Back on Ladybug

I am back on our boat After 42 hours of elapsed travel - flying to Los Angeles, Tahiti, and Auckland, then buses into Auckland city center and on to Whangarei, car to McLeod Bay, and rowboat to Ladybug. The last legs of the journey were a bit tiring as I staggered around with two heavy backpacks and a light one, trying to find bus terminals and buying groceries for a few days isolated on the boat.

Have you ever tried to go shopping wearing three backpacks? I know a little of what homeless people feel now as I pushed my shopping cart, piled high with the packs around the aisles of a crowded supermarket. Later I waited with my packs and groceries on a park bench for my friend Jo to finish work, so I could drive with her out to McLeod Bay. It was dark now and I was seated near the town basin marina in Whangarei. Groups of cruisers walked by, the families avoiding this stranger seated on a bench with all his possessions. One mother, passing nearby, explained to her children about some people being less fortunate than others. I could only smile.

Ladybug had weathered a month of sun and rain and even a storm bringing sixty to seventy knot winds to the bay. Jo and Rob, on the hill above, had a fence blow over during the storm, but the only sign of this on board Ladybug was a few books on the floor and empty water containers in strange places. One port light showed signs of having leaked a little, but the computer fan and dorade vents combined to keep the interior clean smelling and almost entirely free of mildew. In a wet, climate, this is a real concern when leaving a boat completely shut up for so long.

I will sail up the river on Sunday and haul out first thing on Monday. Rani will join me when she returns from her niece Sandy's wedding in the UK. As I type this, I can see my breath, for it is now winter in New Zealand. Most of our friends have sailed for Fiji, although I talked with Craig on 'Gato Go' yesterday who plans to sail within a week. I look forward to joining them there in a few weeks.

Cruising under sail is not that expensive until you stop

I often tell people that our lifestyle is not that expensive, so long as we are on the boat, cruising and anchoring at night. All this changes when one enters a port where the temptations are many. Add to that the  need to paint and repair the boat every couple of years and an airfare or two half way round the world, and this whole thing does not look like such a bargain.

I am heading back to the boat today, flying out of Vancouver to Los Angeles and then across the Pacific via Papeete, Tahiti, to Auckland. What took 8 months last year on Ladybug is compressed into a long day. In my bags are spare parts and replacement clothing and shoes to last us for another year or two, hopefully.

We bought an AIS equipped VHF radio so that if I sail Ladybug home on my own, next year, Rani will have some peace of mind. The AIS system provides a warning when commercial shipping is within a certain distance of our boat and sounds an alarm if a collision is possible. Most commercial ships are now equipped with AIS transceivers by law. We held off on buying one of these units because they used to be expensive and required a separate VHF antenna or a splitter. Standard Horizon now makes one for under $350 including the mail-in rebate - with free shipping out of Ontario.

We ordered a new membrane for our water maker. These are quite cheap in the US ($160), but not easy to find in Canada and very expensive in NZ ($450). Ours is a 21 inch long 2.5 inch wide membrane that should allow us to make about 25 liters of nice fresh water per hour. The two old membranes were installed in 2003 and were producing water that was slightly too salty to taste good. I will remove one membrane and pressure vessel from the system to keep things simple and improve the overall water quality. From what I have gleaned from manufacturer's specs, having a second 21 inch membrane in series with the first, yields only 6 liters more per hour at the low flow rate achieved by our electric pump. It also increases the dissolved solids by maybe 15 percent, plus you have the extra membrane cost and the complexity of high pressure (800 psi) plumbing.

The membrane had a tortuous journey from California, via my friend Kurt's house in Northern California and then by 'First Class' USPS mail (which I discovered has NO standard of service!). The membrane took a couple of days to make it to Kurt's house and three weeks to get to Richmond BC from there. If you do plan on using USPS for a parcel from the US to Canada, probably go up a level and pay for tracking and guaranteed delivery within a finite time.

We also purchased an Olympus 820 underwater/tough camera to replace our aging and quirky Canon point and shoot. We hope to take some underwater snaps in Fiji, where the corals are reputed to be even better than Tonga. This model is discontinued, but on sale now at Futureshop and Best Buy and seems like a lot of camera for the money.

Our final large purchase is an 11.6 inch notebook that is just a hair bigger and a lot faster than the netbook we bought a few years ago for Rani. My 5 year old 7 inch netbook has a quirky keyboard and sometimes refuses to turn on, so we thought it would be prudent to have two decent small computers since we now rely on them as our primary chart source. This new computer is fast enough to process our home movies from the Sony videocam and I produced the penguin video on the blog using it. Our old netbooks could not even display the videos from the videocam, let alone edit them.

Video of Yellow Eyed Penguins

Video of yellow eyed penguins at Curio Bay.

Visualization of our crossing from Mexico to Marquesas

My friend, Lars Grammel, who recently completed his Phd in Computer Science at UVic, made a visualization of our crossing from Mexico to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas that you can find here. It consists of a map of the Pacific on which each day of our crossing is shown as a circle. If you click on the circle a web page will open with the corresponding blog entry. Note that this works in Chrome browsers and in the later versions of Safari, but there is currently a problem viewing this in IE and other browsers.

Away from the boat

As you may have noticed, we have not posted much in the last month. Rani and I are back in the UK and Canada, respectively. Rani is visiting with her family and will attend the wedding of her niece, Sandy, in May, and I am spending time in Vancouver with my family. We will be back on Ladybug in mid-May, when we haul her out for bottom painting and annual maintenance.

Windigo Update

The yacht Windigo was abandoned on a crossing from Tonga to New Zealand. When we last heard, it was drifting NE from the position at which it was abandoned, so it came as a surprise to learn that the boat washed up on the coast of Australia, well to the west.  Here are a couple of links to articles: ABC Coffs Coast  and NZ Herald

The couple who owned her were surprised that she had been stripped of her valuables before they reached the scene, but this is not surprising. The same thing happened to a friend of ours who's boat was washed ashore during hurricane Jimena in Mexico. I was interested in the issue of ownership of an abandoned boat and this article has a skeleton outline of international law. Interestingly, it seems that the ownership of the vessel remains with its owners even if they abandon it and that this even extends to articles that float free or are jettisoned from a wreck. Unfortunately, in reality one must stay with a vessel or post guards on a wreck to prevent looting or salvage claims.

In the news - New Zealand Conservation

This piece from the Whangarei Times of April 1, 2013:

Lord of the Rings fans are up in arms over the New Zealand Department of Conservation's decision to use over-sized stoat traps to control the increasing population of Hobbits on the North Island. A spokesperson for the department stated that "Despite similarities between our country and Middle Earth, Hobbits are not endemic to New Zealand. They have no natural enemies to control their population. and they compete with native species for both food and space to build their hillside homes."

D.O.C. is using over-sized stoat traps to control the Hobbit population on the North Island.

The Whangerei Times has recently learned that during the filming of The Hobbit, at least eight Halflings went missing from the set in Hobbiton. In the last year there have been more than a dozen sightings of Halflings. Some believe that they may even have crossed the Cook Strait to the South Island, most likely as stow-aways on the inter-island ferries.

A statement posted on the website of the Auckland Lord Of The Rings fan club reads: "Putting Hobbits in the same category as wallabies, stoats, and possums as introduced pests is ridiculous. Hobbits breed slowly and take at least 40 years to mature. At the very least, they [the New Zealand  D.O.C.] should make use of live trapping and relocation..."

Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings films and most recently, The Hobbit, declined to comment.

Mt. Ruapehu - The Dome and Crater Lake

We were determined to bag one more peak before returning to Ladybug, so we chose Mt. Ruapehu in the Tangariro National Park. Well, we didn't actually hike up to the summit of Mt. Ruapehu as it requires alpine skills and crampons, but we did get up to the Dome and Crater Lake. This is recommended as a guided hike due to lack of a signed trail. However, with some directions from the D.O.C. and other avid hikers, we were able to navigate to the rim of the Crater Lake and the Dome Emergency Shelter. We were prepared for adverse weather, carried a good First Aid Kit, a compass and warm/waterproof clothing. There were no warnings of volcanic activity when we checked at the i-site on the night before our trek, so that was a good sign.

Below the Waterfall Express Chairlift, Whakapapa Village

Chris and I went our own way but we both arrived at the same place 

Mist rising from the valley threatens to obscure views of the crater 

Chris hiking on the crater rim

Emergency shelter 

Crater Lake and galcier below us

Beware of volcanic hazards!

Brrrr! The wind began to blow at the dome

On the way back - the dome in the background

Thick ice in this crater camouflaged by covering of silt 

Chris below one of the private club huts on the ski slope

Arthur's Pass and miscellaneous photos

Chris almost caused me a breakdown when he slipped off a rock at Castle Hill, bouldering while I was not looking. As the weather forecast for Arthur's Pass was a bit gloomy, we decided not to hike up Avalanche Peak but continue up the coast towards Nelson. Thankfully, Chris's ankle was not sprained. It didn't stop him from criticizing my driving, anyway!

Castle Hill - Arthur's Pass 

Rock sculptures at Castle Hill

Surreal landscape 

Paekakariki beach at sunset 

Pancake Rocks 

Some places reminded us of home - timber shipping operation at Picton 

Rani in her hot pants at Otaki Beach - Kapiti Island in the background

Organic reflections in a stream

A photo for our friend Chris Mills, a former lighthouse keeper:

 Nugget Point 

Mount Somers, Canterbury Plains

We stayed two nights at the Mt. Somers Domain campsite, a very reasonably priced campground with good facilities located close to the Mt. Somers Track. There are two huts on this track and it is recommended as a two day hike. However, due to lack of time, we planned to see the best of it in one long day. We started at the Sharplin Falls carpark, went up Staveley Hill, summitted Mt. Somers (1687m), crossed the tussocky ridge, then followed a scree trail down to the saddle above the Pinnacles Hut, joined the Mt. Somers Track to the Pinnacles Hut and finally arrived at Sharplin Falls.

It was not an easy hike as the trail was washed out, muddy and slippery in many places due to recent rain, overgrown in other areas and required good footwork and lots of stamina. However, we enjoyed the challenge, the views of the valleys below us and the fleeting glimpses of the snow-covered Southern Alps whenever the clouds drifted away.

View of the Canterbury Plains from Staveley Hill

The clouds are rising from the valley, just in time to obscure the view from the mountain top

Chris, if you look really carefully, you might see Mt. Cook! 

Somewhere over there is a trail down to the saddle, we think!

Limestone rock columns above the Pinnacles Hut

Pinnacles Hut

Rani decided to wash her hair along the way