Auckland to Opua, NZ, April 23, 2010

I am very happy to report that God Spede is on the move again. We just completed a meandering, relaxing twelve day sail from Auckland to Opua New Zealand. It is great to be on board and on the mobile again!

God Spede is looking better than ever. Fred lavished her with a big dose of TLC and she now has gorgeous new teak decks and a spacious anchor locker. The new deck was quite a project. It required every single deck fitting to be removed while the old deck was torn off and the new deck was laid down. Then every deck fitting had to be replaced and every screw hole checked for leaks and every leaky part removed again and remounted. It was a big, big job, but now the boat looks fabulous and is leak free - a big big plus when you live aboard.

Fred, Jeff and I have been back in New Zealand since January. We've spent some time overseeing and helping with the boat projects, and some time traveling around enjoying the scenery. And they've got some good scenery down here. We've also spent some time touring around with my Mom and Merv. Those crazy kids came down for 5 weeks and rented a camper van and toured the South Island. We had a really nice visit with them at the end of their stay.



We left Auckland on Sunday, April 11, after having a farewell dinner the night before with my Mom and Merv who had been touring New Zealand in a camper van for about five weeks.

We did a short sail out to Waiheke Island the first night and stayed in a bay we'd been to twice before on short shake-down sails. The next day we hooked up with our New Zealand friends Sean and Trace who were on holiday and were cruising in their boat, Heramana, with their niece Amber. We did a very relaxing day sail up to Kawau Island and spent the next two nights in a very lovely bay there.

Kawau Island is an interesting place. In the 1800s Governor Gray lived there and he was very interested in bringing different plants and animals to New Zealand in an effort to find new industries for his country to engage in. Apparently he had quite a few different animals brought in from Australia, but the only ones to survive the winters were the wallabies - those little guys who look like kangaroos. They not only survived, but prospered, and are all over the place still. I went for a walk there and saw six of the buggers in a few hours. They were really cute when they were sitting up on their big back feet with their little front paws hanging by their chests, but when they went to scamper away they leaned over and then they looked a lot like a big rat with their long skinny tails trailing along behind them. I'm really not sure if I'd want them in my back yard, but I did enjoy seeing them up close and free.

We spent a lot of our time in Kawau doing small projects, trying out some new gear, reorganizing cupboards and generally sorting things out. We also had Sean, Trace and Amanda over for dinner one night. Jeff and his increasingly talented sous chef, Fred, made penne with broccoli and garlic, ala Bon Apetit, with meatballs in red sauce on the side, and Trace brought home made bread and cookies. It was quite a feast! Six people is a squeeze for salon dining on the God Spede but Sean and Trace are the kinda people we're always happy to make room for.

After a few days on Kawau we parted company with Sean's gang, and we set sail for Great Barrier Island, about 25 miles away. We'd heard quite a bit about Great Barrier, since it is a big sailing destination in the summer here. We can certainly see why. The main harbor is huge and has lots of small bays within it, so you can always be very protected regardless of the wind direction. We tested that theory as we sat out a couple days of bad weather there. We were lucky enough to get the use of Ray Beale's mooring there. Ray had surveyed God Spede just before we left Auckland for insurance purposes, and when he heard we were going to Great Barrier he offered us the use of his mooring, which let us sleep well while the wind blew strong during our last night's stay there.

Ray's mooring was located one bay over from Smokehouse Bay which is a delightful little area created by boaters for other boaters. There was a big fresh water tank which fills up bath tubs, one inside for privacy and one outside if you choose to enjoy the fabulous view while you soak. There is a wood-fired hot water heater for the tubs and there was a big pile of driftwood that had been collected already behind the tub house. There is also a smokehouse to smoke your fish and grills to cook em up on, and a big fire pit, and picnic tables, and fish cleaning tables, and so on. I bet the place is a madhouse in the summer!

We discovered Smokehouse Bay on our last day on Great Barrier, so we didn't use the facilities, but we did take a short hike from that bay which went inland and over a ridge then down to the next bay which had pretty red rock cliffs.

The next morning we got up early and headed for Tutukaka. This is a very little town on the mainland which exists, as far as we can tell, as a base for fishermen and divers who want to dive the Poor Knight's Islands. These islands are 12 km offshore and are a protected marine reserve. We were quite excited to go scuba diving there because Jacques Cousteau had been there and given them two thumbs up, and because we wanted to try out our new dive gear while in the company of dive professionals before we go off into the deep blue yonder on our own. This turned out to be a very wise move since both our new gear and some of our older stuff needed a bit of professional tweaking before it would function correctly. Luckily, Craig at Dive Tutukaka was able to get us all sorted and off we went.

This was the first time Jeff and I had been diving in cold water, and I was not really excited about the cold, but I found that all the people who told me that the thicker wetsuits would keep your warm were right, but I also found that they had neglected to tell me how amazingly difficult it is to get those stupid thick wetsuits on! Not to mention that then you are still meant to be able to get the rest of your stuff on over it! Jeff said I looked like the snowsuit kid from A Christmas Story, and I certainly felt like him! Thankfully Fred and Jeff quickly realized I was struggling and were great about helping me get suited up and off the boat each time we went.

We did four dives in two days and I felt pretty spastic on the first dive each day, and then really enjoyed the second dive. We saw lots of short tailed sting rays and eels and there were cool caves and arches that we got to swim through. In between the dives each day the boat cruised around the islands for sightseeing and they are pretty spectacular looking, so that was fun too.

After Tutukaka we made the trip to Opua in two short day sails and arrived on Fri., April 23. The weather was so nice for this trip that we were able to sail through the skinny gap between Cape Brett and Motukokako Island (known locally as "Hole in the Rock"). Quite a difference from our last trip near here in 2008 when the waves were so big it felt like we were riding a bronco!

We'll be in Opua for at least a week while we finish provisioning and try to finish all our last minute repairs and check our spares list one last time. It's a bit daunting because once we leave New Zealand everything will be more expensive, and a lot of stuff simply won't be available, but at least this time we have a little bit of a clue as to what we might be able to find on the little islands and we know that you can often trade another cruiser for something if you really can't find it, which is all knowledge we did not have when leaving the US originally

We currently plan to head for Tonga sometime near May 1. Sean is going to sail with us up to Tonga if he can get his passport renewed in time, and Jeff's brother, Tom, is going to meet us there also, which we are very excited about. After Tonga we'll head for Fiji, Vanuatu, Palau and then maybe working our way towards Thailand while staying in the safe zone near the equator during cyclone season. I say this with the disclaimer that all plans are subject to change at any time!