Ahoy Shipmates! We're getting ready to move on board

The past two weeks have flown by and we are almost ready to make the big move from landlubbers to seafarers.  Angus, Jim and Karin have been working from dawn until dusk on the good ship Victoria, and the junior crew and I have been visiting every afternoon to check on their progress, do a bit of sanding and painting, and most importantly… deliver ice creams.  The boat is out of the water at Half Moon Bay, and although we have a good set of steps with a handrail to climb on board, it is still far from relaxing having children hopping around on a boat at that height.  It’s one thing to fall off a moored boat into the water, but quite another to fall on to concrete 3 metres below.  The plan is to relaunch on Monday, clean and “move in” on Tuesday, and move on board for good on Wednesday.  Once we’re all living on her, we will be in a much better position to share the boat jobs and get the children (and me!) involved in what is going on.

Jack, Eloise and George sanding the jockey pole

It has been amazing for Angus to work with Jim on the boat.  Having built Victoria himself, Jim knows the boat inside out.  He is doing his best to impart his knowledge to us during this handover process, so that we know how everything works, what to do when it goes wrong, and (hopefully..) how to fix it!  One of the most amazing part of the Victoria story is how and where she was built.  Jim started building her over 30 years ago, in their backyard in suburban Auckland.  He had a friend draw the lines for him, and the rest he designed and built, one plank, screw, wire or pipe at a time, day after day, week after week, month after month.  He told Karin it would take three years, but he knew it would be longer; after seven years of tireless work, Victoria was finally ready to launch.  If you could see the steeply sloping drive leading from their backyard where she was constructed, it’s hard to imagine how a 20 tonne boat made it out of there!  It is a great demonstration of the “can-do” attitude that New Zealanders are famous for.  Many people would think that working parents with two young children couldn’t build a 53 foot boat in their backyard, but it turns out that if they just keep going, they can!

Just a small after-work / weekend project..

I grew up on a farm, and every summer, my father employed agricultural students to help with the harvest.  As far as I remember, he always tried to choose Kiwis.  He said they were by far the best at showing initiative, getting on with the task, working out how to fix things, and getting the job done.  From what I have seen, I think he had a point.  One such example we came across this week was Kelly Tarlton (1938-85).  Kelly Tarlton was one of New Zealand’s greatest marine archaeologists, conservationists and divers.  He invented and made lots of his own equipment, either because it didn’t exist then, or he didn’t have the money to buy it.  This included underwater cases for his non-waterproof cameras, and a mask with a prescription lens in it, so he could see properly when diving.  I took the children on a “school trip” to Kelly Tarlton’s Sea Life Centre.  It is Auckland’s Aquarium, and it is wonderful.  The penguins are amazing, the clown fish are delightful, the sand tiger sharks are awesome, and the seahorses are funny and graceful, but the story of the man behind the aquarium is definitely one of the most inspirational parts.

shark bus to the aquarium!

Amazing Emperor Penguins

Kelly Tarlton dreamed of building an aquarium in some disused sewage tanks in central Auckland.   He wanted re-create the world that divers see on a typical Hauraki Gulf volcanic reef dive.  His idea was to bend inch-thick acrylic sheets to form a tunnel that people could walk through.  This was in 1984, and no-one had bent acrylic like that before; people said it could not be done.  But Kelly and his team of engineers believed it could.  They worked on the idea, built a simple kiln, tried out the process, and sure enough, they managed to bend thick sheets of acrylic into strong tunnel shapes.  In just ten months, the aquarium was finished, filled with water and fish, opened to the public, and became a huge success.  In its seventh week, the 100,000^th visitor was welcomed, and that same night, aged just 47, Kelly Tarlton died of a heart attack.  His legacy is huge, and of course there are now acrylic tunnels in aquariums all over the world.  It’s a little bit like building your own boat; if you really believe you can do it, then you probably can.  

Sand tiger shark overhead (top left) in the acrylic tunnel..

... and a very big lobster!

The other creatures here who are at least as determined and ingenious as the people, are the ants.  We are endlessly fascinated by how they can find delicious things to eat, and we love watching them working in teams to carry their heavy feasts on long journeys, including up vertical walls.  The ants are very unforgiving; if breakfast has not been washed up by mid-morning, the cereal bowls sitting on the sideboard will be full of the little creatures.  They even made a trail through the bathroom window, down the wall, across the back of the basin, and into a plastic bag which had a slightly sticky calpol bottle inside. So, how do they know where to find the food?  Well, we have now read quite a lot about ant colonies, where roles and responsibilities are taken very seriously, and it is the explorer ants who are sent off on their own in search of new food sources.  And once these brave little explorers have made a significant discovery, they rush back to tell the others, leaving a trail of pheromones along the route, to help them all find their way to the feast. Pretty amazing, really!  The other thing we learnt is there are estimated to be one million ants for every human being on the planet, and they live everywhere on earth except for a few remote islands, and Antarctica.  Although, as Eloise rightly pointed out, there is one ant in Antarctica..

As you can probably tell, the theme of this blog is believing in yourself, following a plan, putting one foot in front of the other, persevering, establishing roles and responsibilities with a team, and never giving up.  So, how are we all doing on all these things?  Well, from the youngest to the oldest, here we go..

Jack is our most careful child.  As he flicks though our ocean encyclopaedia, he furrows his innocent little brow, and his comment is the same on almost every page.   “I wouldn’t go near that, Mummy.  Would you go near that?”  In the swimming pool, he doesn’t really like to get his face wet.  If it's the sea, it's a push even to get his feet wet.. And when talking about the idea of paddling our new “junior kayak”, he firmly said, “I will do it when I’m four.”  (He’s only just three..)  However, courage is prevailing over caution.  At the aquarium, he watched the divers swimming in the water, feeding the sharks, and he announced that he’ll do that when he’s older.  In the swimming pool he can now manage a width, with his swim vest to help him float, and today he climbed on to the kayak and paddled it all by himself, beaming with delight at his achievement. When we discuss snorkelling in the islands, he says he won’t do it, but I bet he will..

All the children are now well prepared for boat-to-boat water fights

George, on the other hand, believes he can do anything.  Put him in a boat, he’ll tell you he’s rowing to France; give him a football, and he’ll be playing for Manchester City.  His latest thing is swimming.  We are so incredibly lucky to have a pool at our Airbnb accommodation.  In two weeks, George has gone from looking like a semi-drowning-five-year-old to a fish.  In his mind he is swimming around the world.  He can do a length in one breath, and Eloise and I are still trying to teach him how to dive down to the bottom – trapped air in baggy swim shorts seems to be a major hindrance for little boys..  He is also embracing learning in a huge way, which makes home-schooling a lot of fun with him, and he has suggested lots of extra bits to add into our “school” day.

George kayaking

Eloise has established herself as leader of the children since we've been here.  The other day, in desperation for some degree of co-operation, I offered a reward for getting dressed, brushing teeth and putting on suncream; two chocolate buttons for the first person to be ready, and one for the second and third.   Eloise marched the boys upstairs, helped them with their clothes and teeth, and then organised their descent of the stairs to ensure they arrived at exactly the same millisecond, so in the end there were three winners.  Home school is not always easy for Eloise; she finds the boys distracting, she misses her friends and her amazing teacher, Mrs Hughes-Phillips, (aka Mary Poppins, see below), and she clearly thinks I’m a pretty useless substitute.  Despite this, she sees that it is important, and is always ready to offer ideas as to how we can make it better.

Old news for many back home - Eloise nominated Mrs H-P for teacher of the week in the Week Junior

For me, the past couple of weeks have been a transition from normal life to a new normal.  I used to be a GP, have some friends, and also some time in my week without children in tow.  Currently I am a full-time mother / teacher / wife / cook / entertainer and negotiator!  (This will change a bit next week, when we move on board, and it will be easier for Angus and me to divide our time between boat jobs and children.)  I’m getting really good at going food shopping with my three little helpers, which I would always avoid at home.  Our accommodation has no dishwasher, which is a perfect transition to living on the boat, although I’m slightly worried that I am completely done with washing dishes already, after just two weeks.   How will we possibly survive for a year??!  I have endless lists of things we plan to have on board, which I am working my way through – medical supplies, cooking items, bedding, towels, arts and crafts, reference books etc.  I’m also trying out lots of boat-friendly recipes and home-made snacks on the family, and we are learning to bake using cups rather than weight to measure, as scales are not reliable on a moving boat.  Sometimes the task list seems a bit overwhelming, but as long as we keep ticking off a few things each day, I know we’ll get there.

Teamwork makes the dream work

Angus has definitely been following a plan and putting one foot in front of the other in the boatyard.  Following Jim’s lead, he has worked his socks off day after day, sweating in the hot sun, and learning a mass of new information.  He’s also in charge of a lot of our admin / paperwork / insurance / boat registration etc which is all ongoing, and he’s very good at chipping away at it all in the evenings.  There’s definitely a lot to do, and it will seem even more real when we are living on board!

Angus hard at work at the boatyard

There is, however, another line of work that Angus, or “Wattie” as he is affectionately known, has been dabbling in…  Eloise first discovered this when she noticed that Jim was “painting the boat with soup!”  Sure enough, Eloise was right, and it wasn’t just any tin of soup that Jim was using, it was “Wattie’s Mushroom soup”.  Anyone who has spent time in New Zealand won’t have failed to notice that Wattie’s is one of the biggest brands here.  Who would have thought it?  We weren’t really expecting Angus to have any signature dishes to call his own in the galley, but it turns out he has masses.  Just today, the children had Wattie’s Macaroni Cheese for tea, and they said it was delicious!  In the cupboard, we have Wattie’s Tomato Soup, and even the Heinz ketchup here is Wattie’s Heinz.  So as it turns out, Wattie’s contribution to the meals is going to exceed our wildest expectations..

Eloise was very surprised to see Jim painting the boat "with soup"!

That’s probably enough news from us for this week.  Yesterday, we had some amazing sailing folk for dinner, Tom and Vicky Jackson, who have just returned from a six week round trip to the Auckland Islands, which are 300 miles south of the southern tip of New Zealand, at 51 degrees South.  Half-way to Antarctica!  Our little jaunt to Tonga must seem a bit pathetic to them in comparison, but they were very polite and excited about it.  

Hopefully, when I write the next installment we will be living on board the good ship Victoria in Gulf Harbour.

Until then, stay safe, have fun, follow your dreams and believe in yourself.

Love from the Watties xxx