Where is Sea Child?

For complete updates on our crossing from New Zealand to Minerva Reef and Fiji, as well as google earth location, please visit www.sailblogs.com/member/seachild/

Kiwi Hospitality

Preparing Sea Child for her upcoming leg from New Zealand to Fiji is all part of the fun of an open ocean crossing. Days have been spent changing out parts and cooking meals. Upon inspection of our electronics, we learned that the radar is not working at all. While this is not necessarily a "no go" situation, having a working radar is a comfort so we are able to see vessels at sea. During our sail from Aruba to Cartegena, the radar was a priceless piece of electronics that showed all vessels in this busy part of the world. In the South Pacific, the radar may seem less important. However, we are attempting to repair the unit from here in Whangarei.

The engine inspections showed that both raw water impellers needed to be changed out. Sea Child has many spare parts, impellers, back up starter motor, fuel filters, oil filters, fuel injectors, pressure pumps, pulleys for the water maker. After almost 3 years of sailing Sea Child, these extra parts make for a comforting passage. It's nice to know that if something should break at sea, we have the parts to repair along the way.

Trinidad, Panama, and New Zealand all rank high in the area of finding parts and people who can work on boats. Amazingly, Maui ranks as the worst of all the areas in the world for finding boat parts and people who can or will work on them. Crazy, Maui has some of the best sailing in the world, maybe everyone who would carry these special parts are busy sailing and playing in the water. In any case, New Zealand is a wonderful place to repair and prepare Sea Child for a 1,000 mile journey. If a company does not have the ability to repair your part, they will refer you to someone else. Kiwis are some of the kindest people on the planet. Preparing for sea, far from home, is an easy process from Marsden Cove, Whangarei, New Zealand. And with the generosity and kindness of the local people, Sea Child is also in very good hands.

Current Position:

S 35 degrees 50.13' , E174 degrees 28.03'

New Zealand Round 3

February 6, 2011. The day before the American Superbowl. We had arrived in Auckland, where Sea Child had been berthed since New Years day. The Viaduct, with all its energy and excitement, super large yachts, and touristic adventures, Sea Child’s home for a few weeks. The neighborhood was quite expensive, given our resident neighbors of 125’+ super yachts, even the AC45 catamarans were housed nearby. It felt like we were the little kids in the rich kids playground, just visiting, passing through this metropolis of grand boating on an emerald city shoreline. We had just a few days in Auckland, opening up the boat, again, and cleaning and polishing, provisioning and planning. We were excited this year to be

able to watch the American Superbowl on Monday, February 7, at a local watering hole affectionately named Fox’s. Packed with all types of fans, good food, and local drinks, we watched and rooted for the Packers to defeat the Steelers, a great game and a great halftime show with the Black Eyed Peas. Once the game ended, we headed back to Sea Child, where a giant rubber duck was docked right next to us. An artist had positioned the giant yellow balloon in Auckland Viaduct, and just before her “deflation”, she graced us with her visit at the dock next door. Memories of childhood reminded us of how fast our time has gone by on Sea Child, and yet here we were, again, back in New Zealand. This, our 5th visit in 18 months. Who would have thought we were on a mission to circumnavigate the planet and yet New Zealand keeps us coming back.

Maybe it’s the food. It is so good here, between the soya linseed breads, the snapper, the lamb, the freshness of the produce or the tang of the beer. There is a taste to New Zealand, a sense of the grasses and the saltiness of the sea. Whatever the magic to the foods, we find ourselves including New Zealand in all of our dreams about where to sail next. “Let’s be sure to provision from New Zealand” or “is there a market here?” or “why go out to dinner when we eat better on the boat?”. It’s that good, the foods here, and when we return to Maui, we find ourselves a bit disappointed at the selection in the grand supermarkets of the US. Not that we have anything to complain about, no we have more than we could possibly dream of in the U.S. We just don’t always appreciate that until we travel and see far off lands.

So back to New Zealand, and the continuing adventures of Sea Child. We made the obligatory purchases in Auckland, this time new sunscreens for the cabinhouse, a new electric toilet for Tamara, and bottles of wine and rum and cheeses and breads. We decided to sail to Waiheke Island and explore, again, her rich hillsides and blue-green bays. The summer was in full swing, with February holding a biting sun that nipped at us without regard to burns or hats or visors. Just a few days off Waiheke, and both of us were burned, lips, chest, faces, painfully searching for remedies at the end of the day with little success. Waiheke was verdant, green, and the hillsides full of grasses and trees. The songs of the cidadas were wistfully reaching out across the bay, and once on the trails, their giant pre-historic bodies would search for free rides on Eric’s shoulders. Pesky creatures, these cicadas, startling and yet interesting. I didn’t like them, but I appreciate their innate ability to cool down through the flapping of their wings, which in the resulting songs, reminds us of the summer. After a visit to Waiheke, we sailed to Rakino Island, just across the channel, another gem in the Hauraki Gulf. We circled the little island, met some new friends on a race boat named “Hijacker” who were from the US but now found their home in Auckland. He worked for North Sails, Bill and Lynette, and we found a fast friendship with them as they were interested in where we had sailed from and us interested in their adventures as well. The islands off Auckland do get busy on the weekends in the summer, with as many as 40+ boats in a little anchorage in an even smaller island. The time spent on Rakino was sweet, colorful, and social as well. All good for us, before the arrival of our family on Valentines Day. First, however, we visited a dive site at Ahaaha Island, a tiny reef just west of Waiheke. If we didn’t have our GPS with us, it would have been easy to miss. We headed out on a flat, sunny day and found the little reef by the tiny boats that were floating around it for a day of fishing. Just the two of us, we anchored Sea Child and geared up, not thinking we would need both wetsuits, but thankful we had them in the 72 degree water. As we explored the reef and rocks, we saw enormous snapper and giant kelp flowers; Eric even found an anchor, which he needed to save for future use. It’s interesting to note that we now have about 5 anchors on Sea Child. And I worry about the weight on board. Funny.

Returning to Waiheke for the night, we enjoyed the crystal clear evening, the emerald city of Auckland in the distance, and another fabulous meal on Sea Child. There have been so many lately, its difficult to place every menu and every key ingredient. We enjoyed our final evening alone, as our family was arriving in the morning for a 12 day visit. Changing gears, we returned to Auckland, reprovisioned, and headed back out to Waiheke Island. This time, we had four dive tanks, four complete sets of gear, and many adventures to look forward to in the weeks to come.

Hiking and diving, wine tasting and 31 cards. A few games of left, right, center kept us entertained at night, and the days were filled with Standup and hiking. We continued our exploration of Waiheke Island, visiting the end of the island and Man O’War winery. We bought our wines, from Mudbrick and Jurassic vineyards, and headed out to the west end of the Coromandel Peninsula, stopping in an easy bay around Happy Jack Island. Loved the name, enjoyed the food, and readied ourselves for the crossing to Cuvier Island and our 2^nd NZ dive. Curvier is between Great Barrier Island and the Mercury Islands, and we found the conditions to be perfect. The visibility for the dive was the best we’ve seen in all of NZ, and the boys decided to hunt and gather our next meal. The only bummer in this dive was that I brought along a watercamera in housing which I got caught up in the kelp and lost from my wrist. I motioned to Eric that this had happened, we all began our search, and in the process I surfaced rapidly three times looking for the camera. After our final descent, I decided that we should return to Sea Child and get the boat to return our efforts at finding the camera. It put a damper on the dive itself, but we were very fortunate to have found the camera in the currents off Cuvier, on a flat, hot day. I was lucky.

After the adventure with the missing camera, it was time to sail on to Great Barrier Island. What a gem, Great Barrier is a cruisers paradise, with Tryphena on the south end and Port Fitzroy on the north; Medlands beach on the west and Windy Canyon on the top. Great Barrier was truly worth the week we spent there; hiking trails and stand up and hunting and gathering the meals for dinner. One dive, with Eric & Craig out to master the underwater treasures, had them returning to Sea Child with dozens of mussels, scallops and even a lobster for another evening of fine dining. It was amazing, the foods we ate, the recipes we created, the time we spent. The beauty of Great Barrier, with her rugged broken islands, windy passes, and serene anchorages are hard to define. We ran through the time there with our family, and before we knew it, it was time to bid them a sad farewell as they caught a commuter to Auckland and their return to their lives in the U.S. Eric & I stayed on in Port Fitzroy for another few days, tearing up at the change in crew, yet excited that we had another week or more by ourselves.

Deciding where to go from there, we headed out to dive Poor Knights, and by Sunday night we were anchored in Tutukata. Dinner ashore, we scoped out the weather and decided that a dive to Poor Knights was good to go the next day. Heading across the 12 miles to Poor Knights, we had a fantastic morning sail, nerves excited about the mystical rock islands just offshore and the dive book being studied for where to dive once we got there. The sun was high in the sky, the seas flat, and the day perfect. As we approached the Poor Knights, Eric decided that Middle Arch would be the best place to dive, so we geared up and headed out. First thing I noticed was a pretty strong current, which is not my favorite type of dive, and we swam quite a ways around to the giant arch around the corner. AS we swam at about 50’, looming shadows changed in the deep water, the signs of the edge of the island, and the blue gray mist of the giant arch overhead. Along we swam, holding hands in the current, at one point no visual reference could be made as Eric followed the compass on our dive computers. Once we turned to our left, however, the colors changed, the sun higher, the shadow longer, and the arch was overhead. We heard a visiting boat above us, their anchor chain being lowered, we swam along inside the arch with the colors of the walls mesmerizing us. Around the cave we explored, continuing our return to Sea Child. My air was running low, so we swam a bit faster, trying to cover as much ground as possible during our first dive at Poor Knights. As we rounded the point nearest to Sea Child, the fish seemed to double in numbers and the kelp forest stood upright, as the current had subsided. Following Eric, we meandered along the edges of the kelp, the light overhead becoming brighter as the day warmed up above us. As we surfaced, Eric had us right on Sea Child, there she was, glorious in her awaiting splendor. Cold victory beers on board, we ruminated at our first dive of Poor Knights, and continued to journey around the giant boulders by boat. It was a beautiful day, perfect sail back to Tutukaka, enjoying each other and our good fortune to be here. New Zealand had again amazed us. First the water, then the underwater world. We were hooked.

A few days in the marina for cleanup and laundry, we decided to head back out to Poor Knights for a 2^nd dive. The underwater arches of Red Baron Caves were our destination, and they did not disappoint. We found caves and swimthroughs and took pictures galore. The visibility was a bit better than our first visit, the water temperature was 70 degrees at depth. We found that our complete dive suit sets were great gear to have, booties and gloves and long sleeves and shorties. We needed it all, but found that a few minutes underwater had us mesmerized, we saw the largest snapper I’ve ever seen, along with eels and eaglerays and sponges. Poor Knights is perfect.

The scents of New Zealand include the sweet musky breezes of Whangarei Heads. We hiked around the northern end of Whangarei bay, holing up from a stiff breeze after a good rain front had moved through. We were beginning our transition again, our return to Maui just two days away. The hike was good for us, up and down each little mountain, view of Sea Child to our right as we worked our way around the point. The refinery was across the mouth of the harbor, next to Marsden Cove, Sea Child’s home for the next several months. I have found that this journey on Sea Child is often seen as my following Eric as he leads me across the sea. I participate, I photograph, I document and I witness. I miss our children dearly, I even miss the things I can control. On Sea Child, she controls the show. Eric is doing what he absolutely loves to do, and as I’m sitting here writing this account, he is outside in the steady 20+ knots sanding the varnish in the cockpit. Sea Child smiles at the attention, Eric’s attention. It’s good for her, it’s good for him. We ponder where we will sail next, the activity in the Red Sea area is causing us great concern for the safety of us and the boat. We consider heading east to the Cape Horn, desperate in our search for another passage to continue, rather than complete, this voyage. The smell of the sea beckons us. The pull of the adventure drives us. It’s easy to be in a foreign culture where we can sit back and watch the show, rather than worry about weather we will be drawn into their national dramas. It’s an easy life, even if the stove is a pain in the ass to clean or the laundry piles up for days. We sleep in dirty sheets after the balmy nights intermixed with the chill of the south wind. We play with our food supply, making games of it, “one more meal” or “we can last for 4 more days”. Our biggest worry out here? The rum supply. Can we make it last till the next port? What if we run out? What about the beer? It’s fun to have an extra case of Fiji Bitter on board. Their sunny blue cans, or their golden gems, are a special treat to have on board. What a find!! And this, combined with the New Zealand foods, makes a return to this south pacific paradise worth every single moment.

As we get ready to leave Sea Child, preparing for the cleaning and our ultimate departure, we again feel the throws of change. We are saddened in our hearts about our goodbye, our farewell, our bon voyage. Sea Child will be here, in Marsden Cove, awaiting our return. Where we sail her next, who knows? But she will be happy to have us back. We know this as sure as you are sitting here reading this story.