Penguins, naturism, the duke's nose and a 6th birthday party

Eloise getting ready for a sea swim off the rocks

Town Basin Marina, Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand

35 43S  174 19E

I didn’t mean to leave it so long before writing this blog – we have been back in New Zealand for six weeks already.  There is not much child-free time on the boat, so the only time to write is after the little munchkins have gone to bed, and as it’s light until 9pm here, and we are making the most of the lovely evenings, they are not going to bed particularly early.  The first week after we arrived in Opua, there were too many parties to attempt any evening admin.  The second and third week, Angus and I were both cobbling together our tax returns.  After that, I sort of got out of the habit of writing a blog. It became a bit like trying to make yourself go for a run when you haven’t been for ages – the longer you leave it, the harder it is to get going again.  For a while there was a vague cloud of intent which hung around me in the evenings, but my brain wasn’t really in gear, and I either gave up or fell asleep half-way through several attempts.  Thanks to those of you have been in touch asking for an update of the Watson Family Adventure; it is you guys who have kickstarted me into action again.  So, here are a few tales of the past six weeks; as ever, it’s been the people who have made them so wonderful. 

We reached the Q-dock in Opua after nine days at sea, which was rather longer than we had expected it might take to sail 900 miles south from New Caledonia.  The whole family voted it our best passage yet – our team was so slick that we were almost unrecognisable from the one which had left New Zealand for Tonga five months earlier.  Eloise, George and Jack have become wonderful crew, and they really look out for each other, which is fantastic to see.  Angus and I have got to know Victoria well, and feel confident handling her at sea, and it felt like a huge achievement arriving back where we had started, with over 5,000 miles under our belt, and no major navigational incidents.  Ironically, the following day, we not only went aground between the Q-dock and the fuel dock, but also almost collided with a small fishing boat as we made the final turn into our marina berth.  (We had already started our turn, leaving us very limited options to manouevre, when the little fishing boat set off at speed from the trailer launching ramp.  The driver was engrossed in a face-to-face conversation with his wife, who was sitting directly behind him.. He finally heard us yelling and altered course at the last possible second.)

Anyway, back to our arrival in Opua; we leapt on to the Q-dock and spent the evening celebrating with some of our favourite boats on the rally – Amphitreete, Calypso, Moon River, Casteele and Mari.  The idea was to finish all contraband before the customs officers arrived the following morning, and we did our best.  Amphitreete cooked up a sausage feast on their BBQ, and Moon River were busy handing around freshly cooked fish.  There was no meat or fish left on Victoria, but I managed to make a rather delicious apple crumble with the last of our fruit.  We also did our best to ensure we had only the permitted amount of alcohol on board in time for the inspection.  England beat the All Blacks during the Q-dock party, but to their credit, our Kiwi friends continued to talk to us, and fortunately most of the customs officials the following day were South African.  Clearing into New Zealand was an impressively slick operation.  We were boarded by Immigration, followed by Biosecurity, and finally the Sniffer Dog and its team.  It very quickly became clear that they were not looking for an undeclared bottle of gin in the ships supplies; they were searching for properly illegal contraband.  This was a drug dog, and she sniffed and searched every single bunk, locker, cupboard, and bilge on the boat.  It was fairly embarrassing as half the boat was in total chaos after the passage, but they were very nice and assured us they had seen much worse.  Finally, our visas were issued and we were cleared into the country.  And, as it turned out in the end, we needn’t have tried so hard to drink our supplies down to allowable limits the previous night, afterall…

We spent a week in the marina in Opua, saying fond farewells to the wonderful people with whom we had shared the previous five months.  For many of the Kiwis, it was a really tough time, as they faced the close of their adventure chapter, and the return to real life – home, work, school, etc.  For some people, “real life” will just be for six months or so – and then they’ll be off again to the Islands in May next year, but for many people, their long-planned season in the Pacific Islands is over and they have now returned to the grindstone for the foreseeable future.  Several of the foreign-flagged yachts have been hauled out of the water and put to bed until next season, and their owners have flown overseas to their homes and families.  We feel we are the lucky ones - for us, the adventure continues.  We will spend the southern hemisphere summer exploring New Zealand, which must surely boast one of the most beautiful coastlines on earth.   

There was too much pontoon chat, and too many parties when we were in Opua.  It was great fun, but it was almost impossible to get anything done.  Going to use the shore loo should not end up being a two-hour round trip, even if it is nice to catch up with people en route!  We had a huge long list of jobs we hoped to do, but in the end we realised our only hope was to do the A-list jobs, then buy any parts required for the B-list jobs, and tackle them at anchor in a quiet bay.  So we fuelled up, filled with water, deep cleaned the boat and did a supermarket shop.  Angus changed the fuel filters.  I took the mainsail off to fix the batten pockets, which ripped during our passage from New Zealand to Tonga.  My hand stitching had held for the rest of the trip, but the batten pocket fabric and the stitching was well past its best, so I wanted to do a better job.  Our lovely friends on Dulcinea, Emma and Owen, very trustingly lent me their Sailrite sewing machine, and I spent $50 at the sailmakers on dacron strips, webbing and double sided tape. 

Unfortunately, it rained for most of my two-day mainsail project, so I was unable to do any of it on deck.  The main is quite big and bulky, so it took up all of the floor, most of the seats and the whole of the table in the saloon.  Angus and the kids nearly went mad – it was quite hard to live for so long with a sail occupying most of the living space!  Despite the cramped conditions and the revolting crew, I persisted, and managed to do about 90% of the repair in-house.  If anyone has ever tried to roll a mainsail tightly enough to fit the whole thing through the arch of a domestic sewing machine, you will understand what I mean when I say it was physically impossible to get to the centre of the sail to stitch the batten pockets.  I did as much as I could physically manage, then we rolled up the sail, tipped it into a trolley, and wheeled it to the sail makers.  For $50 they stitched 4 x 1.5m runs of zig zags that I couldn’t do (they have huge arches on their sail loft machines), and everyone was happy.  Our main has a new lease of life, for a small amount of money, and we are psyching ourselves up for a sewing machine purchase.  With our mainsail back in action, and the very last end-of-rally party done and dusted, we were more than ready to leave Opua.

We headed 25 miles north to a group of islands called the Cavalli islands, anchoring on the south side of Motukawanui Island.  We stayed three nights there and were the only boat in the bay.  We snorkelled and kayaked and ran along the white sandy beach.  We climbed over rocks and watched with fascination, as oystercatchers pecked in the shallows to catch their tea.  We had our very own Little Blue Penguin who was never far from Victoria.  Jack was our chief penguin spotter.  He would go up on deck in search of him, and then squeal with delight when he popped his little head up, shouting “PINguin! PINguin!”.  Eloise and George would rush up to see, and they’d all follow him from one side of the boat to the other as he swam under us, then back again.  Angus and the kids went on several evening snapper fishing trips in the dinghy (no luck at this point, but we have done better since!), and we climbed to the top of the hill overlooking the bay.  

We realised the children all have really good walking legs now, so we packed some supplies and set off on the DOC (department of conservation) trail across the island.  The trail board suggested it would take 1 hour 40 minutes; after a slow start with a ridiculous amount of whining and water stops, things improved dramatically, and it took us a little over 2 hours to reach the beach on the north west tip.  We were hot after the walk and it was a beautiful sunny day.  We had packed sweaters, lunch, water and a first aid kit, but no swimmers or towels.  Well, what the heck! – there was no-one around – we threw caution to the wind, stripped off and ran into the sea.  The exception to this newfound Watson naturism was Jack.  For some reason, he had dressed himself in an all-in-one UV swimsuit that day, with no pants.  He flatly refused to swim with nothing on, and insisted on keeping on his UV suit.  This left him with nothing dry to wear on the way back except for his hoodie, which became too hot for him on the first hill, so he walked the whole of the rest of the way back wearing shoes and socks and not a stitch more!  Jack the naked rambler..  He's such a funny little boy.

From the Cavallis, we continued west to Whangaroa Harbour, which has a narrow entrance and then opens up into an unexpectedly vast, Fjord-like harbour, with several different arms and anchorages, separated by tree-covered cliffs, hundreds of metres high.  We spent many nights in Whangaroa, including our first two nights off the boat since we moved on board eight months ago.  Angus was a bit sceptical at first, but he soon came around to the idea; Eloise and I had booked us into the DOC hut at Lane Cove.  Lane Cove is at the foot of “The Duke’s Nose”, which is an impressive roman-nose shaped summit peering down on the harbour; there is a DOC trail to climb to the peak.  The top section is steep rock and used to have chains, but these have recently been upgraded to a solid metal bar, so although it was steep, it was easy enough for us all to make it safely to the top.  Actually, Eloise made it to the top several times.  It turns out that she has decided that she wants to become a speed climber, so she insisted on going up and down the final section as fast as she could to get some practice in, while we timed her.  It was slightly heart-in-mouth stuff, but she obviously loved it, and was so buzzing with adrenaline that she couldn’t stop talking, smiling or leaping about for the rest of the day.   It was super fun to stay in the hut for a couple of nights, especially as there was a huge thunder and lightning storm on the second morning.  The rain hammered down on the tin roof, and from the (relative) comfort of our beds, we were able to watch Victoria tugging at her anchor chain in the gusts, waiting patiently for our return.  The hut could sleep up to 16, but we had the run of the place, until a couple of unsuspecting walkers arrived after us.  The children talked non-stop to them, and George subjected them to repeated games of Uno by candlelight.  They were hugely kind and patient with them all, especially George's slightly unique Uno rules.

I’ll have to skip a few bits of our trip to get to Whangarei in time for the end of this blog.  We have experienced so much kindness and generosity in the past few weeks that I need to mention a few people.  Caro and Rich, our Moon River friends, not only picked us up and took us to their family bach for an unforgettable kid-tastic beach and surf day, but they also did a full supermarket shop for us.  A fisherman gave us a huge Snapper as we dinghied ashore in Totara North, and in the very next breath offered to lend us his car if we needed to go to a shop.  Rolie and Consie (Royal Cruising Club friends) let us use their mooring in the Bay of Islands, helped us fix our dinghy using their extensive boatshed facilities, lent us a dinghy while ours dried out, and gave us meals, ice-cream, showers, paints for the children, and the warmest welcome imaginable.  Nev and Sheryl from Amphitreete came to meet us and catch our lines when we arrived in Tutukaka marina, and then picked us up and took us to their house for brunch the next day.  Our Blue Zulu friends took in our children as if they were their own, and wined and dined us on their boat.  And a friend of my sister Serena’s from university, who I had never met, picked all of us up from the marina last weekend and drove us out to his house for Sunday lunch with his family.  And that, really, is just the tip of the iceberg of New Zealand kindness and hospitality. 

Meanwhile, Angus has been in the UK for the past week, spending time with his parents, and his eldest son, Tim, who has flown in from San Francisco.  I am very aware that in the UK at the moment it is cold and dark and wet, and there is an ongoing political fiasco, but the stories that have permeated back to this side of the world have all been cosy and warming.  I have seen Angus spending time with family, and friends, and more family.  Happy photos of card games and bananagrams at Hengrave, family dinners and friends dinners have been winging their way around the world to me.  Angus visited Winchester briefly, and Jonny and Jules made a massive effort to have some of our lovely friends for dinner to see him – thank you, you guys are amazing.  The kids and I were able to FaceTime ourselves into Will (my brother) and Jules’ Christmas drinks yesterday, (conveniently scheduled for mine and Angus’ 11^th wedding anniversary), and see Angus, Tim, all my siblings and several of my cousins on the kitchen dancefloor!  Great moves, guys, great to see you all.

So, for now, the kids and I are in the Town Basin, Whangarei.  We’re loving it!  We can walk ashore from the boat to the town.  There's a washing machine in the marina office.  We have been going to the library for home school, for walks and to the park to exercise, and to the swimming pool to cool off.  We had ten children for George’s 6^th birthday on Wednesday, with an age range from one to thirteen.  They all looked after each other, and the rather fluid five-hour party (3-8pm) in three different locations (park for play and pizza – theatre for Maori dance show – Victoria for cake and Lego 2 movie / drinks for adults) was extremely easy in a way that parties with 20+ children of exactly the same age in normal life are not.  There is definitely something special about the “boat kids" community – friendships can flourish across ages in a way that is not so easy at home, and there is no technology to complicate things.   They do have to say a lot of goodbyes, but when they make really good friends, it’s easy enough to stay in touch or make a plan to meet up in the future.

With George’s birthday and our wedding anniversary behind us, we are looking forward to the several major events this week.  Serena arrives on Tuesday, Angus gets back on Wednesday, and it’s Jack’s 4^th birthday on Thursday.  After that, we’ll leave Whangarei and head south, towards Auckland, to meet Rosie when she arrives next Tuesday – it’s going to be an action-packed Christmas.  We might have to break up from home school soon, and resume in the New Year!

Love from all of us – Laura, Angus, Eloise, George and Jack xxx