Farewell Fairway Bay – we’re heading north at last!
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| Early morning haircut for George |
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| Eloise on our SUP |
“Ooh, it’s getting colder.”
“It must be time to head North!” is a frequent back-and-forth conversation
between boaties on the pontoon. This reminds
us that things really are topsy-turvy here in the Southern Hemisphere. The nights are drawing in and the leaves are
falling in May. The star constellations
and the moon are upside down in the sky.
A northerly wind is warm, and a southerly wind is cold. The air circulates clockwise around a low
pressure, and anti-clockwise around a high pressure. If we headed south, we’d reach the roaring
forties and then Antarctica, so to find warmer weather, we must head north.
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| Our kayaks: yellow banana and green banana |
The whole north-south-warm-cold thing has been particularly confusing for George and Jack. In the northern hemisphere, they knew quite clearly that north meant cold, and south meant warm. When we stopped in San Francisco on our way to New Zealand, our hire car had a little red light on the rear-view mirror which showed N/E/S/W, depending on which way we were driving. Based upon this, the boys gave a constant running commentary on the predicted temperature change during our journey. If the little red “S” was glowing, there would be delighted cries of “Yes, we’re heading south, it’s getting warmer - we’ll need our jumpers off soon!”, and when it showed “N”, they would mutter about the north pole, and complain through chattering teeth about how cold it might be on arrival at our destination. As our journeys were only a few miles, our latitude didn’t alter enough for us to experience the anticipated meteorological changes, but this did nothing to dull the boys’ enthusiasm for the game. When we leave New Zealand and sail north to Tonga, a journey of over a thousand miles, we will definitely notice the temperature rising, and before we know it, we’ll be burying our blankets deep in an inaccessible locker and slapping on the factor 50. Hopefully this real-life experience will finally convince George and Jack that warmth in the southern hemisphere is found to the north..
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| plenty of butter for baking cakes |
The last week here has been completely manic as we prepared
to leave Fairway Bay Marina, in Gulf Harbour, where we have been for over a
month. In that time, we have settled in
on board, got to know the boat’s systems, found places for all our personal
kit, and been out for a total of about a week’s sailing. We have also identified, sourced and
purchased spares and supplies for six months, which has been a mind-boggling
task at times. I have got off quite
lightly with the consumable supplies. Angus
has had a much more complicated job working on the spares – engine, watermaker
and electrical etc, with the aim of being self-sufficient for the time we will
be away from New Zealand. Obviously,
from the supplies point of view, if we run out of spaghetti, we will eat penne
instead, or anything else for that matter; if we run out of loo roll, we will wish
we hadn’t opted for so many e-books!!
For the spares it is not so straightforward, and ideally we want to
avoid having to wait somewhere for a long time while a crucial part is shipped;
cruisers often wait several weeks for bits of boat to arrive.
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| I think we should have enough honey! |
Far blogworthier than the “stuff” we acquired in Fairway Bay, are the wonderful new friends we made there. We were a little bit overwhelmed when what we had envisaged as a simple slipping away yesterday, turned into a sizeable farewell party on the dock. It is the children, mostly, who have engineered all of our new friendships for us, although I guess if we didn’t have them then we would be able to initiate and complete conversations of our own, and so we might be capable of making new friends independently.
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| Saying goodbye to our friends in Fairway Bay |
It was a great farewell. After the photos, and the hugs, and promises to return when we come back to New Zealand, came the fun part of turning the boat around to leave the marina. (Our berth is a dead end, and the other option would be reversing 75m before driving backwards around a 180-degree bend.) We had never made the turn before with the tide so low, or with so many excited spectators. With a long rope led from the outer side of our bow to the pontoon behind us, we began to swing her around. With the boat at 45 degrees across the channel, all looked fine, and the pontoon team continued to hold the stern in, whilst pulling the bow slowly around. As we got near to 90 degrees it was clear that it was going to be a very tight squeeze this time. The contour of the rocky shore was matched almost perfectly by the cutaway shape of our bow, leaving a few inches between our freshly painted hull and the oyster-covered rocks. It was clear, however, that the anchor was about to become the sticking point. Without warning, I hopped over the rail on to the rock in front, as George asked in alarm, “Mummy, why are you getting off?!”. I was able to lift the bow a few inches so that the anchor just cleared the rocks. With great cheers from the shore, and throwing back on board of long ropes, we were round, and on our way. The sun was shining, and Pirate Dan raced us along the pontoon on his bike. Farewell and thank you, Fairway Bay, for a wonderful stay.
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| Me helping the anchor past the rocks as we turned Victoria |
We now have a week to make our way north to Opua, in the Bay of Islands. This is our chance to sail, get organised, and finish the remaining crucial boat jobs before the passage to Tonga. Yesterday we sailed to Kawau, as we all loved it so much the last time we were here. We are anchored in an idyllic bay called Mansion House Bay – there are peacocks on the lawn, and the shuttered white house with surrounding palms is lit up all night. George was up with the sun this morning, dressed and in his hoodie. “I’m all ready for fishing!”, he announced, and he disappeared up on deck. All of five minutes later he was calling to us to come up; “I’m about to catch the biggest yellow tailed kingfish EVER”. He was using his tiny rod, with a tiny shiny metal lure, and had attracted the biggest fish that any of us had ever seen. I’m not exaggerating – it looked like a small shark! And sure enough, he was quite right about what it was; we checked the fish chart, which he must have memorised. We made sure he did NOT catch it, but our beautiful yellow tailed kingfish was in no rush to leave us, and he ambled along the side of the boat for a few minutes at a time, before swimming off with an enormous sploshing whoosh, only to return a minute or two later. He doesn’t look very big in the photo, but we think he was probably a metre long. Jack was looking nervously over the side of the kayak for much of the trip when we took to the water for a paddle later in the day!
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| George and his little fishing rod... |
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| ... and the huge Kingfish that we didn't catch |
We are still in pretty good chaos on board Victoria, as we haven’t
decided where lots of things should live yet.
We’ve slowly realised that packing our Winchester house into a storage container
was merely a training exercise for what we are doing now. The container was so easy; it was rectangular,
just like the boxes we stored in it, and the tables, beds, mattresses, pictures
and chests of drawers. We have lots of
storage on the boat, but it is all irregular shapes and sizes, behind awkward
cushions, under our beds, or under the floorboards. Just accessing some spaces requires a huge
expenditure of energy shifting large cushions, pulling up boards, and leaning
in to awkward corners. And each locker and
storage space has its drawbacks – some have wires, pipes or steering cables
inside, some are deep in the bilge, running the risk of soaking the contents with
dirty bilge water, and some are under bunks which are impossibly awkward to get the sheets back on the cushions again after delving beneath. The idea, of course, is to store things that we
need frequently in the most accessible spaces, but before we know it they are
so crammed full that we can’t find what we are looking for! The food is carefully catalogued so that I
know how many packets of rice and marshmallows we have, and where to look for
them. The idea is to cross things off as
we get them out of the lockers. I
imagine we’ll be variable in remembering to do this, but at least we are
starting with some degree of organisation.
There are two very secret lockers, behind the stereo speakers, where I managed
to hide the sweetie supplies while no-one was looking, so hopefully Eloise and
Angus won’t read this blog, and we’ll be in with a chance of not running out
before we even leave New Zealand.
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| Having another fiddle with the micro-switch |
We still have masses of jobs to do to be in really good shape to cross an ocean. There is a lot of outstanding stowing and cataloguing that we must get a grip of. We are nervously awaiting confirmation of our small ships registration from the UK. (We didn’t end up having to come out of the water to be weighed and measured, but haven’t had our registration confirmed yet.) Fingers crossed it comes through soon, as we can’t leave New Zealand without it. We need to check all our jubilee clips on the spaghetti junction of hoses under the floorboards, and make sure that we are familiar with where each pipe goes. We must ensure that we know where all our “through-hull” fittings are, and that there is a bung tied next to each one in case of a leak. We are going to make laminated diagrams of all our emergency procedures and safety kit. Angus understands how the long range radio works, and how we will receive weather information and communications offshore, but I have yet to have my lesson on how this works. We also have to programme our man over board devices, so that they send a message directly to our radio (four frustrating failed attempts to do this today..) And most importantly, we must face up to how much gin, beer and rum we might drink in the next six months, and remember to buy it in Opua. Most boats cook their meals in advance for the crossing, so I’ll try and to this too, but if not I’m sure I’ll manage to rustle something up at sea.
From May 13th, we will be in the Bay of Islands Marina in
Opua, with almost 40 other boats who are all taking part in the Islands
Cruising New Zealand Rally. Our pre-departure
week will be busy with final jobs, meeting people, discussions about weather
systems and when to leave, and probably some last-minute panic purchases that
we won’t end up needing. It will be
great for the children to meet the others on the rally; there are 25 in total! We’re hoping Jack will find some friends his
age, as he is really missing playing with three-year-olds, and is quite hard
work as a result. The earliest date we
will leave for the ocean passage to Tonga is 20th May, but it might
be later, depending on the weather.
There will be a website to track our progress, which I will share before
we leave, and I’ll try and write a few blogs along the way to capture the
moment.
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| two mad little boys playing pirates with boat hooks.. |
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| ... and a desperate Angus, disappearing into the anchor locker for some peace and quiet! |
Tomorrow we are heading 35 miles east to Great Barrier
Island, so that we can all get used to a day at sea, including home
school. That’s the plan, anyway. The following night, Angus and I will do a
night sail, to practise sailing Victoria in the dark, and remember what night
watches are like. We usually do 2-3
hours before swapping over, depending on how exhausted we feel. There isn’t that much wind forecast, which is
OK in the short term as it will ease us in gently, but actually it would be
good for us to have sail in more wind before we head off into the deep
blue. Having said that, the longer we can
put off those big waves, the better – I’m not looking forward to catching vomit
from green children, and then having to deal with the sheets, clothes, towels
and cushions they have managed to get it on…
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| A lovely flat calm day at sea |
Angus has got a great Instagram page going for us so there will be some photos on there of day to day life. Please follow if you’d like to.
It’s Victoria_0583
Lots of love from all of us,
Fair winds to you all,
Family Watson xxx
Mansion House Bay, Kawau Island, North Island, New Zealand
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| So great to see Annette and Rufus two weeks running - lunch one friday and breakfast the next! Amazing Xx |
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