Two At Sea

April 24, 2021

The last major job on our list is done – Fix head dry rot. At least, as done as it’s going to get.

1. 1. New Galley Counter
   2. Install an Air Conditioner
   3. Repair Dry Rot in Head Bulkhead
   4. Install Lithium Batteries
   5. Replace Transmission Damper Plate

Why did you spend so much time on this project?, I imagine you asking. Here’s what happens when the problem is allowed to go on too long.

This Florida boat had its mast fall over when the rotted bulkhead pulled through the rotted deck. Ours wasn’t this bad, but we ended up having to replace more wood than we expected. The bottom of all four wall panels had serious rot in the bottom foot or so. We sawed the bad wood off and replaced it with new marine plywood covered with very realistic wood-grain Formica. Here’s the result…

While we were at it, we also replaced the cabinet doors, replaced the sliding mirror cabinet doors and main mirror, as well as a refinish job on the mirror frame. There’s more that needs doing. We could use a new counter top and there is a little more varnishing that we should do, but I’m tired of this project! Next. (Oh, wait. I’m at the end of my list.) -Rich

February 25, 2014

We had time to visit one more area before our boat outing: the Blue and Green Lakes. The Blue Lake gets its color from its whitish pumice bottom, while the Green Lake has a sandy bottom. Both lakes are close enough together to share a lookout, the Blue and Green Lakes Lookout, which sits on a hill between the two lakes.

Before we arrived at the lookout, we were able to detour to the Blue Lake for a close-up look. The lake didn’t seem especially blue but was lovely nonetheless. Its still water was surrounded by densely-forested hills and a gravely beach that was strikingly white. It looked like a terrific place to enjoy a picnic and some swimming. Below a panorama photo (click on any photo to enlarge).

Next up was the Blue and Green Lakes Lookout, which had a good view of both lakes.

And some panoramas…

 

We decided we’d like a closer view of the Green Lake and hiked down a very bushy trail to try to get near it. The Maori people consider it sacred; so it’s not open for recreational use and not very accessible. We got as close as we could but it wasn’t a particularly good place for taking photographs. The lake was greenish, but not in a remarkable way. Still, it had been an interesting walk through some pretty native bush forest. (You can see just how bushy it was in the photo of Rich walking through.)

As it turned out, this was to be our final nature outing for the day as our boat trip got canceled. We didn’t mind—we took them up on their offer to go the next day. So we headed back towards town and ran into some surprise traffic. What could cause traffic at this time of day, an accident? No, it turned out thick steam was coming up from under the right turn lane, now coned off. Uh, did this concern anyone other than us? This whole area is a thermal hotbed, and we had to wonder if there was any danger of it suddenly escalating. It’s unnerving to have to drive around spewing steam suddenly coming up from the ground. Hopefully someone, somewhere, monitors these things.

Back in town, we decided to walk around. Rotorua has a look typical for New Zealand towns: a small central area with one or two main streets lined with low buildings. The street level is lined with small businesses, cafes, and a bank or two. There are generally roundabouts instead of traffic lights and stop signs, which work really well.

Some New Zealand towns lack charm with large, brightly-colored signs for the businesses and a strip-mall feeling. Others, though, stick to a theme and manage to be quite attractive, keeping the business signs small and tasteful. Rotorua tends to slide into the less-charming end of the scale, but we discovered something new: a covered promenade, about a block long, filled with restaurants. It was attractive, well designed, and gave the town some needed oomph. This town probably sees about every tourist in the known universe come through, yet it remains surprisingly small and relatively low key. It’s nice to see them do something special like this. Below, some photos around of the town and the promenade.

We decided to have an early dinner at a local institution called the Fat Dog Cafe. We enjoyed its funky colorful decor, good food, and a refreshing local Mata beer. Below, photos of the restaurant, which as you can see has a lot of character.

Heading back to the hotel for awhile, we waited for sunset to head to the Polynesian Spa. The spa sits next to Lake Rotorua and contains a series man-made pools fed by natural mineral hot springs. There are a couple of areas of pools, and we chose the central Pavilion Pools with eight pools of various sizes, temperatures, and degrees of alkalinity/acidity. One of them had a particularly nice view of the lake—naturally this one was the most crowded.

After changing into our bathing suits, we tested about 3 pools before finding one at our favorite temperature. It felt great to soak awhile in the hot water, then try some of the other pools when we either wanted to cool off or warm up. After taking a swim in the big pool, we finally saw an opening in the lakeside pool and grabbed it, soaking and enjoying a view of the lake as dusk turned to dark, a lovely way to end our evening.

If we ever come back, we’d arrive later to avoid peak-crowd sunset time and spend a bit more money to do the deluxe lake spa pools, all with lake views and probably much fewer people.

We had finished the Polynesian Spa but not our hot water soaking. It turned out a feature of our hotel room was a fairly large Jacuzzi in its own little tiled room. The room was very plain but had big windows looking out onto the grounds around the hotel. I filled the Jacuzzi with soakably-hot water and Rich brought in a bottle of wine.

We sat for awhile, sipping wine while enjoying the view of eucalyptus tree branches lit from below. It was a great end to what turned out to be a really nice day. After all this hot water soaking, we had a great night’s sleep. With both our “E ticket” attractions now back to back, tomorrow would be a full day. –Cyndi

And now, picking up where I left off in 2014…

February 25, 2014

Rotorua is a district of lakes, parks, and a namesake town that lie about an hour’s drive from the east coast of New Zealand. It’s not a national park, but it certainly seems worthy of that title. Although it’s easy to get to, it can be one of the most challenging places to travel in New Zealand simply because it has so many attractions from which to choose!

A geothermal and cultural wonderland, Rotorua sits amid numerous lakes and boasts several major thermal parks, Maori cultural attractions and shows,  thrill-seeking activities such as bungy jumping and river rafting, a museum in a magnificent historic building, a volcano-buried archeological site, two hot-spring spas (and some natural hot springs that are free if you know where to find them), a sizeable redwood forest, the gondola-accessed Skyline complex, a small zoo featuring indigenous wildlife, a sheep farm featuring shearing demonstrations, and a central town.

Rotorua has become such a tourist mecca that it has earned the controversial nickname “Rotovegas.” Personally, I think it has much more in common with Disneyland than Las Vegas, and it would be easy to label the attractions with the old ticket book system Disney used, going from A Tickets for the most minor stuff to E Tickets for the biggest attractions. Each Disney ticket had a value, getting progressively more expensive as they went from A to E.

Rotorua may not have Disneyland’s ticket books, but you do have to buy tickets to (and sometimes book ahead for) many of the attractions. If one’s focus is on the “E Ticket” options, the cost of a visit could add up very quickly. The slogan here could be “Rotorua. Bring your wallet!”

Thankfully, some of the sights are free or low cost. Because we were staying in Tauranga with Rotorua less than an hour away, we could visit multiple times and mix and match the “tickets” in order to avoid one big heart-stopping expense. During our previous trip (in 2013) we’d visited Waimangu Volcanic Valley thermal park (E Ticket), the Skyline complex (D Ticket), and Ohinemutu–a historic Maori village village interspersed with natural boiling pools (A Ticket).

For this trip, I planned a visit the Wai-O-Tapu geothermal park (E Ticket), the Rotorua Museum (C Ticket), the Redwood Forest (A ticket), the Green and Blue Lakes (A ticket), the Polynesian Spa (D Ticket), and the Lake Tawarera Water Taxi Eco Ride (E Ticket). Again, the ticket letter is more indicative of the price of an attraction, not its worthiness. For example, the Redwood Memorial Grove was free, but it was stunningly beautiful.

It would be a busy couple of days, and even when combined with the activities of our previous visit, this would still not cover everything I hoped we’d eventually do in Rotorua. Below, an interactive map of attractions we planned to visit.

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It was a beautiful sunny morning as we headed off to Rotorua, a great day for a getaway. Our first stop in town was our hotel, called the Rydges. We’d gotten a great deal because they were doing major renovations in their central atrium. Even with the construction it was surprisingly nice, and I was glad we’d upgraded from our last year’s luggage–plastic grocery bags–to a reusable cloth grocery bag boasting the logo of Countdown, New Zealand’s most popular grocery store.

No, it wasn’t Louis Vuitton, but it was better than the plastic trash bags we felt-tipped marked with the LV logo when we stayed at the elegant Langham Hotel in Auckland. (Note: No one was fooled by our drawn-in LV logos—the poor Langham bellhop gingerly hung our plastic grocery bag from his carrier as if it contained dog poo before taking us up to our room. Of course we tipped him, and that fixes a lot of indignities. After all, he had to carry the bag—we simply hung back and pretended not to know him.)

The hotel stop to drop off our stuff was followed by today’s visit to a cultural attraction, the Maori-themed Mc Donald’s for lunch. I’ve noticed that when a Mc Donald’s is built in a much-visited place with a lot of character, they tend carry the theme into their interior decor. This one turned out to be no exception as it featured a lot of Maori wood carvings and some unusual seating. I wish they’d taken it one step further and featured a traditional Maori feast dish (they could call it the Mc Hangi), but that might be asking too much.

Below, some photos from inside the Mc Donald’s (click on any photo in the galleries that follow to enlarge).

We then we stopped by the local i-SITE Center (New Zealand visitor information centers scattered throughout the country). This center was fancier than most, big and filled with souvenirs, brochures and a ticket booking counter manned by a line of employees wearing headsets, looking like they could either sell attraction tickets or conduct a rocket launch. I pitied any tourists who enter this place without a plan—it would be utterly overwhelming! I already had our plans in place but wanted to come here to see their hot mineral footbath. But with its tepid water and appearance that no one actually uses it, I wasn’t tempted to stick my feet in there. Rich joked that maybe we should just head back to Tauranga now. I didn’t find that funny.

The first real attraction of the day was the Rotorua Museum, set in historic grounds called the Government Gardens. I hadn’t checked prices, though, and was a bit shocked to find the museum cost $20 a person. Rich isn’t into museums and that price was a deal-breaker for him. Sometimes I’ll go into a museum solo, but even for me that price seemed steep. So instead we walked around the Government Gardens and looked at some boiling pools and the historic bathhouse. It was interesting, but I was starting to worry this trip might be a bust. Perhaps starting our Rotorua tour with a visitors center and Mc Donald’s had been a mistake.

Below, photos of the museum and Government Gardens.

We had some time to kill before our first booked outing, a boat ride across one of the lakes, and I realized the Redwood Memorial Grove would be a perfect time filler. Redwoods aren’t native to New Zealand, but for an experiment early last century they were planted, along with other exotic trees, to see if they would be viable for commercial forestry. The outcome was these redwoods did better here than in their native soil, reaching over 230 feet within 100 years. In spite of that, nothing came of the logging industry’s hopes for the redwoods, and this magnificent grove is now protected for recreational use.

Our plan was to take the Memorial Grove Trail through the forest, which thankfully began near the parking area where clueless Americans could find it easily. Instantly we found ourselves in a sea of redwoods, very close together with not much growth on the ground. But as we walked further in, we found the trees were older, bigger, and more spread out with ferns and tree ferns on the forest floor. These were not as big as our California redwoods, which are hundreds, even thousands, of years old, but they were impressive. As far as beauty, we’d consider this forest was a match for our sequoia and redwood forests in California, and we’d urge any native New Zealander to visit this place to get a taste for California’s national parks.

This walk was so beautiful that we opted to take the longest route (making it about an hour walk). After a time the redwoods petered out and native New Zealand bush forest emerged. As we made our way back towards our car, I finally felt like we’d gotten off to a good start on this trip. Below, photos of the redwood forest.

Next up we had a few more plans for the day, which I’ll cover in Part Two. –Cyndi

April 20, 2021

While all of our Northern Hemisphere friends were complaining about their cold winter, we were sniggering while we basked in the warm southern summer. No more. It’s turned cold here in Auckland.

That’s right: Jeans, socks and big-boy shoes for the first time in a long time. And a jacket too! I hate the cold! -Rich

December 17 – March 17, 2021

The whole America’s Cup has been a bit of a process for us. We were fans back in the early days of Dennis Conner, but things gradually changed since then. I can pinpoint the beginning of the end to the 1988 race in San Diego when New Zealand brought in a monstrous boat and Dennis Conner answered by building a catamaran, both teams breaking (in my opinion) non-existent rules that maybe should have existed.

For us, it went downhill from there as boats became multi-hulls, lawsuits became the norm, and crew nationalities became more mixed as the years went on. Eventually, our “home” boat didn’t feel so much like an American boat with a former Kiwi competitor at the helm. Where was the American hero in this story? Probably on some other country’s boat.

The years went by, the boats became more extreme, and we considered this less a boat race and more a race of bizarre low-flying airplanes. By this point we, along with much of America it seems, just lost interest.

Years later we were discussing the issue with a cruising friend. He advised us to let go of what the boats used be like and watch them for what they are, because they are fantastic. I took that to heart and decided to let go of the past and start anew with my attitude toward the America’s Cup races. Rich was a bit more reluctant but willing to give it a chance the next time it came around.

Come March 2020, countries closed and we ended up situated in New Zealand. Winter was coming, and we decided to head north to Auckland. This decision had nothing to do with the races—in fact we didn’t think we’d still be here come race time–and everything to do with being in a warmer place. But as circumstances had it, we’ve been here through all the America’s Cup events, next to the center of the action. Below, some photos taken around the Viaduct as the racing events took place (click to enlarge any photo).

It seems a bit unfair that two such lukewarm fans ended up being here during the Cup when there are many sailing fans who would give about anything to be immersed in all this. But I have to say from the very first race we discovered our friend was right: these flying boats are indeed magnificent! We haven’t missed single a race since they began!

Over our time here we have watched the races on a giant screen in a restaurant (fun!), on a big screen in the outdoor area of the Viaduct (too sunny for comfort!), from the spectator fleet on our friends’ boat (fascinating to see just how fast they are in real life!), and sitting and watching it on YouTube on our boat, both in our marina and at a beautiful anchorage in the Haruaki Gulf. Watching on YouTube gave us the best view of the action plus we enjoyed the commentary, but watching it in person gave us a sense of speed that didn’t quite come through on our screens. Below, photos from the places from which we watched America’s Cup racing.

But it’s all been fun, and while we’ve gotten rather accustomed to it, it’s still neat to be out and about in the Viaduct during this time, seeing team members at various watering holes in the morning and evening (yes, they like coffee, beer, and in the case of the Italians and Americans, margaritas) or walking around during the day. And it’s fun to see how festive the area has been, although the Viaduct tends to be festive no matter what.

Sometimes we had to remind ourselves not to take all this for granted, but what we never, ever took for granted and felt gratitude for every day is the fact we ended up in New Zealand during the Covid pandemic. We rode out the first big lockdown in the South Island; then once we arrived in Auckland, aside from some brief Level 3 lockdowns, life has been normal here. And it’s amazing now fun “normal” is after even a brief lockdown!

Who were we rooting for to win? Everyone! Of course since we’re American, we have to root for the American team. Yet we were so impressed to see how the Italian boat improved over the past months, becoming the boat to beat. Meanwhile, Ineos (Britain) went from being the underdog, the boat people felt kind of sorry for, to a major threat in this race; another astonishing transformation into a contender to win the race. And of course we rooted for New Zealand, which feels like a second home and has given us sanctuary during this difficult year. We would have been thrilled to see any one of these boats win.

I guess in the end we were mostly rooting for the local restaurant owners and businesses, which meant we hoped the races would go on as long as possible. They may not have had their international tourist crowd this year, but they did have hoards of New Zealanders who would normally be on their own foreign trips, now anxious to take part in something so exciting on their home turf. The people who run these businesses have been so hospitable and nice to us. Knowing how they have suffered from the effects of the lockdown periods; we loved to see them thrive, their restaurants full of people enjoying food, drink, and some fantastic summer weather.

We were lucky enough to be invited onto our friends’ boat, D’Urville, for an early race plus the final two days of racing. Below, some photos and video clips taken as we exited and returned to Auckland Harbour for the final two races, including the America’s Cup boats passing us by and some of the racing action. (The last photo in the gallery is an AIS shot of the spectator boats around that day’s race course. Note that most local Kiwis don’t have AIS; so there are far more boats than indicated.)

…and a video…

I can say it was very exciting, and New Zealanders are certainly enthusiastic fans. Emirates Team New Zealand did have some strokes of luck, but in the end it was clear: they had the best boat and the best crew. Their win was well deserved. Below, some photos just after the final victory…

In the above, can you guess who the lone Prada fan is?

We congratulate New Zealand not just on the Cup win, but as everyone can see, on the way they’ve handled the pandemic as well. Bravo! –Cyndi