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…”
