makes a great smooth drinking table wine.
We visited a total of 5 wineries, and even though they were all in close proximity 5 wineries meant no fewer than 5 u-turns as we navigated around an unfamiliar area in the pouring rain while driving on the left side of the road. I was the driver and everyone took turns being my passenger seat navigator. I never knew where I was going, so this was no trivial responsibility.
The wine tasting crew — We were a party of five 1) Camille (s/v Iguana) cruises aboard an Island Packet with her husband Jack, Tim’s spear-fishing boyfriend, 2) Briana (s/v Tusitala) currently single handing, impressive 3) Sarah (s/v Field Trip) on a fellow kid boat with a 9 and 7 year old, 4) Julie (s/v Nirvana) also on a fellow kid boat and also the only one of the five of us that actually had sailing experience before embarking on the cruising journey, and 5) Me.
Cottle Hill Winery http://www.cottlehill.co.nz — Compared with wine tasting in central and northern California, Cottle Hill was like a breath of fresh air. The tasting room was small and we were welcomed warmly by the owner Barbara for our tasting. It turns out Barbara and her husband are former cruisers from San Diego. They arrived in New Zealand in 1992 and decided to stay, and they founded Cottle Hill a few years later. I had called the previous day to inquire if we needed a reservation, because I had no idea how busy they would get, especially since we are now officially in the busy tourist season. When we walked in she almost immediately asked if we were the ones who had called the day before. Barbara, the owner, had been the one to take my call, and she had remembered it. That was the kind of small town place this was, and I loved it.
It was fun to taste wine with the people who have decided what grapes to plant and hear about what they like and how some grapes fair better than others. The star of the wine tasting with the rest of my group ended up being the Tawny Port. Not being a port person myself I was more of an observer of than a participant in this bit of wine love. But I enjoyed most of the wines and ended up buying a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and a bottle of Chambourcin. Tim and I had the Chambourcin on Christmas Eve with our pizza dinner, and it was a pretty good pairing.
The tasting was $5 for 5 wines, but it was waved if you bought a bottle, which all five of us did. They also have stamp cards where if you buy 12 bottles you get the 13th bottle free. Briana already had a partially filled out stamp card and we all put our purchases on it, so she ended up getting her free bottle that day, yay.
Marsden Estate Winery http://www.marsdenestate.co.nz — This was more like wine tasting back home. It was a larger venue with a restaurant attached, and we were far removed from any conversation with anyone with any decision making influence in the wine making process. Our pourer was a girl home for summer from university and when we asked her what Pinotage was, she had no idea and had to go ask. But the wine was very good. The tasting was $7 for tasting as many wines as you want, well, except for the Chardonnay. It is their signature wine and they don’t have a huge stock, so it’s not part of the tasting. It was as if they were teasing me. The wines were nice, and I especially like the Sauvignon Blanc with hints of bell peppers, which Camille called without looking at the tasting notes I’m pretty sure. After our tasting we decided to have a seat on the covered patio to share an antipasto plate and a glass of that Chardonnay. They were kind enough to split the glass of wine into 5 separate glasses, and I’m pretty sure we enjoyed a generous pour. The creamy blue cheese on the antipasto platter was extremely enjoyable, but the wine, the Black Rocks Chardonnay, was absolutely heavenly. It was my kind of wine. I could have been drinking a Chardonnay back in California. Nice and rich and oaky and buttery. At NZ$37 per bottle it wasn’t cheap, but I still walked out with one and enjoyed the entire thing on Christmas Day.
Ake Ake Vineyard akeakevineyard.co.nz — We pulled up to the tasting room at 4:31 and found it closed, even though it said it was open until 5. The sign on the door said to honk your horn if no one was there, but instead we rang the bell at the door and no one came. So, we moved on, but stay tuned, we’ll be back.
Kainui Road Vineyard — While still sitting in the parking lot of Ake Ake we phoned Kainui to see if they were still open and they were so we were off. Now this place was small and personal. The five of us barely all fit in the tasting room. But there was nice deck outside overlooking the vineyard which would have been a fine place to sit and relax except for the drizzly conditions of the day. We were greeted by the owner and he was nice even if not too enthusiastic. This is his retirement project and he seems to make wine for his own enjoyment as much as anyone else’s. He makes only a few thousand bottles each year, and his signature wine is a Tempranillo. He also had a very unique Rose. Now, Rose is not typically my kind of wine, but this was made from the Tempranillo grape which is not typical for a Rose and it was drier and had more depth than the usual run of the mill Rose. The owner, his name continues to escape me, is also a sailor who expressed interest in the cruising lifestyle we are all entrenched in, so our conversation meandered back and forth from wine to boats to passage making. I walked out of there with a bottle of Tempranillo and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. I just couldn’t pull the trigger on a Rose.
Fat Pig Winery — This is where our afternoon came to a screeching halt, in a good way. This was the only tasting room listed to be open after 5pm, so we had intentionally saved it until last. I had called the previous day just to make sure they were, in fact, open until 7, and through that phone call I found out that they would be having a poetry reading from 5-7. Sounded like it could be interesting, so we went for it. We pulled up around 5:30, and Sarah observed that it felt like we were walking into a family barbecue. It was a small affair, maybe 15 people seated listening to a woman reciting some poetry. We were ushered to our seats and served the first wine in our tasting while we enjoyed the show. The woman reciting the poetry was captivating. Regrettably, I didn’t write down her name or buy her book of poetry, but her poems were about self-discovery and self-strength and they were riveting. I was on the edge of my seat. I think that the key to enjoying poetry is to listen to it read by such a moving narrator. I wouldn’t have expected the poetry reading to be my thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. At the break we went up and talked to the lady who had poured our wine, and she immediately asked if we had been the one to call the day before. Then she shared with us that they had planned this poetry reading awhile back and did some minimal publicizing but they weren’t sure if anyone would show up given the rain and all, so all of the other people there were family members, so they were so glad we came. I absolutely ate that up. I felt like this was one of those totally random unexpected amazing experiences and I was so glad to have stumbled upon it. They served snacks, including flat bread pizza and potato chips. We also learned that the Fat Pig brand name is being phased out. The Byrne family is leasing the vineyards and bottling their own wine and they are the ones running the tasting room now and they are the ones having this poetry reading. She poured our tastings out of unlabeled bottles, and she explained that they had some issues with getting their labels on, so now they are applying them manually by hand, so they don’t bother for the wines in the tasting room, but of course she knows which wine is which.
We sat back down for the rest of the poetry reading, and the poet did a “duet” with her husband that had rhythm as well as lyrical depth. But after that they opened it up to the audience for open mic night, and it would have been spectacular if one of us had something to share. But we came totally unprepared. The only thing that popped into my mind was the Harriet, Sweet Harriet poem from So I Married and Axe Murderer, but I couldn’t even remember the words and I couldn’t have pulled it off even if I could remember them. Luckily, a couple of the family members stepped up. First was Gladys. Eighty year old Gladys. She prefaced her poem by saying that most of her poems are about her family and her kids, but this one is about her. It was a not too deep but poignant poem about her life lessons and what’s really important in life. At least 3/5 of our gang was in tears. (I think Julie and I are the hard hearted ones.) After that a barrel chested man read his poem which was an ode to the 2013 grape harvest, which apparently was a great one. Then, no one else volunteered, so Gladys came back for an encore. This time she really rocked it. It was a poem dedicated to her daughter and her husband and the entire poem was about sailing as a metaphor for embarking on the adventure of marriage. Again, 3/5 of our gang was in tears, and when she was done Camille and Sarah conspired to get a copy of that poem from Gladys. Camille must have drawn the short straw because she went over to Gladys and did a superb job explaining how we are all on boats and how we loved her poem and would really like a copy. Gladys was easy and let her take a photo of the poem for us all to have.
Sarah got a chance to talk with Gladys a bit outside the tasting room door and as I walked by I picked up on Sarah’s sign language that she wanted me to take a picture. I felt like the paparrazi, but Gladys either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Shortly afterwards, I found myself talking with Gladys and she was telling me how great it is to see us here with “… all kinds. That’s what New Zealand is all about.” I choked back my laughter and later told Camille, who is Filipino-American, how she earned us diversity points with the star poet. That was such an old lady thing to notice the only dark skinned person in the room and then an even more old lady thing to mention it. But I believe that her positiveness about it was genuine all the same. Endearing or annoying? Definitely endearing.
I walked out of there with two bottles of wine, but it was more out of wanting to repay them for the experience than any great love of the wine. One of the bottles was a Chardonnay I hadn’t even tasted.
We made a rushed exit out of Fat Pig, because I had reached Ake Ake on the phone and made a quick reservation for dinner. I got a little crazy about being on time for the reservation, and I’m pretty sure Briana deferred going to the bathroom to appease me.
Ake Ake Vineyard (again) — We made it just in time for the dinner reservation and we were seated by our waiter, whom Sarah recognized. After asking him about it, turns out he also works at the sporting goods store where they bought their tent. Kudos to him, working two jobs. Dinner was a slow, relaxed affair, including a bottle of Chambourcin that was actually a much higher quality than those we had previously tasted. The closest thing to a nice California Cabernet we’ve had all day. Since we had missed the tasting hours I asked if I could still have a small taste of the Chardonnay, and they happily obliged. The Chardonnay was mediocre, which may have made the Chambourcin I drank immediately following that much better. I had duck for dinner. I had originally had my eye on the filet, but Camille made a strong case for having something you wouldn’t be likely to cook on your own, so the duck it was. It was tender and flavorful and I was happy for my choice. We ended the night with a shared slice of blueberry cheesecake and while everyone else finished their Chambourcin, I enjoyed a cup of espresso. I was driving after all. I passed on buying a bottle of the Chardonnay and walked out with the Chambourcin instead. That one is still in the bilge, I mean wine cellar, waiting for the next special occasion.
When it was time to leave it was pouring rain. I mean pouring. And I completely underestimated how stressful it would be driving in the dark in the rain on a winding road while driving on the left side. I was tense the whole way. But also let me clarify that I tasted a lot of wine that day, but I didn’t really drink that much. I was selective in my tasting and I rarely finished a taste letting the other girls be my pour bucket instead. And during that drive home I was glad I wasn’t walking a fine line. Like I said, I was tense the whole way.
When we got back to the marina it was still pouring down so we waited in the van until it let up enough to make it down to the end of the dock to s/v Iguana, where Sarah’s dinghy was also waiting for us. Camille didn’t have her key to the dock gate, so I asked her if she wanted me to text Jack to come down and let us in, but she said no since she could crawl under the fence. Later, I saw the fence she had crawled under and I was floored. She basically had to shimmy on her belly on the wet cement to get through. Why oh why didn’t I go with her to watch!
The night ended with a dry dinghy ride for me because I was the first drop off, but everyone else got soaked. I thought of them while I was dry and snuggled up and could hear the rain pelting the roof of Exodus. This was a phenomenal group of women I had the pleasure of hanging out with that day and I’m so glad we had that day together. I ended up with eight bottles of wine that I am so excited about, but I am equally excited about the friendships… … … OK, I just can’t do it. I spewed enough sappiness into this blog post already. You get the idea.
We are spending Christmas anchored near the small town of Russell in The Bay of Islands in Northern New Zealand. I am absolutely in love with this town. There are about 50-60 boats in the anchorage, mostly small local sailing boats on mooring balls. It seems like there are only a handful of international yachts anchored here like us. The town of Russell has a population of only about 800, and there’s plenty of history here, but my favorite part has to be “The Strand.” The strand is the walkway along the waterfront, and those of you from the South Bay back home are familiar with your own strand. I spent many hours running on The Strand at home, and now Russell is giving me a little piece of that at Christmas time. I ran on The Strand this fine Christmas morning, but in contrast to home, it’s only about 3/4 of a mile long, so there were a few laps involved. As long as we don’t have boat work to do, I’m hoping we can make Russell our new home base as opposed to Opua, and The Strand can become part of my routine.
Our Christmas Eve tradition at home was always making homemade personal pizzas. We skipped it last year when we were in La Cruz, because there was a big cruisers’ dock party on Christmas Eve, and we chose to be social instead. This year, however, we reverted back to our tried and true tradition, and although it wasn’t quite the same since the boys are older and Andrew isn’t with us, it was still quite a bit of fun. It was fun mostly due to Brenden. He shaped his pizza dough into all kinds of creations including a sailboat, pac man eating pac dots, and even Santa Clause himself. When he got ready to add the sauce and toppings to his dough, he had it in the shape of a star, and he asked me if he could leave it like that. I started in with all the reasons why he could not, the primary one being that it was too thick and would therefore cook at a different rate than the others. His brother, 13-year-old Alex, came to his rescue and reminded me to stop subconsciously squashing Brenden’s playfulness. Alex suggested that Brenden could just cook his pizza separately, and then he looked at Brenden and deadpan told him, “Don’t let mom shape your dough.” I almost died. He was being funny, but how seriously spot on was he?So, in the spirit of the Christmas season, please learn from my experience, and let *your* kids be the shapers of their own dough.-D.
Gresham Family Exodus 