Category: Uncategorized

February 4, 2022 – a real-time post.

So where do you put the soap when you’re showering in the cockpit? In your solar panel soap holder of course!

Call in the 3D printer for yet another project. It’s so hard to find a soap holder like this so I printed my own.

OK, actually it’s a shelf for our Iridium GO. This miserable piece of crap has a broken external antenna connector so I’ll need set it outside where it has a clear view of the slow, antiquated Iridium satellites in order to download weather on our big trip south.

I could send it to Australia for repair which could take weeks or months or I could replace the unit completely (about $700 USD). I refuse to spend another cent with this miserable company. I can’t wait for Starlink to completely put them out of business! (Starlink satellite devices could be available for boats this year, or next! Come on Elon!)

So here’s our crippled device sitting in it’s 3D printed shelf attached to our Bimini-mounted solar panel where it works as well as any string-attached-to-two-tin-cans communication device can work, or in other words, normal for an Iridium GO.

(Sorry for the angry post!) -Rich

January 22, 2022 – an almost real-time post.

After making the final preparations for our trip by scrubbing and hosing our cockpit, we treated ourselves to a fabulous lunch at the restaurant near our marina (Homeland) while we waited for the tide to start going out.

(Note about the Cruising Lifestyle: If we’re heading out and have time to hit a restaurant for a final meal, we do it! It gives us full bellies for those first hours of getting our sea legs, allowing us to sit in the cockpit and get used to the boat’s movement without have to go below and prepare food.)

The wind was just ahead of our beam at about 12 knots, but it was one of those days where the sea was relatively flat and the air warm, making it a fantastic day for sailing even if going a bit into the wind. It was nice to remember that while we tend to use our engine more than most cruisers, we actually do love sailing when the conditions are right. Below, a couple of photos as we sailed out of Auckland.

One complication of cruising during the summer, especially on weekends, is places get crowded. But over our time here we’ve discovered a couple of nice anchorages on Waiheke Island that are a bit off the beaten path.

As we sailed past Motuihe Island on our way to Waiheke, we worried a bit when we saw its anchorages were packed. We were relieved to arrive at Te Wharau on Waiheke Island and find there was room for us.  This is not a “destination” anchorage; so we didn’t have an overwhelming crowd. Even better, people were properly spaced, and no one anchored on top of us. While this isn’t the most beautiful anchorage in the Hauraki Gulf, it’s quite pretty and well protected. (New Zealand’s “less beautiful” places are still pretty darn nice!) Below, a photo of our anchorage.

After settling in, we went below until the hot summer sun dipped down behind a hill.  Then it was time to head to the cockpit for a celebration drink  and talk about tomorrow’s plan. Our big issue was weather (isn’t it always?). We were tired and would love to have just spent a few days anchored in Te Wharau, but we had a reasonable weather window to sail around the Coromandel Peninsula to Great Mercury Island, an all-day motor sail, the following day.

At first we opted to sit here and rest a few days, but a good weather window is hard to resist; so we ended up deciding to take it and leave relatively early the next morning. Meanwhile, we enjoyed the sunset and the distinct smell of New Zealand vegetation, which smells of dense greenery accented by a floral smell in the summer.

Later we enjoyed the cooing of little morepork owls and the sight of bright stars when darkness set in. It was nice to be out cruising again.

Note: You may notice this post is light on the photos. That’s because I was also experimenting with narrating video with my camera and the selfie stick. I have now learned that narrating with a camera requires one to be away from wind noise. And the video with the selfie stick seemed to have a fair number of dropouts. So, I have a lot yet to learn using those methods, but meanwhile photos and written words always work. –Cyndi

January 23, 2022

We motor-sailed about 52 miles today, mostly upwind, to get to Great Mercury Island. We’re really winging this voyage and the weather is getting in the way with our plan formulating. As it looks right now, we’ll leave in the morning for a 2 day, 285 mile sail to Hawkes Bay.

In the mean time, where are some pictures we took this evening…

Above is the western end of Great Mercury Island, were people most often anchor. From this shot, there are three bays visible. From left to right, they are Huruhi, where we are anchored, Parapara (our usual go-to anchorage), and White Beach.

The boat ride was kind of long and uneventful today. Cyndi worked on her boomer-selfie-stick skills and when we get somewhere we plan to stay for a few days, we’ll try to post a video with said newly developed skills.

-Rich

January 23, 2022

Here’s a link to our PredictWind tracking page. It’s updated via satellite so we should be able to keep it up to date, even in areas with no internet access.

If it stops updating, don’t worry. We use an Iridium GO for satellite access and it’s one of the worst pieces of technology I’ve ever used.

-Rich

January 22, 2022

Our blog is about to get a little more complicated. Generally I write things in chronological order, while Rich throws in occasional current posts from whatever’s going on in our lives.

(From Rich: For instance, I just stuck this gallery below showing where we ended on the first evening of this Big Cruise…)

We now return you to Cyndi’s post, already in progress…

Today we’re going to add in something new. As we posted recently, we are going to start a new adventure. We’d originally thought we’d be able to head to Australia about now, but Omicron has changed that plan. About a month ago, Rich came up with an idea: why not head out someplace we’ve never been in New Zealand, like Chatham Island? It’s 350 miles offshore and out of our usual New Zealand cruising range, but suddenly we have some extra time. As we did the research, the plan evolved to include Auckland Island (another island way offshore, south of New Zealand), Stewart Island, and Fiordland on the west coast of the South Island. Whew! (There’s a map here.)

I had to sit with this idea for awhile as I’d declared the 4th time we traveled along the lower east coast of the North Island would be the last time–we were DONE with that journey. They say if you want to make God laugh, make plans. I think pronouncements like that make God laugh even harder.

So I sat with the idea. Australia is still not open to yachts, but with their Omicron situation, I would not want to go at this point anyway. So with some extra time here, maybe it’s time we had another cruising adventure. I told Rich, “OK, let’s do this.” But we both agreed that we don’t want to fully commit to the entire trip. We’ll take it one step at a time, see how the things are going, then if we feel good about it, we’ll go to the next destination. Thus, I have named this “Legacy’s Big No Commitment Cruise.” So far, we have only committed to Waiheke Island, just outside the city of Auckland and today, we honored that commitment.

What we’re going to do differently during this cruise is try to document it as we go, instead of just photos here and there (as Rich likes to do) or writing the posts years later (as I tend to do). We’ll add photos and video. Hopefully it will be fun and we’ll find a style of doing this that works for us. Our goal is not to try to be professional like some of the other cruisers–that takes way too much time, production skill and commitment. Instead this will be a casual thing, and not always perfectly current.

The past few weeks we’ve been fixing some final issues, and I’ve been cleaning inside the boat. This morning we cleaned the outside of the boat so we’d have a clean and pretty cockpit to sit in. After exhausting ourselves, we treated ourselves to lunch at the fabulous Homeland restaurant by our marina. We then said our good-byes and quickly made final preparations to leave, getting help from some of our marina “family,” to untie the lines. It’s sad to leave, but we plan to come back at the end of April or early May.

So, here’s the first photo of us on our big adventure, which started at Homeland restaurant near Pier 21 marina. –Cyndi

Epilog…

“When you see the southern cross for the first time,
You understand  now why you came this way…”