Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Category: Cruiser Connections

  • There and back again…

    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)

    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

    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

    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.

  • Project Prep

    We have about a week here in Whangarei before Helen and I (without the boys who leave on Saturday – sob) head back south. We have our ferry to the south island booked for the 24th of January and don’t want to rush the trip down. There are a few boat projects that shouldn’t really be left until we come back so yesterday was really all about them.

    I know some people are interested in the detail so here’s what was accomplished day 1.

    Sail maker called and booked to come to boat today to talk about inspecting and servicing our current head sail, designing a better headsail and seeing if anything can be done with our shredded Code Zero (the original one). He will be here quite shortly so I’m rushing.

    Rearranged our haul out date for March 24th. Yardmaster and works foreman both visited boat in afternoon to plan haul and discuss work to be done to boat (bottom paint, gelcoat patch up, anchor shield and a few other things.

    Ordered shower sump float switch (just got call to say it can be picked up today).

    Ordered new battery for car (current one is 9 years old and tired)

    Had genset guy around to inspect generator. Fuel lines are now stiff and need replacement. Will get new replacement raw water pump and heat exchanger.

    Dropped of outboard for professional service.

    And a few other small items not worth mentioning.

    We’re going to town on the boat at the moment. We’re up in the air with our plans for the next sailing season. One idea is to stay in the South Pacific islands north of the cyclone season in a years time. This would mean being 18 months away from major boat yards so we want everything to be as good as it can be. In general the professionals who looked at the boat yesterday said everything looked in pretty good order. But this is the best opportunity to have expert eyes and hands on the boat for a while so we’re making the best of it.

    Helen attacked the pile of washing from our recent adventures and sorted out one of the boat lockers. Sam and Ben toured the town and tackled a bottle of spirits they needed to warm up their last two days here. In the evening, they went out on the town with Ian from Sea Mist. In fact John and Cherryl came over too to say goodbye to Ben and Sam. They ended up on the grass outside the boat with a bunch of locals (we think) making noise in the early hours. Seems they had a good time.