G'day Everyone!

By October we were ready to leave New Caledonia, but the inevitable surprise weather system shut down the trades and left us with four days of light wind—time to get into all sorts of trouble! Easily distracted by a favorable surf forecast, we set out from Noumea and sailed a dozen miles out to sea in search of the outer reef. We let the anchor go behind a reef in the middle of nowhere at Passe Dumbea. An excellent left; Cloudbreak with a heavy west bowl and a steep takeoff way up the reef.

The following day we ran 30 miles down the lagoon to Passe St. Vincent where civilization fades away. In the binoculars we could see a pair of local skiffs anchored near a suspicious bend in the reef. As we drew near a set rose up, draining off the reef and grinding around the corner in geysers of spray. Two local surfers sat wide, a respectful distance from the impact zone. I pulled Orca along side wearing my friendliest smile and asked permission to surf with them. They frowned and began a rapid flow of French, deciding whether to chase me off. The tide of the argument turned when Kara appeard on deck in her skimpiest bikini, and soon the locals were all smiles and thumbs-up. Anchoring was a challenge, depths rising precipitiously from 300 feet to 3—which explains why the wave appears out of nowhere. With Kara jockeying the throttle, I siezed an anchor and dove the coral cliff amongst delicate colored fronds of pristine sea life to wedge the grapnel under a respectably sized brain coral. The surf wasn't more than 8' faces, but very challenging, and the conditions were perfect. It was also quite shallow; all three of us ended up in standing on the reef in ankle deep water at least once during the session. After the tide switch, we moved around the corner and Kara had a delightful surf: long, clean, overhead and peeling.

We stayed too long. After our second session, the sun was already dipping toward the horizion and we were still 10 miles from the island at a very exposed anchorage. In this remote region of New Cal the charts were spotty at best and at night, the clearest water in the world won't help you see an uncharted reef. We'd nearly made it back to the mainland when the depth sounder bounced from 200 feet to 3. Orca went tearing onto a reef, plowing a swath through fragile coral formations before grinding to a halt. With the tide turning and twilight nearly gone, we were stuck fast; engine and sails were no use. Coils of line and our trusty grapnel went into the dingy, which Kara rowed out into deep water. Running the line back to winches on Orca, we brought the rode to guitar-string tension. Over the next hour, Orca slowly slid off the reef, an inch at a time with each swell, untill finally we reach four foot depths and we were afloat again. Thick fiberglass is amazingly tough; damage to the hull was minor; antifoul scoured away but only a few scratches through the underlying gelcoat.

With the hull still mostly intact and trades returning, we were off to Australia. The lowlight of the passage was day five with 30-40 knot winds, 20 foot seas, and a spirit-sapping drizzle-fog. In the vicinity, the Great Barrier Reef compresses the ubiquitous coastal cargoship traffic into a two-way corridor 5 miles across. Lost in the troughs of the swell, fog, and drizzle we could see almost nothing; the situation was like the old videogame Frogger, where the player's frog tries to cross the four lane freeway in heavy traffic by jumping foward and back between lanes. I always seemed to lose, my frog pulped. We sailed forward, backward, left and right dodging 300 foot freighters and supertankers, spray pounding from their bows, flying the length of the ship and blanketing the wheelhouses. The Sagitarius Leader came so close enough that we could clearly see their selection of huge radar arrays: none spinning, all turned off. No response on VHF either. If they don't even have radar on in busy traffic, thick fog, and big swell, no wonder freighters never see poor little Orca! To improve our spirits, a big wave broke over the transom, rolled over the cockpit, and slammed up against the companion way. We'd left the hatch cracked for some air, and the South Pacific came firehosing in and drenched the cabin. One of our radios was knocked out; we scrambled to douse it in denatured alchohol to flush out the seawater.

Safely to the Bundaberg rivermouth, we cleared customs and watched kangaroos on the riverbanks. After spending the requisite small fortune at the local chandlery, we've continued up the shallow river with the high tide and are anchored just off the famous rum distillery, where steam billows from tall chimneys and, when the wind turns, the air smells of brown sugar and yeast.

Bonjour!

With the Parents off to the States, it was time to take our leave of Whangamata and sail 200 miles North to Opua and the Customs/Immigration office. But, our very last boat project (ha!) was to inspect and re-seal the huge machine screws securing Orca's rigging to the hull; the ensuing quest quickly took a entertaining turn. To spin the shafts without stripping the head, we needed to find an exceptionally large flat-headed screwdriver; the one I already had was impressive but innefective—the blade had broken off. Uncle Dave and I drove to ten different stores. At each, I whipped out my well-endowed but now impotent driver and, attempting to keep a straight face, told them I needed it bigger. At every shop, the clerk deadpaned either "That sounds like a personal problem," or, "I saw a commercial for just that issue on late night television". Eventually, we ascertained that we already had the biggest in Auckland, and, after much thought, were able to circumvent the dysfunctional tool.

We were feeling pretty happy about inspecting those screws when, a week later, we found ourselves beating to the north across the NZ's notorious Colville channel in gusts to 50 knots. Ducking into Port Fitzroy on Great Barrier Island, we were shivering cold, damp, hungry, and salty. We pulled into Smokehouse Bay where there's a public wood-fired bath. The ingenious arrangement was plumbed to a freshwater spring and consisted of a small cabin, insulated hot water cylinder warmed via a heat-exchanger in the wood burning stove. We chopped driftwood with the provided axe and soon the blazing fire produced 50 steaming gallons in the chipped porcelin bathtub. Since we were deep in the off-season, the island was deserted; even the fish had their guard down; we concluded our stay with a dinner of snapper, kawai, oysters, cockles, and mussles.

Fully revitalized, we felt ready to tackle the Customs officials. If you recall, they had jumped us through many hoops when entering the country—the most oustanding was the $5,000 deposit to rescue Orca from customs impound. They had been attentativly beaurocratic, proffering many papers for numerous legally binding signatures when taking our money—but now, having been good little sailors by leaving the country on time, we were entitled to a refund. Naturally, the sympathetic officials in Opua said that they may or may not be able to return the money depending on what the upper-level paperwork looked like that was filed by nameless, faceless Senior New Zealand Customs Officials, and submitted to the equally nebulious Senior Banking Officials, of which the Regular Old Customs Officials—our friends and allies—had no control over. Our buddies would do their best but they were very sorry because, furthermore, the Regular Old Customs Officials were not permitted to submit preliminary paperwork on the situation until ten days after Orca had sailed away, putting lil' old Kara and John well out into the Pacific where we'd be powerless to object to any funny business on the international banking scene.

We were escorted by an albatross and a handfull of dolphins on a fast but uncomfortable passage to New Caledonia, little more than a French mining outpost. The only city, Noumea, is shrouded in multicolored smoke billowing from the smelters. The mountains, once covered in regal pines and ancient kauri trees, have been stripped of vegetation, slashed by roads, torn by strip mines. Each gash and gouge bleeds deep red earth into the ocean as the naked topsoil sloughs from nearly every hillside.

Despite this, New Caledonia is a delightful place. The climate melds the best of all worlds—warm water, turqoise lagoons, tropical reefs, and palm trees somehow coexist with cool dry air, tall scrub covered mountans, and endless sunshine. The island claims the world's second most extensive tropical reef system—the largest is Australia's Great Barrier Reef, where we're heading next—and a magnificient variety of terrestrial and marine life. We sailed miles up the Baie du Prony, a network of desert fjords, hotsprings, and cool mountain streams. Then out into the motu-strewn lagoon where there are entire atolls snared in reef. The lagoon is large enough to be a playground for whales and measures 50 ocean miles across in places, some of the islands along the fringing reef ridiculiously tiny and remote. We stopped at several.

On one, the ringing whitesand beach was completely devoid of human footprints but the sand was scored with hundreds of sinous grooves leading from the water into the bush. We wandered up into the scrub and stumbled to a horrified halt as the leaves around our feet rustled with dry scrapes and slow rustles. Red-and-black and white-and-black coral snakes were everywhere. Like a horror movie, each way we turned revealed a snarl of snakes--under rocks, passing over a root, draped around branch, dangling from a rock ledge, or coiled beneath a log. We both squealed like little girls and tiptoed back to sand. The snakes are highly venemous but classified as "non-agressive"; we might have found out just how non-agressive they really were if we'd stepped on one. Kara had nightmares about sea snakes climbing up the anchor chain and dropping into her bunk that night. We slept stuffy with all ports closed.

A small limestone island we anchored at had a posh resort, completely abandoned. We wandered the deserted buildings being retaken by the jungle, unnerved by the sight of abandoned luggage, TV's, stereos, computers, boats, a forlorn german shepard left behind and delighted to see humans once more. The Mary Celeste of four-star resorts. The dog had survived for months by drinking rainwater caught in the swimming pool and plunging off the docks into the lagoon to catch fish like a pelican.

By this time, we were really wondering if our NZ customs money had come in, so we sailed out to the Ile of Pines where a hotel was rurmored to have internet access. Of course, the money had not arrived in our bank account (and was long overdue by this time). We called our liason at the customs office, but her voicemail said she would be vacationing in Dubai for the next 3 weeks. We called a different customs officer; also out of the office. We called the 24/7 NZ customs 800 number hotline many times across two days to hear endless ringing. At this point, we seriously began to wonder if the entire NZ customs beaurocracy was on holiday, courtesy of the Orca deposit. We eventually found real people and, after a few hours of Skype, we had it all sorted out.

As for us, we're faced with the difficult decision to either sail down to Australia, where we will no-doubt be sucked into a second beaurocratic vortex, or to stay in the tropics through the summer cyclone season and face the possibility of a naturally occuring, but equally inconvienient, meterological vortex. Given the choice of being at the mercy of 200 knot hurricane-force winds or Australian Customs/Immigration/Health/Quarrantine/Agriculture/Termite inspections, fees and proceedures, we choose the latter, but just.

Untill next time,

John & Kara

SV Orca

Ile des Pines, Nouvelle Caledonia

Orca Update 24

Hi Everyone!

By June, with major boat projects behind us, we were ready to tackle the Tasman. Unfortunately, there were two things holding us back—the Tasman Sea in the middle of winter is not known for its balmy weather, smooth seas, or fair winds. The second was that Tim and Ann, the Parents, were scheduled for a visit of a rather worrying duration—four weeks. In the dead of winter, with fifteen hour nights, intermittent flurries of marble-sized hailstones, and unbroken grey skies, there would be a formidable span of quality time together.

We picked them up on a frosty Monday morning. As we crested the Coromandel mountains, the Parents, in equal parts horror and fascination, remarked on the numerous waterfalls, rock-slides, and trees actively cascading onto the road. The tropical foliage thrashed wildly in 40 knot gusts, shaking loose a thin coating of frost and small drifts of hailstones—a combination of elements that inspired additional shock and awe.

By the time we arrived at the rented cabin, the Parents had lapsed into the kind of dazed silence you'd expect, having just realized that they could have gone to Fiji instead. Making the best of it, they explored the little cabin. There was a notice that said, in true Kiwi fashon, yes, the house sometimes shakes alarmingly, but don't worry about it. She'll be alright, mate. Then the wind increased from 40 knots to 50, and the house did indeed shake alarmingly.

There were two small space heaters, which seemed incredibly inadequate against the fierce onslaught of weather. The Parents were not convinced it was possible for a civilization to exist under such conditions without the outhouse-sized forced air furnaces of California. It wasn't until we drove them into town that they truly grasped the hardy nature of the New Zealander. I pointed left and right, driving down the main street. Here you see an old man, shorts and a tee, leaning into the rain with an protective arm across his eyes. There you see young mother, tank-top, pushing a double-wide stroller with infant twins aboard, wool blankets lashed across them. Oh look, the stroller is too wide to fit in the coffee shop, she's left the kids out on the sidewalk. They'll be 'right, mate.

First, the wind blew onshore, East at 40 knots. One morning, we woke and the wind was blowing offshore, West at 40 knots. The 5-day forecast called for heavy rain and winds of varying direction but constant velocity—all 40-50 knots. After a week cooped up, the Parents decided a road-trip was just what they needed. We drove into the storm, keen to see the sights. We hit Mount Ngarhoe (cast as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings). Kara, stepping over hail- and snowdrifts to the edge of the parking lot, pointed vaguely in the direction the peak should be, but the stinging rain and icy cloud had reduced the view to a few leafless shrubs clinging to life in the gravely soil along the road. We visited a thermal river for a soak in the hot springs, but with lightening striking the nearby hills and dark pregnant skies, the threat of flash flood never really receeded from our minds. Then we drove the length of the Surf Highway, around Mount Taranaki (also hidden in frozen fog), to check the waves. As we pulled up to the surf at Raglan, a wayward shaft of sunlight briefly passed over the car, causing great excitement. As we fumbled for our cameras, it faded and left gunmetal skies and an ocean ravaged by storm-force onshores and 25 feet of sloppy windchop. A bit disillusioned by the road trip, Mom took the wheel to give driving on the left a try. We had a brief but thrilling detour down the wrong side of the street, one set of tires cruising across a lawn and the other in the street, the axels spanning the sidewalk. Then, after an abrupt halt during which Kara explained the vagaries of having both steering wheel and traffic in the new and exciting orientation, Mom drove with more success.

By the end of their trip, the Parents were masters of down-under driving. Unfazed by the double clockwise multi-lane roundabouts, they negotiated the approach and dropped themselves off at the airport's curb. Happily, they'd somehow decided that New Zealand was good fun afterall, and when asked about their trip they'd say things like "it was meterologically thrilling." We saw them through security and waved goodby with Uncle Dave, Aunt Maryanne snapping pictures to the last. Despite (and, in a way, because of) the weather, we had a uniquely enjoyable visit with them, one I'm sure they will never forget.

With our filial duties discharged, we are now ready to go to sea. Spring is just around the corner—in fact, the weather has been beautiful for almost two weeks now. We plan to have a leisurely sail up the east coast of New Zealand to Opua and then head back to the tropics. After a brief stop in New Caledonia, we'll head for Australia's Great Barrier Reef and then south, clear of the tropics by December cyclone season.

Thanks!

John & Kara

Hello all!

The last two months have kept us very busy. We'd two major boat maintence tasks to perform. The first was a new coat of bottom paint. Orca's 30-month-old coating had lost much of its effective toxicity; long strands of growth were looking comfortable on her hull. The second was to replace the cables which hold up the mast. This job is supposed to be done every 10 years, but our suspicions were that Orca's rigging was probably twice that age.

We pulled into the slipway and the yard boys tossed us lines. A strap went around the mast and up to a crane, we detached all the rigging and pop, off came the mast. We loaded the mast onto a stretch trailer and sent it off to the rigger's shop. Then a pair of weighted straps were lowered under the keel. With the roar of powerful diesel engines, a cloud of black smoke, and the whine of hydraulic pumps, Orca was lifted from the water.

The yard manager was apologetic when he informed us that the only space availiable was adjacent to the freeway. We soon discovered a charming sequence of events as each semi-truck went roaring by. First, a low vibration would rush along the ground into the boat, giving us just a bit of warning before Orca would shudder in her cradle, reeling from the pressure wave. Hot exhaust fumes swirled by in a momentary blizzard. It was great incentive to get on with the job and get back in the water.

The usual course of events for re-antifouling a hull is to wet-sand the old and slap on the new coat of paint. Unfortunately, we found that somewhere, back down in the geology of Orca's onion-skin paint buildup, one layer of paint was not adhering to the previous layer, bring the whole stack off in chips and flakes. We decided to do the job properly and scrape the hull back to factory conditon—unpainted gelcoat—and start over. And thus began 10 days of intense physical labor, first with carbide scrapers, then with 36-grit disc sanders. We ground through two dozen layers of antifoul paint, and discovered the signature Cape Dory factory blue about a quarter inch down. Signature Blue dust was resistant to even the most vigorous scrubbing and we lived like Smurfs for a week. The work was particularly distasteful for Kara, who'd been raised with BPA-free waterbottles and organic produce, because we finished each day covered head-to-toe in intensely toxic waste. Drinking beer with the boys in the yard, they would nod sagely at our skin tone. Carefull, they'd say. Make sure you cover up. Last two times I scraped back, I ended up in hospital with copper poisoning...

Arguably, it was all worth it as we rolled the first beautiful coats of new paint onto Orca's immaculate egg-shell hull. We buffed and waxed to a high sheen above the waterline, and had a new vynl name and hailing port printed up for the transom. We also spent several days working on the mast, completely dissasembling the entire structure. After checking each bolt, replacing many, we reassembled and attached the new wires the rigger had prepared for us. After three weeks on the hard, we splashed on a Friday morning, re-stepped the mast, topped up on fuel, reattached the boom, ran up the sails, and escaped up the coast to Whangamata. Just in time too; Kara had booked a visit back to the States and was due to fly out the next day.

Dropping Signature-Blue-Kara off at the airport, she was clearly in need of at least a month of recovery. I rated my chances of ever getting her back near those for getting struck by lightening.

During the lonely weeks that followed, long-lost Uncle Dave and family opened their house and lives to me. Soon, I was tagging along to work with U.D, where we discovered a mutual love of coffee. Somehow, it never ceased to amaze U.D when we wouldn't arrive at the job site until 2pm. But we only stopped for coffee four times! he'd lament. One particular job-site was a high-roller corporate headquarters with a fully equipped kitchen, sporting a top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art expresso machine which necessitated frequent, lengthy coffee breaks. With caffeen roaring in my ears and hands trembling, I could barely raise the fifth double hazelnut/carmel mochachino to my lips.

Heading into May, the start of the southern winter, the temperature began to drop—more hot coffee was not the answer. I phoned up Kara and put in an order for a diesel heater for Orca. Amazingly, at the end of May, not only did Kara return, but she was toting two massive boxes filled with a heater and all our favorite goodies from back home. We spent three days installing the heater, gritting our teeth as we spun up a 5-inch hole saw to cut through Orca's deck.

As we send this off, Orca is in the best condition she's been in since she left the factory floor 33 years ago. We're not sure where we want to take her next, but we find that there huge freedom in knowing she's once again capable of crossing any ocean on the planet.

Haul Out

In preparation for haul out and new rigging we took of the sails and boom. Not a good look for our seaworthy Orca.











As life with boats always goes there was more work to be done than we expected.

Orca Update 21

Hello from Tauranga!

As we left you last time, we were just pulling into the Marina here in the Bay of Plenty. Time and again, we've been warmly recieved in ports frequented by blue-water sailors. Tauranga was no exception: A day after arriving, a stranger had aranged a free ride to Auckland for us with a friend-of-a-friend.

So just like that, we doubled up docklines and said goodby to Orca. A ride with yet another quirky boatie brought us to Uncle Dave's house, where we were welcomed. Cousin Daniel, who builds houses for a living, encouraged us to leave behind our ocean lifestyle for a weekend and follow him on "a little adventure." Sure, sounds like fun. On Thursday, Dan left instructions for us to pick up "a bit of gear" from a friend. We drove over, and the heap of gear waiting for us was our first hint that we were in for a bit more than we barganined for. Mountain bikes, harnesses, miles of rope, carabeaners, miner's helmets, life jackets, wetsuits, a kayak, sleeping bags, crash helmets, and overalls.

At this point, another unsuspecting victim joined the expedition. Marc arrived from Monterey for a visit. He had a pile of surfboards and a keen hankering for jucy left pointbreak, but Dan told him, in no uncertain terms, that there was going to be a just slight detour on our way to the beach. Leaving surfboards behind, we loaded up and sped off into the night. Around 10, we pulled over and drifted off to sleep in the van.

We were abruptly awoken at 6 a.m. as the van careened from paved onto dirt road. Dan, who doesen't seem to need any sleep, had been up before light checking the caving gear. Just before dawn, he decided it was high time to get the show on the road and snuck into the driver's seat. We pulled over at an innocious-looking pasture in the middle of nowhere. Dan, illuminated by a magnanimous glow of generosity in the morning light, told us he was taking it easy on us since it was day one. We even had time to wolf a quick bite of breakfast. Tomorrow, we won't be geting such a late start, he promised.

Outfitted with long underwear, fleece, woolen caps, overalls, and miners helmets, we lept the barbed fence. We stopped in a depression, near a blackberry bush. We were here! But what was here? We expected to walk around in a cave for a few minutes, ooh and ahh some stalagtites, and jump back in the van. But then what was all this gear for? Dan whipped out a laminated sketch, handed us another copy. It was important, he reminded us, that we all had maps—incase he didn't make it. The sketch was a tangled and confusing network of dotted and solid lines. There was some text too, names like "The Birth Canal," and "The Long Squeeze." Dan gestured toward the blackbery bush, and told us to climb in. At the base of the bush was a dark muddy crack leading 12 feet straight down, about 10" wide. I looked at Marc,a big strapping young buck of 6'3 with broad strong shoulders and size 14 sneakers. I wished him luck, and we slithered in. You won't find any tourists down here, Dan promised.

After an hour of twisting and turning down into the cave, Marc was thinking that this was the worst surf-trip he'd never even dreamed of. At least 100 feet underground, he was deep in "The Long Squeeze," about 20 feet into the tube with a twisting 15' remaining before it opened up again. He was also stripped down to his underwear. Dan figured undressing would help to minimise his size and give maximum freedom of movement. Marc was covered in mud, eye wide with his constricted breath misting before him as Dan coached him through the contortions necessary to pass "just a bit of a kink." Helpful phrases like "bend your spine over backwards!" and "try not to breath!" echoed down the tunnels.

After that, things opened up and we joined an underground river. The rock formations were fantastic: white collumns, brown spires, flowstone, waterfalls, cliffs and beaches, all underground. When we emerged hours later, exhausted, bruised and sore, we were deep in a forest and it was pouring rain. A short hike brought us back to the van, where Dan appraised our sorry state and decided that about 3 hours of rock climbing was just what we needed.

The rest of that day was a blur, but our brains once again began recording memory around 6 a.m the next morning, as Dan guided the van towards the mighty Tongariro River. It'd been raining all night, so he figured this was a good time for "a quick river float," which he thought should wake us up effectively. Dan doesn't believe in coffee. We piled in rafts and were swept off down the muddy, swolen river. 2 hours and 60 rapids later, we were fully awake as we loaded the raft for the drive back to the van. Since we were already quite wet, there was a nearby underground river network Dan thought we should explore. We squeezed and splashed through a new cave, keeping the glow worms company. Our guide noticed we were exhausted to the point of being delusional, so, having no map of this cave, he took the opportunity to pretend we were lost, dropping comments like "is it just me or does the water look higher to you, mate?"

The following morning when Dan rousted us, it was pitch black. He told us we were going for a 20 km tramp over some volcanoes, so dress warm. Steam filtered out of the black and broken ground as we moved across the summit and down the backside of the volcanic ridge. Well down the backside, Dan turned around to "pop back over," grab the van, and pick us up on the other side. When we finally stumbled into the parking lot, Dan was bouncing with impatience for the next adventure. Since we were hot, sweaty, and stinky, we drove back to the Tongariro River, grabbed a coil of line and we jumped back in for a bit of canyoning. The short definition of canyoning is traveling down a section of river, on foot and in the water, that has too many waterfalls for a raft or kayak to run. I only hazily remember two things from that afternoon. The first is Dan telling us to jump in the river, float through this next set of rapids, but be careful to stop at the end as there is a 60 foot waterfall just around the corner. The second is when we jumped off a cliff which was high enough that when Marc didn't clench his lips on impact, the water in his mouth split his upper lip away from his gums. Back at the van, Dan peered inside his mouth, decided that the doctors probably wouldn't be able to stitch him up anyway, and off we went.

We've only touched on about half of the activities we did with Dan—but that's because we only remember half. Mostly we recall the mornings, before the daily exhaustion began to take its toll. Our firm belief is that the only reason we survived is because Dan had to go back to work on Monday. To recuperate, we left Dan behind and drove to the beach. The culmination of our search for surf was at Shipwreck Bay. With the help of two wooden boards and an hour's careful driving and pushing, we got our sedan out through the tide pools to the surf. The double overhead waves were smoking around the point and they just kept on going. On the biggest day, we marked out on the beach how long our rides were. We used the car's odometer to measure the distances, and found that we were getting waves over a mile long. After our fourth session that day, we felt like we were back with Daniel—exhaustedly euphoric.

By the time the swell was spent, it was time for poor Marc to move on. Originally he'd planned to continue to Austrailia, Indonesia, and Fiji in his search for waves. He'd arrived in NZ in top physical condition, ready for anything, but now he was sporting two injured knees, a split lip, and a bad gash to his hand. He was exhausted and having a hard time with side effects from antibiotics he was taking for his wounds. Marc flew home to recuperate, with plans to pick up his trip in a few months when he's recovered.

Sorry this has dragged on so long, but even so we've had to skip over so much: another canyoning trip, going deep inside a cave network of WWII gun turrets. A crazy drive out in the boonies to a strange hospital for Marc's hand. Mountain biking, two days of perfect surf at the Whangamata Bar. A long drive and all night vigil on Orca for the Japanese Tsunami. Lots of hot springs, museums. Two nights with Cassandra, when we speared enough fish and gathered enough abalone for a feast for ten, later cooked by Mike, a chef at a five star resort.

Orca Update #20

Last time, we were just heading into Whangeri to re-supply. 12 miles up the river, we found the marina was overflowing with boats, rafted 3 deep along the town basin. Since the marina was full, we tied up alongside a wooden jetty across from town, ran across the street to the busy supermarket. We filled our cart, dashed across the boulevard and bounced out to the dock. We loaded up and shipped out.

We'd only made it a few miles down the river when our weather maps began to look a bit ominous. A sequence of cyclones were forecast to wander down from the tropics. The first few were relatively weak, but even so, all that week we lay at anchor, with winds gusting to 50 knots. As each storm moved over, the wind would clock through 360 degrees, but dead calm when the center passed over. The wind and rain swirling off the hills would catch us at different angles, Orca slewing about. The barometer cycled through a range of 30 millibars, down into the 980's and back up past 1010. Waves were washing over the freeway in Auckland but we were safe and cozy. The first blow was exciting. The second was entertaining. By the third, we were going stir-crazy. Trapped below during the last storm for 3 days straight, we had severe, terminal cabin fever. We cleared out the cabin and played exercise videos, sweating to the oldies.

When there was a break between storms, we dashed out to Great Barrier Island, just off the coast of Auckland. The island sports a fickle but excellent river mouth surf-spot. Cyclone Wilma, the biggest yet, was due in just 36 hours, and she was pumping out swell. We hustled over to the unprotected side of the island to snatch a surf. The waves were pushing double-overhead, hollow, howling offshore winds, and fantastic. We anchored outside the lineup, so it was hard to tell how big it was—at least that's what Kara said afterward. She was a maniac; taking off on the biggest waves of the day, free falling down the face. She would rip a big bottom turn and shoot off down the line. When the spray cleared, the guys in the lineup were buzzing. “Holy crap, did you see that?” “That's my kind of woman!”

An hour later, the swell was even bigger, out of control. The latest weatherfax showed Wilma 250 miles NE of New Zealand, central pressure 950 millibars, winds over 100 knots, and heading right for Great Barrier Island. Nerves jangling, we pushed Orca hard, motor-sailing around to the west side of the island where the best anchorages are. Since Orca is small and doesn't draw much water, we were able to tuck up into the head of a deep valley. Along with a couple of other sailboats, we started preparing a day early, positioning our boats and anchors to best advantage against the low spots in the steep hills, where the wind would likely be coming from. We anchored and re-anchored 3 times before both of us were satisfied--two storm anchors on separate lines, one all chain, one half nylon. We kept our last anchor and chain aboard, in case we had to abandon the first two and re-anchor during the storm. Then, we celebrated: it had been 1 year--to the very day--since we left the dock in Moss Landing.

The eye was forecast to pass at 4 am, so it wasn't until evening when the weather started. It was muggy—80 degrees and misty. The mist turned to drizzle, then rain, then hard rain. A deluge. The nearby weather station recorded 2 inches of rain per hour, all evening. The water in the anchorage turned muddy brown, but still there was no wind. It started to get dark, we gave everything a final check, lashed down everything on deck, dogged the hatches and...and suddenly there were big powerboats pouring into the anchorage. They came it fast with big wakes, drinking beer, stereos blaring. They plunked their cute little toy anchors down all around us. The skipper of the sailboat next to us, who'd also been struggling with numerous heavy anchors all morning, looked over, rolled his eyes, and shrugged. What can you do? The rain slowed, and the first puffs of wind riffled the water's surface. We read and tried to get some sleep.

By 2 AM the wind was screaming through the rig and gusts were buffeting from different directions. The barometer bottomed out, the wind shifted directions and redoubled. Most of the load passed to our second, more powerful anchor. By 5 a.m. that anchor line was straight as a bar and thrumming like a guitar string, stretching off the bow almost horizontal. It was impossible to move against the wind and the rain in the air was salty—spray lifted off the water in the cove. We were out on deck with flashlights warning people away from our ground tackle: boats were dragging anchor all over the anchorage, motoring around in the dark at full throttle but only half in control, blown around as each blast hit.

I had two flashlights out, one illuminating each anchor rode, when the biggest gust hit. It came off the hills from a new direction, thrashing the trees like mad. It turned the water white, lifting spray off the waves and rolling like a cotton ball across the anchorage. I wrapped myself around the windlass. Orca staggered, heeled over, rail in the water and ports awash. In the cabin, things came lose and crashed about. Lines creaked and groaned through the fair leads, the nylon stretching and absorbing the shock.. The anchors held. A powerboat drifted by in slow motion, 30 yards away, anchor out, no one at the wheel. Back in the thick of the anchored boats, there was chaos.

That was the last serious gust. We don't know how windy it got. The nearby weather station stopped reporting after 70 knots. A newspaper article claimed gusts to 110 knots. When dawn illuminated the now-quiet anchorage, the layout was completely different—half the boast had shifted overnight. People were zipping about in dinghies, chatting, apologizing, exchanging information if they'd collided. We tried to pull up our anchors but they dug in too deep. We winched the lines up tight, vertical, and waited for the tide to rise and the mud to ooze.

Eventually we got them up. We spent a few more days in the West side of the island, hiking and fishing, and then a few more on the East side, surfing and enjoying the settled weather. We're now a bit down the coast, in the Bay of Plenty at Taurunga. We'll catch a ride up to the cousin's house in Auckland next week.

update 19

Happy New Year from Whangarei, NZ!


After leaving Opua and the Bay of Islands behind, we were anxious for the Big New Zealand Potter Family Reunion to begin. Kara's parents, older sister, and nephew were flying from California. Her younger brother and sister had been hiking on NZ's South Island and were flying in from Christchurch. Aunt Abby was flying in from Honolulu. We'd been in the South Pacific and mostly out of contact. Despite the logistical difficulties, the plan was for everyone converge in Auckland December 2nd.

Kara's family have been known to be a bit emotional at times, so the streets of Auckland were probably not the best place for the first meeting. Passers by gave us sympathetic looks, plainly wondering who had died as tears puddled on the sidewalk. Kara's younger siblings, fresh from backpacking the South Island, had transformed from two two clean-cut models of personal hygiene into something a bit more woodsy: over the next few days they spent a great deal of time picking twigs and leaves out of their hair and maintaining their dreadlocks against the onslaught of shampoo and conditioner. Mother was not entirely thrilled.

We spent two blissful weeks with the family, hiking, surfing, fishing, and catching up with each other. Having been sitting on the boat for the last year, we had trouble keeping up with the hiking, but we eventually learned how to walk in a straight line again. We plied them with our home brewed beer, which was such a big hit that when it was time to go, they cleaned out the local supermarket and loaded their suitcases with enough raw material to yield 80 gallons of beer. Again, mother was not entirely pleased.

Eventually it was time to go. The goodbye lasted over an hour, in the rain, on the street – again. When everyone was all cried out, they climbed in the car and drove back to the airport, and we lost ourselves in boat work for the next two weeks. For Christmas, we caught a ride in “the Whale” back up to Shipwreck bay for a few days of surf – glassy, well overhead. On the way back, Kara went for a soak in some exceptionally stinky hot springs. The rotten-egg scent lingered on her for days, which was a bit unfortunate as we spent the subsequent week sealed up in Orca during heavy summer rains.


Up to this point, we had yet to encounter the long lost Uncle Dave Pennington, who had slipped out of California sometime in the late 70's or early 80's, moved to New Zealand, and now—reportedly—lives in Auckland with his wife and three boys. I'd only met him once, when I was 12. Our plan was to meet him just up the coast for New Year's where an email hinted we could catch him and the family camping on the beach – how hard could it be?

When we pulled into the appointed bay, we were greeted by hundreds of tents on the beach. Between Christmas and New Year's its a kiwi tradition to trade the crowds and comforts of the city for—well, crowds and comforts. The massive tents were packed in so tight that in many places you couldn't walk between them. Inside cloth houses one finds couches, TV's, 4-post beds, refrigerators, showers, and sinks: all the amenities of home. We picked our way through the tent city looking for the mythical Uncle Dave. With no cell signal, we had some detective work to do: we didn't know what he looked like, what kind of car he drove, anything at all, really, except his name. We started canvassing the neighborhood. Eventually we found someone who had actually spoken to the mysterious creature, but they remembered only sketchy details of the encounter: he drove a green van towing a silver boat, there may have been a dog involved. By New Year's eve, we had half the tent town looking for green-van-silver-boat and still hadn't found him. We had a lovely evening anyway with a couple of sailors from Amsterdam and their Kiwi family who had been helping us track the elusive Uncle Dave. It was a true New Zealand New Years, celebrated in a sheep shearing shed on a green pasture surrounded by big tents filled with full-sized home appliances.

Eventually we cornered him. He had avoided detection by driving a silver van with a green boat, but we forgave him his deception and were soon re-meeting family. They gave us a crash course in NZ – we had marmite, learned Maori history, and were “chuffed” to learned “heaps” of “wicked” kiwi lingo, "eh?" We spent three days with the Pennington's before the wind came up and drove us out of the bay to find better shelter. We're now anchored in the mouth of the Whangarei estuary waiting for the tide to take us into town.

Thanks!


Kara and John

update 18

Hello from Tutukaka, NZ!

Well, we finally escaped Opua. We just got a little too comfortable with the showers & laundry and before we knew it a month had passed – guess we have a different sense of time now. There was plenty to keep us busy though. We'd only been in the country a few days when we hear wild yelling and hooting outside the boat – it was Don & Kim, the dynamic beer-brewing/surfing duo we had met 3,000 miles back in Raiatea,. They were burning doughnuts in their dingy in excitement; seems they'd rustled up a some transportation. It turned out to be a not-very-sexy looking van. This would have been a big setback in CA, where surfers pride themselves on the size of their truck and the shinyness of their chrome step-sides. Don & Kim's van, however, is a box with wheels, riddled with rust holes. It took a pry-bar to get the rear door open, most of the exhaust system had rusted away, there didn't seem to be any seatbelts, the headliner sagged onto your head, the undercarriage was held together by bits of galvanized wire and zip ties. But “The Whale” was not chosen at random, for (1) it's Japanese – very light for its size; (2) the engine was mounted in the center of the van – weight distributed evenly to all four tires; (3) its a turbodiesel – few electrical components to give trouble in the salt water; and (4) it has true 4WD. In short, with the tires half deflated and the transmission in 4-low, there's no beach it can't conquer. So, before we really knew what had happened we found ourselves kidnapped, plowing over sand dunes miles from the nearest road with nothing but our surfboards, wetsuits, a package of noodles, and 20 liters of homebrewed beer. We were off to chase the swell and offshore wind across the North Island.

Surfing in NZ is a bit different than back in California. Instead of houses and roads crowding the coast, vying for every penny of that “million dollar view”, there are almost no houses and very few roads branching out to the coast—even in the 'crowded' Northland. The only reasonable surf tripping strategy is to find a road to the coast and, at the ocean, turn left or right down the coast, off-road. Then, in 4WD, one must duck through forests, plow over sand dunes, splash down the beaches, and bounce over the rocky outcrops and cobblestones. Once the ideal wave has been located, set up camp, preferably above the high-tide line (you only make that mistake once). In general, the wave quality seems higher than California, and there are very few surfers. The attitude among the locals we've met is “I sure am glad you guys are here, I get tired of surfing alone. Also, can you pull my car out of the sand before the tide gets too high?” In fact, we only saw a handful of other cars, mostly on 90-mile beach (which is a bona fide national highway) In fact, 90-mile has an enforced speed limit and a few other traffic laws. Unfortunately, you only want to take this highway on low tide when there's not much swell, otherwise its underwater. “Honey, can you pick up dinner on the way home from work?” takes on new excitement when one can stop in the middle of the freeway to dig clams or surf-cast during the commute.

We made several trips with Don & Kim, surfing both the Tasman and the Pacific. The highlight of the trips was camping on the beach and surfing at Shipwreck Bay, which resembles a left-hand Santa Cruz. A 5-mile long (mostly) sand bottomed pointbreak picks up the powerful SW swell coming out of the Tasman. (Oddly enough, these are exactly the same SW swells that we surfed in California and Baja.). At Shippy's, there are 7 or 8 surf spots along the point, and when there's enough swell, they link together for a remarkable ride. The wave type ranges from fun Pleasure-Point to super-hollow slab, and the prevailing wind is offshore. If your tetanus shots are up to date, you can surf by the rusty iron shipwreck protruding from the water just off the beach.

So, after much surfing and only a little beer drinking, it was with calm weather and minimal swell on the forecast that we finally left Opua. A sunny sail out of the Bay of Islands put us in position to make Whangamumu harbor, a flooded volcano caldera just to the south of Cape Brett. The coast is rugged and cliffy, like Big Sur, but with no houses or roads. Most of the beautiful bays and harbors are accessible only by boat. We spent two nights anchored in the flooded crater, where we had access to a well-exposed surfing spot by hiking over the southern rim to the next beach.

We're now a few miles further South, in Tutukaka Marina, to meet up with Kara's family for a long-awaited reunion. Its been over 11 months since we've seen them. In the meantime, we've come up with some figures to sum up our trip from CA to NZ:

distance traveled: 9,600 nautical miles

time away from home: 11 months

nights at sea: ~70

nights spent at a dock: 1 (Mexico)

days at sea with 12'+ seas: 5

days at sea becalmed: 4

days wasted on bureaucracy, including port captain, customs, agriculture, immigration, health clearances, etc: 25

longest time between 'real' showers: 6 months (Mexico to Fiji)

scariest moments: riding in car in La Paz (nearly hit by a bus), crossing street in NZ (also nearly hit by a bus)