| Dear Friends:
Summer down under combines with the Christmas holidays
and with the arrival of overseas yachts fleeing the
cyclone season of the Southern Hemisphere tropical islands,
to create an amazing social whirl. Only 15 days after
Larry had his hip resurfaced, he was eager to join Doug
and Helen Schmuck at their Bay of Islands farm for a
family style Christmas eve and Christmas day dinner.
Doug, who is a long term friend, sailed down to New
Zealand in his 28 Bristol Channel Cutter, Puffin, back
in 1988 to rendezvous with us. Here at our cottage he
met Helen, a Kiwi who was sailing with a lady friend.
 |
. As cyclone force winds raged around us, our little
part of the cove stayed safe and relatively calm. |
Long story short, they got married. Doug soon bought
a small boatyard in Opua which still keeps him out of
mischief. With their affinity to cruising, Helen didn't
blink an eye when, the night before Christmas Eve, I
called and said, "Friends have just sailed into
Opua, can I invite them to your house?" Her answer,
"you're making the lasagna, do you have enough?"
So Christmas Eve was like a cruisers rendezvous with
Fatty Goodlander and his lovely wife Caroline wowing
us with her excellent pumpkin bread.
 |
Larry
is down on the pontoon checking Thelma's mooring
lines. You can see Puffin secured to our mooring.
|
Fatty is a real hoot and has found an unusual way to
finance his cruising. Eighteen years ago, when he was
in the British Virgin Islands, he came up with the idea
for a radio program about sailing. He convinced local
marine businesses to pledge advertising if he could
sell the idea to the local station. It worked, with
content for free, and room for the station to sell some
extra adverts, he was off and running. Fatty is paid
by his own advertisers and creates their ads for them
too. He interviews interesting folks as he voyages and
creates a radio program that he tapes and sends in to
be broadcast weekly on Virgin Islands radio. He and
Caroline are on their second circumnavigation. They
told us about this years group of New Zealand bound
voyagers waiting for week after week for a perfect weather
forecast before heading south from the Tongan Islands.
Weather routers, FAX and email reports all said a weather
window in early December would give everyone an easy
ride 1100 miles south. About 40 boats set sail within
a few days of one another. Four days out, reports of
deteriorating weather south of 30 degrees began making
folks nervous. Some of the sailors decided to anchor
at Minerva reef rather than be at sea in rough weather.
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The
day after the blow, life returns to normal in the
cove. |
Unfortunately when the weather did deteriorate they
found they were trapped as the passage out through the
reef pass became dangerous. At low tide the anchorage,
which is surrounded only by the fringing reef, was okay.
But at high tide when waves could wash right over the
reef, anchoring gear was severely tested and in two
cases failed. One boat was a wrecked completely, another
badly damaged as it went on the reef. The majority of
sailors kept sailing southward, preparing for rough
weather. It came, with winds from the west at force
8 and 9. Many cruisers, eager to reach their landfall,
kept right on going, and a lot of them suffered wear
and tear on gear, some pretty disheartening breakages
and the discomfort of making a foreign landfall in very
rude weather. A few decided instead to heave to north
of the advancing low when winds reached near gale force.
They had to wait 48 hours for improving conditions,
but discussions among cruisers who later met up at the
Opua Cruising Club, it came clear that the sailors who
lay hove to, had a far easier time of it then those
who carried on.
 |
Kay
is learning first hand about one of the chores of
island life as we unpack Champers (our vintage Mercedes)
and load groceries for the ride across to the island.
|
New Years Eve at home in North Cove was low key. We
boated from party to party, carrying a few bottles of
sparkling wine, some nibbles and visiting each of four
different homes around the cove and three visiting yachts
for greetings, hugs and holiday cheer. The visitors
kept arriving, New Zealand sailors, overseas sailors,
three or four nights each week we were either on board
their boats or potlucking here at the cottage. During
the day, as Larry regained his full mobility, we began
upgrading Thelma to have her ready for the Classic Boat
regattas that liven the end of January and all of February
each year. This year she had her cabin top woodwork
upgraded and improved. Larry added rope handrails the
length of the cabin, built a new hatch to access the
lazzarette, detailed a lot of the rigging and we painted
up her decks to improve the non-skid qualities.
 |
Doug and Helen Schmuck on a climb up to the top
of the island. |
One afternoon a bright yellow catamaran powered towards
our jetty. Its name meant nothing to us, Banana Split.
But almost as its owner yelled "Haven't seen you
in over 30 years," we recognized Antoine. We had
spent the winter moored within 50 feet of Antoine in
Gibraltar. At that time he was quite famous in France
and Italy as a folk singer. With his gains he took sailing
lessons with Bernard Moitessier and had a 50 foot steel
boat built. Sailing took over his life and with his
love of music and later, his love of photography; he
has spent the ensuing years putting together beautiful
books about the Pacific Islands and some very enjoyable
TV programs which are now on DVD. What a fine reunion
we had, as we traded meals for two days. (You can see
pictures of him and also some very lovely Island photographs
at his website, www.antoinetv.com.)
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Craig and Kay Compton sitting in a Pohutakawa tree. |
With the mellowness of the holiday season giving Larry
lots of time to mend, we were ready and eager for a
real highlight of the summer. Four days before the Mahurangi
Classic Boat Regatta, Craig and Kay Compton flew in
from Bainbridge Island to sail with us. (They are taking
care of Taleisin for us.) To add drama to their arrival,
a cyclone wandered south from the tropics to hit our
island home only two hours after they arrived on the
28 foot water taxi. The winds were gusting to 55 knots
when they came across the 5 miles of Kawau Bay. By noon
the winds were gusting to 75 and 80 knots. To add to
the fun, Doug and Helen, who were on a holiday to cruise
the islands of the Hauraki Gulf on Puffin, decided the
safest anchorage in the gulf was the mooring at our
place. They had sailed in the evening before. Since
Craig and Kay also have a Bristol Channel Cutter they
are upgrading for a hoped for offshore excursion, it
was a grand coincidence.
 |
Thelma is a really narrow arrow as you can see from
this shot Craig took as he and I worked together
trying to figure out how to set her topsail. |
Our home felt like a summer camp for adults for the
next four days - swimming, hiking, kayaking, pool playing
and eating too much. Then we headed off sailing, racing
on Thelma at the regatta, then doing the passage race
into the big smoke for the water front festivities of
Auckland City Anniversary Weekend. Our crew was excellent,
the sailing in winds of 8 to 15 knots, grand and for
the first time we figured out how to set Thelma's jackyard
topsail. (In actuality the topsail she carries is called
a double jackyard topsail, but that sounds a bit long
winded.) I had been intimidated by the idea of carrying
a sail 45 feet in the air on a boat which only displaces
4 tons and already has a 500 square foot mainsail. But
once that topsail was set I fell in love with the power
it provides by catching breezes that are definitely
stronger aloft than they are at the surface.
 |
As you can see, we did finally figure out how to
set the topsail (this picture was taken by Tony
Kearney and Sandra Elma, all the rest were taken
by Kay and Craig.) |
Kay and Craig gave us an excuse to explore some of
the tourists' sights of Auckland and by the time we
had had four days of racing with the, two days of city
sights, plus a full day of sailing home to our island,
we were ready to drop. Fortunately for me, I had the
final editing and three chapters to finish for the new
edition of Care and Feeding of Sailing Crew. Larry had
some rigging details he wanted to upgrade on Thelma
and we settled in for a few weeks of relative quiet
to get ready for the really big regatta - where 111
year old Thelma would face off against the boat we used
to campaign during our southern summers, Jonquil, the
amazing agile Buzzards Bay 25 designed back in 1914
by Nathaniel Herreshoff and built here in New Zealand
in 1989.
 |
Doug and Helen sailed Puffin in the regatta, taking
three trophies home for their efforts. |
May your topsails set smoothly,
Lin and Larry
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