South Pacific « Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

There and back again…

by ben, on January 19th, 2011 (Leu Cat, New Zealand, Niue, Society Islands, Southern Cooks)

Back in the States now and it’s time to reflect. It’s been an awesome experience but it’s hard to sum up 6 months of travel in a single post. You can read the individual adventures I’ve gotten up to since arriving in Tahiti in the blog itself so I’m just going to talk about a couple highlights and my general feelings of the whole trip.

Highlights:

Being with the family – Since I didn’t see them too much leading up to their departure it was great to be with my parents for 6 months. I am lucky that I have family relations that I can spend more than a weekend with without going insane. Will definitely miss my mum’s curry.

Cruisers – Everyone I met cruising were all really interesting, had great stories and came from so many different backgrounds. The fact that someone is willing to live in a confined space and travel on water for years virtually guarantees awesomeness in some regard. I’ve made some good friends and I hope to see them again in the future. I’d like to thank Dave again from Leu Cat for the Cubans and Manhattans at sunset.

Environment and adventures – Almost everything New Zealand; Glow worm caves, Tandem Sky Diving (although I have to do it solo now), Tongariro Alpine passage, Geothermal sites and pretty much every walk. Just a stunning place. The 3 islands that stick out most in my mind are Bora Bora (landscape), Palmerston (culture) and Nuie (landscape). I also really enjoyed spear hunting fish while snorkeling. I like to think I’m semi-decent at it now.

Downsides:
The only downside, which in all honesty wasn’t much of a problem, was not having people of the same social age. I got urges to see my friends once in a while but the cruising community is full of laughs and fun so I never felt alone.

Lessons learned:
You can have great adventures no matter who you are. Even more ingrained is the fact that the world is extremely beautiful and there is still diversity to be found.

How I’ve changed:
I’ve become even more patient. Currently I can’t watch general TV, I feel like I’m wasting my time.

I am very grateful to my parents for giving me this fantastic opportunity to see the world from a different perspective. Now it’s up to me to create my own adventure in life.

Last day on the boat (for a while)

by steve, on January 18th, 2011 (Division II, New Zealand, Tahina)

We managed to do all the things we wanted to do. Outboard is back on the dinghy. The upholsterer visited. We finished packing the car. etc.

The concern for the day was the deteriorating weather. On Monday it had been very humid and damp with occasional rain. On Tuesday the front associated with this came over making us worry if we would be able to move the boat as planned. In the late afternoon the wind eased allowing us off the dock. We motored over to the pilings and with a bit of help from Dan on Division II and Frank from Tahina we were soon tied on. I tossed our spare keys over to Dan who will be keeping an eye on Dignity for us and that was that.

We settled in for the evening with nothing left to do. This morning Frank will be dinghying us ashore and we’ll be off.

Next stop Lake Waikaremoana. Maybe. Depends on the weather.

Getting ahead

by steve, on January 17th, 2011 (Division II, New Zealand)

We’re getting ahead with our project list, so much so that we should have a pretty light day today. Work done Monday :

Called sailmaker over to collect sails and batons
Spoke to local genset maintenance guy and researched prices in US
Collected and installed car battery
Ensured outboard service would be complete today
Completed some much deferred financial stuff back home
Visited upholsterer for new table cover and arrange visit for helm seat quote
Fixed safety line on stern
Fixed 110V power block inside boat
Obtained and installed replacement part for corroded connector on A/C cooling line
Burned a couple of CDs for the car
Packed a few more things into the car

In the evening we had Dan from Division II over for dinner and to show him a couple of things we’d like him to keep an eye on when we’re away. We’ll be on the pilings next to him while we’re away and he’s agreed to keep an eye on Dignity.

Today we have the upholsterer visiting, the outboard to pick up, some cleaning up and the boat to move.

No rest on Sunday

by steve, on January 16th, 2011 (Division II, Emily Grace, Leu Cat, New Zealand, Tahina, True Companions)

We’re hoping to be out of here by Wednesday. Our ferry to the south island is the following Monday and we’d like to take our time getting down to Wellington. We’ve also had a gracious invitation from some NZers near Napier to stay with them on Friday and Saturday which we’re aiming to make. So. There’s no time to rest. This is going to be one of those project list blogs …..

First order of the day was to remove the sails before the possibility of the wind picking up. The jib is always easy and this we accomplished first. Removing the mainsail requires removing the reefs and the battons, sliding off the sail cars and lowering the lazy bag before heaving the sail off the boom. Both sails had to be folded which is not so hard to do on the foredeck. They’re now bagged up and ready to be collected by the sailmaker today.

Between us (either collectively or separate) for the rest of the day we accomplished the following other items :

Chased an erroneous bank charge down
Talked to Tom on Emily Grace about his experiences aggregating items in the US to be sent to NZ
Learned that our car battery should be here on Monday (today)
Went to a local store to buy plastic boxes for putting all our loose items in for camping. Also bought tubing for creating an easy delivery system for topping up house batteries.
Packed plastic boxes with items for camping
Partially packed car (including moving car twice)
Removed oven and inspected interior in anticipation for future improvement
Installed diversion valve on water maker output line to make filling external vessels simpler
Installed new hose connections at dock tap to make removal of pressure limiter simpler
Changed filters on water maker
Filled 2 x 5 gallon containers of water from dock via water maker making huge supply of very good battery water
Went to top up house batteries only to discover they don’t need topping up (but was pleased with all the prep work as I intended to do it anyway)
Fixed burst hose (unplanned)

Along the way we bumped into a few of the cruisers still here: Frank from Tahina, Dan from Division II, Tom & Kim from Emily Grace (already mentioned), Dave from Leu Cat and Steve & Vicky from True Companions. Each meeting involved a bit of a chat and a catch up so I feel relieved we accomplished as much as we did.

In the evening we received a brief Facebook message from Sam to say they’d arrived safely with no hiccups on the flights. The boat feels quite empty. We keep expecting to see Ben in the corner where he made his home. But he’s not there.

We still have more to do today and tomorrow. I’ll bore you with the detail on the next blog.

Back to the two of us

by steve, on January 15th, 2011 (New Zealand, Tracks)

Our last day together with the boys was emotional.

We had breakfast together at one of the marina restaurants before setting off in the car. It took nearly 3 hours to get to the airport but fortunately we had no problems with the traffic.

I stayed in the car so the boys could check in. As we had plenty of time our plan was to check in then go somewhere for lunch. I circled the airport a couple of times to avoid being moved on from the drop off area. Ben popped out once needing some cash for a visa which I thought was odd. Next time round Helen came out to say I should park and help out.

We had a bit of a problem. We are all dual national. When Ben left the US he ran into difficulties heading into French Polynesia with a one way ticket on a US passport so he switched to his UK passport. Since then we’ve cleared him out and into each country on his UK passport. When we inquired with NZ customs as to the best thing to do to avoid a wrangle when Helen and I left without him they suggested he should leave the country on his UK passport. Ben had diligently checked in using his UK passport and the checkout required him to have a valid US visa which is required these days. I managed to talk to an immigration official and agreed a plan that would probably not cause Helen and I any problems. Ben cleared out on his US passport. We then took a photocopy of his US and UK passports along with his boarding pass. We’ll use that as a starting point to demonstrate we have not brought in an illegal immigrant when we leave the country without him.

That being sorted we still had enough time to leave the airport for a bite to eat for lunch. Then it was back to the airport to drop them off and say goodbye. It was a little tearful. It’s been great having both of them aboard for the last 3 weeks and getting to know Ben as an adult over the last six months. Since December 2009, bar 2 weeks in Tahiti, we’ve had family aboard and now we’re going our separate ways again.

It is sad of course but one has to focus on the positives. It is a time of new adventure for all of us at our respective point in our lives. This is truly exciting for all. We are thankful for the opportunities we have for spending time together in fantastic places seeing and doing amazing things with the kids we brought up. There are enough estranged families to remind us how lucky we are. And, who knows, they may communicate from time to time to let us know how they’re getting on.

We returned to Whangarei a different route (RT 16) as I’m getting fed up of driving the Auckland to Whangarei main road. It didn’t take much longer and gave us some refreshing scenery. We stopped at a hardware store on the way back to pick up a camping table and some hosepipe attachments I need.

I’ve just spent the last couple of hours sorting out our tracks from Tonga so that Ben has a full record of the mileage he’s covered with us. His total is 3,137nm which is a lot more than many will do in a lifetime. Not bad. At the same time I’ve caught up with the tracks for this blog. Here are our tracks since we’ve arrived including the leg from Tonga if one can be bothered to zoom out and see it. If you’re really diligent, mad or both you can actually find the bit where we turned around to lash the broken rudder post and steering gear. During that time our course changed as the current pushed us south east.

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There and back again…

Last day on the boat (for a while)

Getting ahead

No rest on Sunday

Back to the two of us