27 February 2000 - Whangaparaoa, Auckland, New Zealand
G'day! We are still enjoying
the heck out of New Zealand and wish we had scheduled more time here -- like
about a decade.
We continue to marvel at the
America's Cup 1 racing and festivities. A couple of hundred thousand Kiwis
turned up on the water and in the Village last weekend for the first race
between the Italian boat Prada and Team New Zealand's Black Magic.
Percentage-wise in terms of the United States, it would be as if the entire
population of Texas (about 20 million folks) showed up in Dallas for a Cowboy
game. It boggles the mind.
And speaking of mind-boggling
activities, this week we attended a lavish, epic production of Verdi's La
Traviata in a rugby stadium. Yes, a rugby stadium. There were
fireworks, hundreds of singers, live animals, and beer vendors. My view:
This is the way opera was meant to be.
Since the last update we have
been doing a lot of land travel and sightseeing. In January we had a
wonderful trip to the South Island with Mom & Jack, who brought us a lot of
great stuff 2 from
home. Thanks again!! We drove 2,000 miles in 10
days -- a modest jaunt by the standards of our typical family road-trip
"look at th-a-a-a-t" vacation, but we saw a lot. From Auckland
we traveled to the volcanoes and thermal plateaus of Rotorua, through the
farming midlands to Wellington, by ferry to the Marlborough wine country and
along the magnificent West Coast to Greymouth, through jade country to the Franz
Josef Glacier, and then across the mountains via the Tranz-Alpine Express train
to the lovely garden city of Christchurch. Driving the South Island is
like being able to visit all of the American national parks in one
convenient package -- from mountains to alpine forests to sub-tropical jungle to
beaches, fiords and rugged volcanic seascapes, with flower-lined auld-English
towns thrown in for good measure. Plus sheep. We had a glorious
time.
In February, we got to see more of
the North Island in the excellent company of Anne & Allan, also from home
and bearers of more great stuff. 2
These days -- in between Cup races --
we are buckling down to the tasks of annual maintenance and boat projects in
preparation for the next leg of the trip. Not that I would complain about
anything on this adventure of a lifetime, but . . . if anyone had
mentioned how hard it is to strip varnish, believe me there wouldn't be a single
splinter of teak on the whole boat. Yesterday Alan installed a new
fresh-water pump; today he installed an auxiliary cockpit VHF radio.
Tomorrow's list of excitement (apart from the day's quota of varnish stripping)
includes taking the spinnaker into town for repairs and shopping for engine-room
insulation. And yet there is even more to look forward to: waxing
the hull, replacing the mast hardware, re-painting the bottom, re-provisioning,
un-freezing the cockpit through-hull, replacing exhaust elbows, installing a
back-up auto-pilot.
My only hope is that at the end of the trip I can find
a job that fully capitalizes on all these new skills. 3 :-)
Well, we miss you all very much and
hope you haven't forgotten us. Happy Birthdays and Anniversaries to Cathy,
Judge, Dave, Jim & Andrea, Kurt, Alex, Scott, Paul, Tom, Brian, and the
twins. Congrats again to Scott and Alli! Thanks a million to Mark
& Kristin and to Jon for the TV videos. And an exponential thank you
to Kurt & Claire for taping and sending Cowboy games to this diehard
football fan for the second season in a row! Much love, Liza
__________________________________
1 In case, understandably, you are
wondering why this sailboat race seems to have been going on for months, it's
because it has. The challenger series (known as the Louis Vuitton Cup) is
a 4-month round robin, the winner of which is then entitled to challenge the
existing holder of the America's Cup (New Zealand). In the finals of the
LVC earlier this month, Italy's Prada beat the best American team 5-4. Now
Prada is racing New Zealand in a best-of-nine series for the Cup. As of
this writing, New Zealand is smoking them 3-0. The America's Cup is held
every 3-5 years in the home waters of the last winner. For more
information, click here.
2 By "great stuff" we
usually mean one or more of the following: boat repair parts & tools,
zip-locks, videos, trash bags, recent paperbacks, microwave
popcorn, dryer sheets, margarita mix, and -- most importantly, of course --
People magazine.
3 On the other hand, I can only
assume that this sudden barrage of footnotes is some bizarre subconscious
indication that I miss being a lawyer.
Photo Album February 2000
26 June 2000 -- Gulf Harbour Boatyard, Auckland, New Zealand
Hi! We will be leaving New Zealand in a few days. Although I am
very excited about going back to sea, the thought of leaving Eden brings a
strange watery sensation to the eye area. I am going
to miss this magnificent country.
After sheltering here for the entirety of cyclone season, I suspect we have
seen more of New Zealand than most Kiwis
have. If I had to choose a "best o' the best" experience,
though, it would be deep in the South Island, hiking the Milford Track.
Winding from Lake Te Anau to Milford Sound, through breathtaking wilderness and
over waterfall-ribboned mountains, the track is a 4-day 40-mile backpacking adventure that darn near
killed me. I'd walk for a while and then whine for a while. Then I'd
try to sneak something heavy into Alan's pack from mine. (Okay, the truth
is that my hero-husband insisted on carrying virtually everything except those
basics from which I would not be parted -- mainly my face cream and the emergency
chocolate.)
Here's what a city girl I still am. As we stop for lunch on the Milford
Track in the heat of the day, Alan empties his water bottle on his head. I
shriek, "Noooooooo! We'll run out of water!" Alan looks at
me in amused disbelief, walks the 5 feet to a roaring river by which we are picnicking,
and re-fills his jug. Well geez -- water
comes in bottles or out of faucets, right? Even on a boat.
All kidding aside, hiking the Milford Track was a
once-in-a-lifetime, profoundly rewarding wilderness experience. Of course, here even the most rugged wilderness is
still mighty friendly -- no bears, wolves, snakes, scorpions, mountain lions, serial killers,
or survivalists.
Now that the time has come to leave, we are still unsure in which
direction to point the bow. The original
plan was Fiji, which at the time of this writing is still under martial law from an
armed coup. Although fellow voyagers report by radio that most of the island chain is
experiencing nothing more violent than the massacre of a lobster
for dinner, we have some concerns about the "armed insurrection"
exclusion clause in our insurance policy. On the other hand, our alternative destination
-- Vanuatu -- is having a malaria
epidemic. So much for South Sea paradises.
Oh well, the main thing is to be under sail again. To feel the wind shift
against my face! To listen to the eternal rhythm of the sea! To taste the salt spray!
To hear Alan muttering profanities at the engine! To commune with that
evil-looking squall on the horizon! To feel a new bruise emerge as I
bang a body part against a bulkhead! To observe a
tanker ship as it refuses to
deviate from a collision course! To . . .
Cheers, Liza
P.S. Happy Anniversary to Anne & Allan and to Jon &
Gayle! Happy birthday, Allison!
Photo Album June 2000
10 August 2000 -- Gulf Harbour Marina, Whangaparaoa, New Zealand
Well, we tried to leave New Zealand. We really did.
I won't bore
you with all the painful details, such as the aborted departure attempts, the
series of week-long unseasonable
northerly gales, failure
of the boom gooseneck, failure of the primary auto-pilot, absence of parts for same, and
so on. Suffice to say that it has clearly been Neptune's will that we stay
in New Zealand for a while longer.
Now, though, we have missed our weather
windows: (1) to cross
from New Zealand to the islands before the "winter" storm season (July-October);
and (2) to cross to the equator to clear the cyclone zone before the next Pacific cyclone
season (November-April).
In short . . . yippee!! We get to stay! We get to
stay another whole cruising season! Until May of next year! (And I swear I didn't sabotage that equipment or hide a single
part. Honest.)
Actually, I think we may have turned a mental corner (not to
say we've gone round the bend). For the past seven weeks we have been frantically working and worrying, and with each new setback nervously consulting
The Schedule to see if it would accommodate one more delay. After making
the "no go" decision that seemed at the time like admitting defeat, we have been . . .
blissfully happy. A major life
lesson is in there somewhere, and someday I'm going to figure out what it is.
But until the storm season abates in New Zealand waters, we are following the maxim that "nothing goes to weather like a
747." We will therefore fly across the Tasman to take this opportunity to see more of
Australia than the original plan would have allowed. We have had our
tandem bicycle shipped to Brisbane and plan to meander along the Aussie coast
and countryside through October, with a two-week stop in Sydney for the
Olympics. Then we'll resume cruising in New Zealand and see everything
that just a few short weeks ago we were kicking ourselves for having missed.
So cheers from Down Under for a good long while longer.
And it does bear repeating: Yippee!! Love, Liza
P.S. Happy Birthdays to Dad, Jon, Mom, Claire, and
Catrina.
Happy anniversary to Scott & Allison. Happy upcoming birthdays to
Jessica, Cory, Stephanie, and Leslie; and happy upcoming anniversaries to Ray
& Mayme and Claire & Dan. Love ya lots!
LETTERS HOME 2001
Voyage of Heartsong III