Two At Sea

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…”

March 12, 2014

One of the North Island’s unique features is the Coromandel Peninsula, which sticks out from the mainland like a thumb sticks up from a hand, parallel but also separate.

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At 50 miles long and 20 miles wide, it’s a big place, but its mountainous terrain, single-lane winding highway, and rugged individualist residents give it a remoteness that’s both appealing and challenging. In fact, while the Coromandel Peninsula is a favorite travel destination for New Zealand residents, it’s too off the beaten path for most foreign visitors trying to cover a lot of ground in limited time.

Rich and I had visited some of the Coromandel’s anchorages on its west side, but the best part of this peninsula would definitely be on its east side. This area is famous for having magnificent beaches, a scattering of charming little towns, vacation homes, and beautiful scenery. I couldn’t wait to see it!

Below, a map showing our first destination of the day, Hot Water Beach, and the town where we’d be staying, Whitianga.

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Our first hurdle would be the drive to the town of Whitianga part way up the peninsula. From our boat it was an easy hour-long drive to the base of the peninsula, but then the road started to wind up into the mountains. Since it’s only one lane each way, you can imagine how frustrating it is to get stuck behind slow cars and trucks, of which there are plenty, with few turnouts or bypass lanes. It takes a lot of patience to drive on this road, and Rich’s was sorely tested on this drive. Since then, I’ve heard more than one New Zealander say they would never want a vacation home on the Coromandel simply because of this road. There is one area where people fly their own planes in, but that will be the subject of a future post.

Aside from the nerve-wracking road, the scenery is pretty impressive, although getting a good photo from the car was challenging with all winding curves and sudden view-blocking trees. I’ve managed to get a couple of reasonable quality (OK, maybe dubious quality ) to post below.

As we made our way up the peninsula, we passed towns I hoped to visit on the way back. Our first stop today would be a place called Hot Water Beach. The name comes from an area of the beach where hot springs filter up through the sand within 2 hours of low tide. If you dig in the sand, you can make your own hot water pool to soak in. Many people actually bring their own shovels to do this, but they can also be rented on site.

We parked and walked down a pretty path to the beach. My first reaction was to be impressed by this huge stretch of sand! We’d come to see the hot water, but I felt like this area was beautiful enough to be an attraction in itself! The beach was party divided by a rocky area, and we noticed a lot of people seemed to be gathered there while the rest of the beach was nearly empty. We figured this must be where the hot water was located and headed over. Below, a couple of photos from our arrival at the beach. (You can click on any photo to enlarge.)

We soon found ourselves in a small crowd of people who were either digging pits or sitting in the pools they’d dug. We had no plans to dig a pit ourselves but instead went to scout out an abandoned one, stepping into the pool to find it wasn’t very hot. It quickly became apparent the hot water here varies—some spots are hotter than others which was made apparent by only a few of the pools being steamy. We also learned that one has to dig reasonably deep to get hot water; so maybe that was the difference, but when we walked by pits at the shoreline, I merely dug my foot down in the sand and found a hot spot.

It was pretty interesting to watch the crowd all bunched together, sitting in pools ranging from shallow to a couple of feet deep, partying while trying to enjoy sitting in hot water under the summer sun. Yes, the whole thing seemed rather silly, but everyone seemed to be having fun. Below, a gallery of the hot water area…..

Plus a panorama of the crowd……

And another….

Rich had taken the panorama photos while I stepped into the ocean to get the best view of the beaches. What a contrast to see the quiet majestic beauty of this entire beach vs the little “Disneyland” over by the rocks where the hot water was. Below, some photos of the quieter areas away from the hot water.

It was time to head on as I had more in store for us today, an area close by called Cathedral Cove. –Cyndi

March 9 – 11, 2014

To travel is a wonderful thing, but it’s not generally easy or restful. There’s always too much to see in the time allotted, so choices, some of them difficult, need to be made along the way.

I was facing just such a choice after we returned to Tauranga from our road trip. It would have been nice to relax for awhile, but bad weather was due to arrive in the coming days; then we had friends coming to visit sometime in the following week or so. Since the nights were getting colder, we’d just purchased a space heater, a reminder that fall was on the horizon and our time in New Zealand getting shorter. I figured if we could fit in one more trip while before the weather system arrived, it would put is in a better position to wrap things up when we had good conditions again.

What could we do in two or three days? The Coromandel Peninsula would take a little longer than that, but if I broke that up into two trips, we could do the furthest reaches of it now and closer areas later, as day trips. With that, I got on Wot-If to look for a hotel deal in an area called Whitianga. When I found one, I approached Rich about it, not sure he’d be thrilled about another trip so soon. But he was agreeable; so I booked the hotel and made plans for us to leave the following morning.

Now the most intensive planning really began as I figured out how best to do things. As it happened, the two biggest sights needed to be done around low tide; so I had to plan our timing for those; then figure out how best to fit in other things nearby. Travel planning is like putting together a puzzle, and it always takes more time and work than one might think. Each round of planning brought up more questions that needed to be researched; so I worked on this off and on over the course of the day. Finally, I had a plan that would work out for us; the best news being that we didn’t have to leave until 9am.

This may seem like an unusual thing to be writing about, and normally I wouldn’t think to do it. But I met someone months later, a woman cruising with her spouse and children in New Caledonia, on whose shoulders it had fallen to plan family outings in this place where the language was French and travel information was not well laid out or even downright elusive. I was telling her about a small road trip Rich and I were doing there, and she wondered how I managed to pull it together. So I told her about sitting in front of the computer with whatever brochures I had, my Lonely Planet Guide, and then Google to hopefully answer my questions and map out our route. Sometimes I ‘d end up combing through other people’s travel blogs to get my answers (thank you travel bloggers) or use Google Street View to “drive” down a road and figure out where something actually was.

Bottom line: this type of planning takes more time and effort than it seems it should; but if you put in the work, the rewards are great. Thankfully during the years we’ve been cruising, this process has gotten much easier as Google has gotten better. Later I ran into my friend and she’d planned a similar outing, saying she just imitated me; sat in front of her computer with brochures and books and Google and pulled it together. I was happy this worked out and have to say this was one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten.

Meanwhile, for this post, I have a round-up of the second-choice pics that didn’t make it into photo galleries from our previous trip down to Taupo, Tongariro, New Plymouth, and Waitomo. (You can click on any photo to enlarge.) –Cyndi

December 28, 2021

Where the heck did I put that extra thru-hull fitting? Where did I put the extra solder? These are daily questions aboard Legacy. But we have an easy answer: Look in the Inventory Photos folder!

I can’t seem to make myself keep an accurate, up-to-date inventory of what’s where. I can manage to take photos as I add and remove things from their cubbyholes. Then to find something, I just flip through the photos on the computer.

Every so often, when I clean out a bin, I retake the photos for an up-to-date inventory. This system has been working great for about six years now.

Just today I found this in Bin 6…

As you can see, the photos don’t need to be good, just recognizable.

-Rich

 

December 29, 2021

We’re just sharing this possibly embarrassing plan with you to show you our thought process at this time. I think it’s similar to that of many other cruisers – not the specifics but the basic concept of trying to figure out what to do in these challenging Covid-19 times.

We started talking a while back about sailing back down to Stewart Island this (southern) summer. In the interactive Google map below, you’ll see that it has evolved somewhat. (Click on the leg number to see the to and froms.)

 

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The total voyage distance would be 3,088 nautical miles and at an average speed of 5.2 knots, would mean sailing for 594 hours or 24 days. Yea, there’d be stops along the way, but that’s a lot of time at sea. Our longest passage ever was almost 3,000 miles from Hawaii back to California.

This would also mean sailing much of the trip in extreme (for us) southern latitudes where it can get very rough. Sure, we’d wait, and wait, and wait for weather but still…

Man, I hope we come to our senses before we try this stupidity! -Rich