A dark day for New Zealand

George on deck!

Yesterday afternoon I was working away on Victoria in the glorious sunshine, with her current owners, Jim and Karin.  The previous day had been a sanding day, which involved several noisy power tools, and made chatting almost impossible.  The painting day, in contrast, was wonderfully peaceful; a much better environment for conversation.  We were discussing our families; who likes sailing and who doesn’t, and Jim was amiably sharing his immense knowledge of all-things boating with me.  I had just swapped over with Angus, who had taken our three overheated cheeky monkeys for afternoon ice-cream followed by a cooling swim.  (The options for us this week are childcare / homeschool or boat painting.  You can probably guess who is spending the most time in each role!)  An old friend of Jim and Karin’s came over to Victoria to have a chat, which in true Kiwi style was a long one, meanwhile we continued to cover the mast, boom and spinnaker poles with a fresh coat of paint.  Then the friend took a phone call, and was suddenly sounding tense, talking about “schools on lockdown, shootings in a mosque”.  He came off the phone and confirmed what we thought we had heard, that a terror attack was unfolding in innocent, sleepy, peaceful New Zealand.

Adults painting, kids messing around!

The rest of the afternoon and evening were a bit of a blur of disbelief, with messages from home, and recurrent checking of the news.  Every time these terror attacks happen, which is far too often in the UK, but never before in New Zealand, we try to take solace in communities coming together in solidarity, the police showing exceptional professionalism, ambulance crews and medical teams working together seamlessly, and hospital staff rising to the impossible challenge.  There will, no doubt, be further stories of exceptional bravery by people caught up in the horror.  It is human nature to look for the good that comes out of the bad, but none of that takes away the senseless waste of life that has occurred in Christchurch.  The remainder of this blog will seem rather frivolous and irrelevant in comparison.  Christchurch, you are in our thoughts and our hearts.

Alpaca feeding time

We have been here for just over a week now.  An incredible amount has happened in that time, and we have begun to settle into a new routine.  At teatime today, I asked the children what they thought of New Zealand.  Jack closed his eyes, stuck out his bottom lip a little, and did three big, slow, theatrical nods.  For Jack, that is a major seal of approval – he likes it!  George said he loves it because he can feed the alpacas and drive the digger on the farm.  And Eloise simply said, “Everyone here is really nice.. really kind”.  Angus and I would absolutely echo Eloise’s sentiments.  We have been so touched by the infamous “kiwi hospitality”.  Everyone describes how a Kiwi, having met you for all of ten minutes on a bus, will invite you for dinner - and really mean it - and when you do show up, they will then lend you their car, and probably their house too. 

On the doorstep of our little house

For us, the Kiwi hospitality started before we even left home.  Lovely Anna and Andy, who have moved in exactly the opposite direction to us, invited us over the road for a farewell drink just before we left Winchester.  By the end of the drink, true to form, they had offered us their car, here in Auckland.  This involved us taking a ferry to Waiheke Island, so we emailed our only Waiheke friends, Tim and Ginny, who Angus met back in November, and let them know we were coming over.  Sure enough, Tim picked up our whole unruly tribe from the ferry terminal, drove us to collect Anna and Andy’s car, then he and Ginny gave us a wonderful lunch.  They found endless toys for the children to play with, before sending us out in the driving rain with their very best umbrellas and entry wrist bands to see the amazing Waiheke coastal path Sculpture Tour.  Needless to say, we were the only people who had selected an outdoor activity on that particular day… We arrived back at our Airbnb that evening looking like drowned rats.

drowned rats after drying off!

After our Waiheke day came the day we had all been waiting for; the first boat day.  We drove an hour north to Gulf Harbour to see Victoria.  It was a nervous time for all of us, especially Angus, who had chosen the boat, and now had to see what we all thought of it.  It didn’t go especially well, to be honest.  The kids hopped on board and had a look around.  The boys loved their bunks up front, but Eloise wasn’t happy that the bunk she had imagined for herself had insufficient headroom to sit up and read a book.  She suggested she’d like the main cabin instead, but Angus made it clear that was for the grown-ups, and there were tears.  They all subsequently hopped off, wandered down the pontoon, then talked and smiled their way on to a shiny white 40-foot catamaran.  They made friends with the children on board, borrowed their swimmers and were soon having a cooling dip followed by devouring most of their biscuit tin.  Having inspected their beautifully decorated children's cabins, they all developed massive boat-envy.  Meanwhile the owner of the catamaran, Daniel, who had his eye on Victoria for quite a while, saw that our children preferred his boat, and attempted to broker an on-the-spot-boat-swap with Angus!  Fortunately, Angus held firm; a catamaran is great alongside a pontoon or at anchor, but we personally would not choose her in a storm at sea.  We drove home, happy with Victoria, quietly pondering the cabin conundrum.

Jack and George playing on the "fireman's pole" in the aft cabin

The following day we returned to Victoria, this time with Jim and Karin.  Jim had said to come to their house at 7.30am for coffee, so we took him at his word, and dragged our sleeping children out of their beds, keen to keep to his schedule.  “Oh!” he said, when he opened the front door, “we weren’t expecting you to make it until at least 8 o’clock!..”  As a result we had time for lots of coffee and a good chat before the drive north, and the day went exceptionally well.  Jim showed us how to coax a 53 foot battleship with no bowthruster around some tight marina corners, and Jack only went quiet, limp and green for about 20 minutes, before coming back to life, miraculously without vomiting first.  There was a perfect breeze, the sun shone, and we had the sails up and the engine off before we knew it.  We moved the boat about 15 miles down the coast, passing Rangitoto, a perfectly conical volcanic island.  The children played happily in all parts of the boat, especially enjoying the aft (back) cabin, which has steps up to its own hatch, or “look-out” station as they called it.  Victoria sailed like a dream and we all love her!

Pirates in the dinghy!

George at the helm

Eloise and George at the "look-out" station

Victoria is now ashore in Half Moon Bay Marina, 15 minutes from where we are staying, with her rig laid on supports alongside her, and we are working through the task of sanding and re-painting the hull, mast, boom and spinnaker poles.  We’re making great progress, mainly thanks to Jim, Karin and Angus.  I am helping mostly by keeping the children entertained, and as far as possible from the boatyard!

Victoria with main mast down at Half Moon Bay

I asked the children what they think of Victoria.  George loves the “amazing” bunk beds, and wants his job to be climbing the mast.  Eloise “didn’t think Victoria would look like that..”, but is delighted with the huge double bunk in the aft cabin that she has now chosen for herself.  All we need to find now is Harry Potter bedding, and her cabin will be perfect for her.  As for what our little comedian Jack thinks of Victoria, who knows.. – he just closed his eyes, smiled broadly, and shook his head three times very slowly indeed.  All I can say is that he seemed to love climbing the “fireman’s pole” and swinging like a monkey from it!

Wattie doing some more sanding...

We have quickly fallen into a routine which feels fairly normal now.  Angus heads to the boat early to get going on the day’s work.  I get after some admin and emails, and then the cheeky monkeys appear and we have breakfast.  We have introduced a “walk to school”, which is one of the most successful bits of home-school so far.  We set off together up the drive, usually with Rufus the dog in tow, make shadow-shapes on the grass in the morning sun, track the buzzing cicadas in the bush, count the bees flying in and out of their hive, and say good morning to the alpacas in the field.  Then we end up back exactly where we started and settle down to whatever takes our fancy that day.  

It’s a fairly loose curriculum, and has to cater for the interests and attention spans of a 3, 5 and 8 year old.  The topics for this week have ranged from arranging a 1^st birthday party for George’s toy cheetah, to being Tarantula Hunters (inspired by Human Planet).  Eloise found it very hard to accept that I expected her to write three paragraphs about life as a child in the jungle, and only asked George to write one sentence, so who knows how we are going to get on with all this!  We are using lots of Mathletics and Hit the Button to get our number brains going, and every now George and Jack disappear outside to do some hedge jumping or rugby tackling.  We had a great trip to Pakuranga library today and started reading some Maori history and mythology, which we all enjoyed.  Once we have ticked off some reading, writing and maths, the day is ours for adventure, exploration, beach, swimming (not forgetting laundry, washing up, shopping, cooking, picking up toys from the floor and all the usual stuff..) and sometimes swapping over with Angus at the boat.

Feeding time at the zoo - note Cheetah's birthday blanket, knitted by our lovely Airbnb host, Annette

There is another week of work, including fitting the new rigging, before Victoria goes back into the water, and then at some point, we’ll complete the sale, and she will be ours, which will be amazing! We’ll gradually move ourselves on board once she’s in the water.  It’ll be a wrench to leave our lovely Airbnb, our amazing hosts, Annette and Keith, and Rufus the dog, but the idea of this trip is to explore the South Pacific islands and live on a boat, not to settle down on an alpaca farm in south Auckland.  We may have to remind the children that gently next week…

Eloise and I snuck in an amazing Bryan Adams concert in Auckland.

Well done if you’ve read this far! 

This is our boat facebook page if you want to see the odd photo in between the blogs: 

 https://www.facebook.com/snow.goose.940

Keep in touch,

Love from all the Watties xxx