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Cruising
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H&M's
2001 Adventure
Voyages of Sugar Blues
Sugar
Blues
Flowers
in the lagoon
Aitutaki
- Maybe this
time
Niue and Tonga
Godzone
- Life in
the
left lane...
Tonga
II
I
Got My Sevusevu
in Savusavu in my
Vulavula Sulu
Rotuma
- A Split
Island
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Godzone - Life in the left lane,
with judder bars and trundler carts, chilly bins and panel beaters.....
by Harry and Mary Abbott
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| I stumble sleepily through
the companionway and as my eyes adjust to the darkness about me, I
focus first on the Southern Cross. Standing proud and straight during
my first watch, it now lies askew, an injured look about it. I follow
the Milky Way north and am surprised to still see the Big Dipper just
before it slips out of sight at the horizon. |
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Tongatapu is close to starboard,
waiting for the morning sun and Maui of old to fish it up from the sea.
Waiting these few precious hours I try to recall six months worth of
memories and to attempt to describe a country of beauty and innocence, The
Land of the Long White Cloud, Aotearoa.
| The first thing we did, after
putting the boat on a mooring, was to procure a motorcar (something
like an automobile but with the steering wheel on the wrong side) load
the chilly bin up with bickies, bangers, a box of rice bubbles, and
hit the bitumen. We topped up the beater's petrol at the first bowser.
Still cold as a well digger's, we slipped a cardie over our singie and
she was a box of fluffy ducks. Geeze, I thought Tahitian was hard!
It's enough to make you throw a wobbly. Okay, okay, back to
American.... |
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| En Zed is indeed a country of
contrasts. North Island ranges from the sand dunes of 90 Mile Beach at
the top, to the hot springs of Rotorua, to the windy and sophisticated
capital city of Wellington at the bottom. Walking its streets reminded
me of San Francisco without porno.
After an unsuccessful attempt to
see a wild kiwi on a guided night walk in the Kauri forest we resorted to
looking at captive kiwi's through glass. Hardly ever does information on
kiwi birds not include the famous X - ray of a female with an egg nearly
ready to lay. It's very impressive. Comparatively, an ordinary hen would lay
a fourteen inch egg weighing three pounds.
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| Six hours on the
Cook Strait Ferry and we were in Picton, a small town whose only
redeeming value is a protected harbor and good motor camps. The
motorcamps of New Zealand are definitely good value. For a campsite
you pay a fee of about $3 U.S. per person. This includes the use of
hot showers and a full kitchen. For about $4.50 U.S. you get a cabin,
spartan, but very handy on those rainy days South Island is noted for.
We were very lucky with weather, once missing by fifty miles a hail
storm that absolutely devastated the year's apple crop.
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Roberton Island, or Motuarohia, is typical of the
beautiful Bay of Islands anchorages. |
| Tramping
is the great New Zealand pastime. It's a bit like hiking except you
wear tramping boots instead of hiking boots. The great Milford Track
is so popular that you must make reservations. We opted for the
beautiful Abel Tasman track at the top of South Island, as it
generally has the best weather. A full trek for an average hiker is
about four to five days, but this one you can do in sandals, and let
the boat deliver your pack from hut to hut. Because of time pressures,
we hiked in for two days and took the boat back.
Although we spent a month on
the road in the motorcar, we didn't begin to see the wonders of the
South Island - the fiords, the icefields, the yellow-crested penguins,
Cadbury's chocolate factory......or the sandflies. Maybe next year.
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Russell anchorage, Bay of Islands. Previously
Kororareka, or Sweet Penguin. The bay is
still full of Little Blue Penguins.
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| Back
in the Bay of Islands we hauled out for three weeks for long overdue
maintenance. The floats were sanded down and coated with Copper Poxy,
a Systems 3 product. No more bottom paint for five to ten years (they
also had a bridge in Brooklyn they tried to sell me.) Actually, it has
worked fairly well in the clean tropical waters of Tonga and Fiji,
with only a scrub needed once a week. We also added a sugar scoop on
Sugar Blues, trying to get her transom wake down. |
Bay of Islands raft up includes left to right: "Ariadne" a
33' (now 36') Kantola, "Sugar Blues" a 39" Derek Jones
one-off, "Swish" (Kiwi for elegant) a 51' Gary Underwood
one-off, "Tevake" a modified 43' (now 48') Roger Simpson,
"Diabolo" a 40' (now 43') Crowther designed Catana
cat. |
| Just as I
thought I had the hang of this metric stuff, I visited Roger's machine
shop. "Hey, Roger. I took a dozen of these bolts. I don't know
what that is in metric," I quipped. Instantly and without the
slightest hint of a smile, he said, "Fourdeen."
Finally we launched on, what
else, April Fool's Day. Two hours after hitting the water we were
first across the starting line in the local multihull race. No way
could we beat "Swish," a fifty foot one-off with wingmast
and 800 foot main. But later at the Russell Boating Club we came in
first as we were handed the traditional bottle of rum for hard work
and enthusiasm. The commodore demonstrated another Kiwi tradition
when, before handing me my prize, he unscrewed the lid and chucked it
in the rubbish tip. This bottle was definitely not meant to make it
home. Music and dancing went on long into the night. |
Daysailing on "Swish" we tested Newton's
law of motion when the dagger board hit the mud bank at 11 knots. Says
Suazie of "Diabolo", "Ze trimarans are dangerous,
no?" |
| Back in February
a race of a bit grander magnitude took place. It was the Tall Ships
Race in I think its nineteenth year. Old rules were that any ordinary
boat with two masts could enter. Now, because of interest, a separate
class has been established for those so poor that they can only afford
one mast. This year over 100 boats participated. We sailed for awhile
alongside some truly beautiful schooners and gaff cutters, but turned
back early to get a good parking place for "Sugar Blues" and
a good seat at the Hangi that always follows the race. A Hangi, or
Maori barbecue, is not to be missed. In this case the pit is probably
ten feet by twenty feet and chockablock with pork, chicken, fish,
kumara and veggies - with a possum or two at the bottom. Add to that
plenty of beer and music and you've got a flaming good piss up.
By April the nip of autumn
was upon us. Hints of our breath hung in the early morning air. The
delicate game begins again, trying to slide up to the islands after
the last hurricane, yet before New Zealand's first winter storm. |
The "Tucker Thompson" in the Tall Ships
Race.
Joe Cotton (far right) has helped organized this
annual Hangi for nearly 20 years. Coming out of the pit are thousands
of pipis and mussles. Over 700 wrapped meals are steaming underneath
the shellfish.
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Us, we bashed our way out just as
we bashed our way in. Thirty knot northeasters had us under double reefed
main and just a tad bit of the new roller furling jib. Negotiating a trip to
the head was akin to John Travolta riding the mechanical bull in Urban
Cowboy. "Sugar Blues" leaped off waves, crashing into the next one
at ten knots. I marvel at how strong Derek built this boat.
Ours was the easy trip, however.
The next group to leave will be remembered as the Fastnet of New Zealand.
There are two New Zealand to Tonga rallies that are very popular, one
beginning about May first and one a month later. This year the early group
of thirty endured the same rotten north east winds we did. With the
exception of a few broken headstays, however, all survived. The June group
of about thirty rally boats plus miscellaneous yachties caught the last
freak storm of the year. Although wind velocity never exceeded 80 knots, the
toll was staggering. Three boats were sunk, three people were lost, at least
five boats were dismasted, eight disabled and abandoned. "Vivace,"
a Ron Givin Tiger 50, had some minor bulkhead damage, but effected temporary
repairs in Nuku'alofa and continued on. "Ramtha," a 38 foot Roger
Simpson cat lost her steering and was abandoned. It was later found by a
search Orion. They vectored a nearby yacht, who towed it into Tonga. "Heartlight,"
a 12 meter Catalac cat, got its six foot parachute drogue wrapped around the
rudder and suffered a split in the hull. The boat was intentionally crushed
by the rescue ship after evacuation of the crew, and was sunk. Postscript:
six months later the 32' "Sofia" was towed into New Zealand after
having drifted almost to New Caledonia.
There are those of us who must
align genetically with Pooh, the bear of very little brain, as next year -
you guessed it, we're going back. New Zealand may have its economic and
social problems, just like the rest of the world, but in my mind it stands
out as a bright spot in the Pacific and is a place that definitely deserves
a second look.
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