Things Falling off the Boat – Day 4 to New Cal

On Jun 18th, 2016 Published By B.J.

This seems to be the trip to find things that are vibrating apart or open.

Yesterday we had the tack shackle come off the head sail. Today we discovered that the bolt that holds the Radar mount to the deck had worked loose. Fortunately, it too was found on the deck along with it’s nuts and washers, and we were able to reinstall it. With Loctite, this time, even though it had a Nylock nut on it

And later, the shackle that held the topping lift to the book worked open. For the third time we were also lucky; the shackle loop was still in the topping lift, and we found the pin on the deck.

Still no fish today, though the water and the air are getting water.

The wind conditions are similar, 15-20 SE winds, which leave us zigging and zagging back and forth to sail dead down wind. We have more North to go that West, still. So we’re staying on Starboard tack and hoping for a shift to the East.

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Day Three to New Cal

On Jun 17th, 2016 Published By B.J.

There’s not much new to report today. The conditions are about the same as yesterday, with 15-18 knot winds from the Southeast settling in. The sailing isn’t super fast, and it’s not straight at New Caledonia. We’re sailing about 30 degrees off of dead down wind, so at some point we’re going to have to jib over and sail the other way for a while. But for now, while the wind holds, we’ll ride it even if it’s not taking us far enough West.

We did have a brief bit of excitement when Kathy noticed on her watch that the shackle holding the tack (the lower front corner) of the head sail had come off. Rather than wrestle it in the dark to fix it, we furled the sail. The wind had been fading anyway, and that capped off the decision to motor for a while until the wind filled back in. In the morning we found the shackle on the deck, but attached a different one on and “seized” it with wire. “Seizing” is winding wire around the shackle pin so it can’t come unscrewed; I can’t find the links from off shore, but I discuss this in some detail in one of our posts about getting ready for Hurricane Sandy in 2012 if you’re more interested. Here it is -Ed It appeared we failed to seize this shackle on, or less likely the seizing failed on it.

Still no fish, though we had a line out for most of the day. There is still a chill in the air if you’re in the breeze, but it is getting warmer. The water temp is now up to 71.0° F.

Current arrival predictions are for some time on Monday, the 21st (remember the date line, US based readers, that’s the Sunday the 20th for you). We’re hoping to reach New Caledonia during the day, because there is a reef entrance to be navigated, as well as a roughly fifteen mile trip from the pass in the barrier reef to the city of Noumea that has a few twists, turns and hazards. So we won’t be making that at night. If we get close to the pass in the middle of the night we’ll stand off shore until the sun is well up for the best visibility.

Hopefully we’ll have a better ETA soon, but with the winds the way they are…who knows for sure?

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Day Two to New Caledonia

On Jun 16th, 2016 Published By B.J.

Day two was pretty uneventful. That is always a good thing.
Motorsailing last night we shook two battens out of the main sail accidentally. It aeppears one landed on the deck, the other did not. It made a loud and alarming noise in the dark, but nothing was visibly wrong. We didn’t sort it out until the morning when we found the batten lying on the deck.
The winds have filled in from the Southeast. It’s good because there is wind, but not great because New Caledonia lies to the Northwest. So the wind is almost straight behind us. That means we’re zig-zagging across it. The latest GRIB for weather I have is still the one I downloaded before we left; it is suggesting now we should range East to pick up better wind, then cut back at some point to get back to our course.
No fish; we’ve had a line out both days now. Maybe when it gets warmer. The water temp has climbed from 62F when we left NZ up to 70.3F. Hopefuly the air will follow suit soon and we can start peeling layers.
We’re looking forward to Calzones for dinner tonight, with Kathy’s hand made pizza crust. Always a treat off shore. As usual we’ve been eating well, something which the benign conditions permit.
At this rate it’s likely to be a six day trip, not the five we’d hoped for. But we’ll see. And now to retrieve the fishing line for the night and get ready for dinner.

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Day One to New Caledonia

On Jun 15th, 2016 Published By B.J.

The first day to New Caledonia has been almost by the book from what we expected of the weather. Our weather forecasts predicted light to no wind the first night, and light Southerly breezes today. The expectation is that later in the trip the Southeast Trade Winds will fill in and make for a faster passage. But for now it was motoring all night, sailing slowly and drifting West all day today, and an expectation of another night motor sailing.
We’re erring on the side of sailing too far West in anticipation of the trade winds. If we’ve headed West of coure course, Southeasterly winds will be more on our beam and easier sailing than if we headed too far East. Then, when the wind fills it will be from behind the boat, which is less pleasant and more difficult to sail.
We’ve been fishing otday, but no fish so far. Either it’s too cold for the things, or we’re not moving fast enough to present an interesting looking lure.

The Dumpster Fire of Departure

Getting out of New Zealand this time was a series of annoying setbacks and bad weather. The original plan was for us to be in New Caledonia well before Will arrived back from college in the UK. We’d booked him a round trip flight from London to Brisbane, Australia, and a one way leg from Brisbane onwards to Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia, arriving in Noumea on June 2rd.
We weren’t really ready for a nice departure window sometime in early May, we planned to leave a week or so later on the next good weather window. That weather window never materialized.
The trip from Opua, New Zealand to Noumea, New Caledonia is about 875 nautical miles, which is about five days on Evenstar. Ideally, we’d find a forecast where no seriously nasty weather would be due for five or six days, then slip out and go. That didn’t happen. For weeks on end a series of low pressure “troughs” – stormy systems of high winds, rain and rough seas, marched across the Tasman Sea providing no clear window when we could set sail without the expectation of 40 knot winds, 15 foot seas , or some unpleasant combination thereof. When your forecast for a five day trip includes three days of rotten weather, it’s time to stay put and wait.
We ran up against a problem because our NZ Visas expired on May 26th. So we had to make a call – head out into the bad weather, or extend the visas. The cost to extend the visa was the same as last time ($165 NZD) except that to stay longer than six months requires a chest X-ray. We got the X-rays and extended, because the forecasts did not look good.
As we got closer to Will’s arrival date we saw what looked like a good window, only to have it evaporate a few days before our deadline to meet him arrived. We booked a new flight for Will to Auckland arriving June 1st, and we planned to take the good weather window on the 3rd and go. But as Will was boarding a plane in the UK, a new trough appeared on the forecast. The trough that was coming was a monster, stretching from New Caledonia all the way down over South Island, and taking a week or more to clear the area. By the time Will got to New Zealand we knew we weren’t going anyplace for at least another week or more.
We spent DAYS stuck on the boat after he arrived with howling wind, pouring rain and chill air. It’s winter in New Zealand now, and with the cold came the condensation. The inside of the boat had been dropping with it, as every wall on the outside of the hull was cool, and the warmth from our breath, our cooking, and so on caused condensation to pile up. It dripped on our heads while we slept, made the curtains wet, and got into everything. New Zealand winter is fairly mild, it’s like winter in say, North Carolina. But the cold nights and the humidity had been a plague on us since the beginning of May. Kathy was continually fighting off mildew and wiping things down.
Eventually, the giant trough cleared and we got ready to go. We returned out friend’s car on Thursday the 9th, hoping to leave Friday. It became apparent that Friday would be a zero wind day, so rather than plan to spend a couple of days motoring and burning a few hundred dollars worth of dead dinosaurs, we decided to wait until Saturday.
We began some of our final systems checks and discovered a few small problems. On Saturday morning the generator (the NEW generator.) stalled out for no reason. I deduced it was probably a bad thermostat, since the engine was not over heated. It started up right away after the stall and ran for another hour with no problem. So I did an emergency thermostat swap. Later, we found the button that controlled the main sheet electric which wasn’t working right. So I ripped the ceiling off the aft bathroom to get access to the winch and swapped in a spare button for the wonky one. Yeah! Well prepared spares supply: 2, gods of boat breakage: 0.
By three in the afternoon we were tired, but ready to go. We went in to Customs to clear out, which would be followed by a visit to the fuel dock to fill up on duty free fuel. One can only get out of paying the 15% tax on it by filling up after clearing to leave the country. We cleared out, went back to the boat, and prepared to pull the dinghy engine off and raise the dinghy to stow, when disaster struck.
We lift heavy things like dinghy engines, the Pudgy, people up into the rig, etc. with our spinnaker halyard, which is long enough to run back to a powered winch. So lifting a 150 pound boat out of the water becomes a push of a button instead of manually cranking the winch. We hooked the engine up to the halyard and put the halyard on the winch and.that winch button was wonky too. A quick test showed that ALL THREE electric winches were acting the same way – as if there was a dodgy button. They would spin up for a second then stop.
This was not good. We could, in theory take off and use the winches manually. But they are big winches and the loads are huge. Just winching up the dinghy engine five feet in the air we managed to drop a winch handle over board. The manual operation is a backup; heading off shore without the winches working properly would be irresponsible. So half an hour after we cleared out we were back at Customs asking them to chuck all that.
This of course was a Saturday. We cleaned out the locker where the winch controlling systems were kept. It was beyond damp. All that condensation had built up on the outside of the waterproof control boxes and the covers. We wiped everything down and purchased some dehydration bags to soak up more moisture. By Sunday, the winches worked again. Contrary to what you might expect, this was worse than continuing to malfunction. Because there was no way to reproduce the problem, there was no way to diagnose it and ensure that the problem was fixed.
Sunday, while running the generator, it also stalled. Again. So it wasn’t the thermostat. This is another deal breaker for not heading off shore. We need to be able to charge the batteries, and our 12V alternator on our engine was already acting up. Without the generator we wouldn’t be able to charge the start battery except for using solar panels, which isn’t realizable enough
On Monday morning we called the guys that installed the new generator last year and they came out to the boat. After much poking and prodding they discovered a lose ground wire that was not only the likely culprit for the stalls, but explained why all the dials and gauges had been going wild for weeks as well. With that sorted, I asked them to look at the messed up alternator, and they fixed that too. That’s an explanation for another day, but it made me happy to have that fixed, too.
While the guy was working on the engines I was tracking down the Lewmar guys in Auckland to talk to them about the winches. Finally I reached them late in the day. There wasn’t much to talk about, beyond that we couldn’t find the problem anymore. We’d been testing the winches for two days and they were working. Yes, the moisture causing it wasn’t an outlandish idea they confirmed. This was as good as we were going to get on this.
So finally, on Monday night we had a fixed generator, working winches, and a functioning 12v alternator on the engine as a bonus. Tuesday we still took a while to get our act together, and I even managed to drop a credit card on the floor in the marina office and leave it while paying for our fuel. We got a radio call as we were steaming out of Opua about the credit card, and had to turn back, lower the dinghy and send Will to row into pick it up (remember.the engine is off the dinghy for passages!).
But finally, by about 4:30, we got the whole clown show on the water and were on our way.

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Catching Up in New Zealand

On May 28th, 2016 Published By B.J.

First, my profuse apologies for not updating this more.  I’ve been writing, but writing fiction, not blogging. That’s been taking a lot of my time. The good news is I’ve written something like 130,000 words since last July. But very few of those words ended up in this blog. Whether fiction writing is a viable thing for me is a question for another time, but it is the primary reason I’ve devoted so little energy to writing here. This isn’t really the space to talk about my writing, though everything I’ve read says I need to build a social media “platform” to help promote my work some day if it ever gets published. So that means another blog to not update often enough…if you’re curious though, there is a “Contact” page here.

The second reason is we haven’t been doing all that much that is blog-worthy and interesting. Life in New Zealand has been…routine…and we’ve not done the same quantity of touring and exploration this year as we did last. Some has to do with a few things that happened, like our car getting stolen and the headaches from that. Some friends have been gracious enough to loan is their car while they were in the states, but we haven’t been making the great ranging road trips we did last time around.  We’ve spent a lot of time writing, doing school, and handling a few boat projects.

As of this posting we’ve technically overstayed out visit here, and had to apply for a visa extension to get past six months. The weather has been tough for leaving, with low pressure systems coming through every third day or so for the last few weeks. We, along with a handful of other cruisers, are perched waiting for a good window to go. Since we were planning to meet Will in New Caledonia next week and won’t be there, we also have other considerations.  We changed his flight to meet us in Auckland, though we will miss a good departure window in the next couple of days to do so. But June 3rd is looking good.

Marley’s Ghost

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You can see the flakes of metal coming off here.

Two major projects faced us this season in New Zealand. First, we needed to get our bottom painted. We had it done last year, but the paint was rather disappointing after the fantastic experience we had with Blue Water’s Copper Pro SCX 67. That stuff was amazing; we painted in the spring of 2012 before leaving Rhode Island, and it was still providing some protection by the time we got to New Zealand in late 2014 some 15,000 miles later.  Don’t look for it, it’s been discontinued. But our bottom looked better when we arrived in NZ in 2014 with that paint than it did when we arrived here last year after six months in Fiji with the new paint we had to use.

The second project was also from another disappointing product, our anchor chain. That was also replaced in 2012 right before we left. Three hundred feet of Acco’s best HT 7/16th inch chain. Within a year it was rusting, within two it was staining the boat with rust and looking nasty. After three and a half years chunks of it were coming off on the deck every time we ran the windlass.

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300′ of chain in a pile. Note the intense rust in the middle of the chain.

We were deeply concerned that the chain no longer had the strength or integrity to hold us securely. The pictures show that there is clear and serious degradation of the metal in the chain. Disappointing, as this was the top quality chain we could buy in the U.S. before we left, and we expected to get a decade or more out of this chain.

Fast forward three and a half years, and we’re in New Zealand.  Where everything is metric. And 7/16″ chain is nearly impossible to come by, and I had to jump through the hoops I talked about in the last entry to get the right one here.

After our bad experience with the Acco chain, we wanted something different. Which worked out pretty well since Acco isn’t a very strong presence here anyway. We settled on 12mm Maggi Aqua 7, a higher grade Italian chain with excellent rust resistance and the strength we needed. It’s easy to come by here in NZ, and it ended up costing us less than the last lot of chain we bought in the U.S. for 100 meters.

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726 Lbs of shiny new chain. Thanks to Sea Power for moving it for us!

Three hundred feet of 7/16″ HT anchor chain weighs 645 pounds.  One hundred meters of Aqua 7 12mm chain weighs 726 pounds. So this isn’t something you’re going to put in a dock cart and wheel down to the boat. It isn’t even something that a couple of grown men can comfortably move without some heavy-duty hardware help, your average shop dolly isn’t going to get it done. Once the chain is loose it’s like wrestling a big, dirty snake.

In our case we had it drop shipped to Cater Marine who’d ordered it for us, but we weren’t ready to install the chain when it arrived. We had to wait until we were pulled from the water for the bottom painting, then we could drop our 645 lbs of old chain (less all the rusted bits that fell off…) on the ground and haul the new chain up with the windless. When we finally got the boat on the hard I met with the folks at Cater, and we stood around the drum of chain, prodding it with our shoes and trying to figure out how to move it. Finally we reached out to Cater Marine’s neighbors at Sea Power, who installed our generator for us last year. They had a little truck with a crane on it, and were able to bring the new chain over for us and drop it under the bow, where after some work on the windlass to replace the gypsy we got it loaded on the boat.

Of Gypsies and Bearing Mush

In 2012 when I swapped out the old 12mm gypsy for the 7/16″ model it was pretty easy.  Undo a big nut on the windlass, pull off a little hardware and off it came. Slide the now one back on and put it all back together. It took me less than an hour.

This time, I wasn’t so lucky. The first thing I had to do was get the 12mm gypsy. Which I really didn’t want to do, because I am cheap and a new gypsy is not. But as I said in my last post, the folks at Marine Consignment came through!

Getting the gypsy off was not so easy. It should just slide off, but it wouldn’t move. Close inspection shows that the gypsy and the clutch surface seemed to have seized up together. No amount of heating and banging would move it. Our friends at Sea Power once again came through, with a specialized puller tool that popped it right apart for us.

albatros parts

If you like gruesome detail, it was the bits I circled in red.

Then I discovered what a mess the windlass was. Without boring you with gruesome details on the inside of the windlass, we discovered that the top seal on the drum had leaked. So all the of the bearings and retainer clips inside the windlass above the deck level had corroded to mush. Literally, brown rusty mush with a few rough round pellets in it that must have been ball bearings at one point.

Keep in mind, before I tell you our idiot solution, that this windlass has worked just fine for years with this bearing in a mushy state. This windlass is discontinued, and getting actual parts from the manufacturer in Italy proved impossible. Our friends at Cater Marine did track down appropriately sized seals and bearings for us eventually.

But in the meantime, we were on the hard for a week getting the boat painted while living on board. Living on board on the hard…is a subject for another post. Suffice to say, the key information is you want to do as little of it as possible, even if you weren’t paying fifty bucks a day to stay in the yard.

Close inspection after removing all the mush showed that this would be a labor intensive process to replace all the bearings, involving disassembling the windlass down to and below the deck level. This creates an opportunity to make new leaks, and would extend our time on the hard considerably since we had to put the windlass back together to load the chain.

So, with the flawless logic that it had worked fine with the bearing chamber packed full of rusty mush, it should all work find if I cleaned out the mush and packed it full of grease, I put the windlass back together and finished the project.

I have the bearings, clips and seals I need to finish the job. Now I just need a few days in a marina to rip it all apart. I don’t want to do it at anchor, since I won’t be able to use the windlass until I’ve finished. That would be a bad thing if some weather moved through. So maybe Australia in a few months.

Posted in hard to find parts, haulouts, New Zealand, procrastination, projects, Windlass | 1 Comment

Rain Delay…

On Feb 15th, 2016 Published By B.J.

Brief post…very short.

As of Monday AM the forecast in New Zealand was for rain for the next four to five days.  Which means the yard would be able to do little work, and we’d be sitting on the hard over the weekend and into next week.

We decided to wait for a week, so we’ll haul next Monday instead and hope to get back in before the weekend.

In the meantime…the freezer stopped working!

And of course we let all the food run down in anticipation of the lack of refrigeration…

On the plus side, a friend has offered us the use of their car for a bit which is fantastic!

Posted in On the Hard, projects | 3 Comments

Hard Times in New Zealand

On Feb 13th, 2016 Published By B.J.

The day I have dreaded for weeks has almost arrived.  Tomorrow at 1:00 in the afternoon we’re pulling Evenstar for a week and putting her on stands on the hard. Hopefully no more than a week.

We’re doing this for a few reasons, but mostly because we are getting the bottom re-painted and you can’t do that in the water. But we’re also replacing the chain, as the brand new chain we bought in 2012 is inexplicably rusting out and metal is coming off it in chunks.

What I am really dreading, though, is the time on the hard.

The Bad News on the Car

Via our Facebook page a couple of weeks ago we told people about our car being stolen. It was parked near the marina in Opua, New Zealand. We’d left Opua for a while and were anchored a few miles down the bay in Russell. I got a call from the Opua Cruising Club that the police were looking for me about my car.  Uh-oh.

How the Kawakawa police found our car

How the Kawakawa police found our car

As it turns out, someone had stolen our mini van. Then used it to break into a Honda dealership and steal a motor bike, which they jammed into the back of our car for the getaway. Somewhere out on a gravel road then drove our car off the road, and into a ditch while hitting a tree.

New Zealand is lovely, but it’s not an easy place to get around with if you don’t have a car. We were deciding what to do with the car anyway when we went South, as cruising in a boat and a car is a bit of a nuisance. We’d figured to sell the car at some point, and had just put new tires on it. Now the problem is settled for us for the most part, since it looks like the cost to put the car on the road is unlikely to be recouped if we sold it later. We can rent a car when we need to, later.

Which brings us back to hauling the boat.

Living on the Hard

The last time we hauled the boat here in NZ it was on the hard for almost two months as various projects were done.  We had a car, and we rented a house out in a town called Kaikohe. We took the time to do some car touring and camping, and put a lot of Kilometers on the car driving from Kaikohe to the boat in Opua.

This time, we hopefully will be out of the water no more than four nights. We are planning to stay on the boat for this time.

The marina has bathrooms and showers, an outdoor grill and a kitchen with a microwave.

Our problem is on board we have so many systems that rely on being in the water. Our toilets bring in seawater to flush, though it can be done with fresh water there is no way to get them emptied or pumped out either. The refrigeration is cooled by seawater. So we have to turn off the fridge and freezer and empty them. We do not have any “Chilly Bins” (the Kiwi word for “cooler”). They are quite expensive to buy and impractical to own on a boat. All of the sinks drain straight out into the water. Now they will drain into the parking lot. The generator is sea water-cooled; we will have no way to charge batteries if we can’t plug in to shore.

And I’m in no way sure that we’ll be able to plug the boat in anywhere to keep the lights and computers on. Or the internet…

Practically speaking, we will have a difficult time washing things, cooking, eating, and storing perishable food on board. Using the restroom will involve climbing up and down a sixteen foot ladder.

In the Opua marina area there is one place that serves dinner – the Opua Cruising Club, and one Cafe that serves lunches and breakfast. Depending on the time of year, the club isn’t open every night. There is a little, rather expensive store with some basic supplies that also has some hot “savouries” (pies, sausage rolls, etc.) and pizzas some nights. Without a car that is all that is in reach.

To stay off the boat, we’d need to rent a car. To eat…we may have to rent a car.

But with the requirement to rent a car combined with the need to eat off the boat…all of a sudden adding another $100+ a night for a motel (on top of the $50/night to store the boat on land) and this exercise is costing $3-400 a day to happen. So we decided to tough it out and stay on the boat to save a few hundred bucks.

Since they spray the bottom paint on here, there is likely one or two days where we want to be nowhere near the boat, either. So we go touring or shopping.

It will be kind of like camping, if you couldn’t cook or wash and had to climb a small cliff to pee. They beds will still be comfy though.

To Do List

As always, there’s a to-do list. The first step is getting the boat ready to haul. We have to lower the wind generator and prepare the backstay for detachment so the travel-lift can pick up the boat. Take the engine off the dinghy so it can be pulled separately. Fill the water tanks and empty the heads.

The big project for the yard is painting the bottom, cleaning up the sides, and refreshing the Propspeed on the propeller. Propspeed is a coating designed to minimize growth on underwater “running gear” – propellers, shafts, and the like.

Our main project is the new anchor rode. This is a 100 meter (~330 foot) lenght of 12mm chain. Our old chain was sized in standard Engilsh sizing (7/16”) because we replaced it in the states. The original chain was 12mm, and we have secured the original hardware for this new link size.

100 meters of 12mm galvanized chain is heavy – 3.3 Kg per meter.  Over seven hundred pounds. And we have to get rid of a 300’ length of rusty 7/16” chain. The process is pretty simple.

  1. Lower the old anchor and chain to the ground with the windlass.
  2. Remove the old chain
  3. Service the Windlass (clean, lubricate, etc.)
  4. Replace the 7/16” “gypsy” with the original 12mm gypsy. This is the cylinder with grooves shaped to hold the specific chain link size.
  5. Hoist the end of the new chain about 16 feet in the air though the bow roller
  6. At 33’ into the chain, apply chain markers measuring 300’
  7. Slowly bring the chain up to the boat
  8. Stop every 25’ and apply chain markers. We use “Osculati Chain Rainbows” to mark the chain. They are the only chain markers we put on in 2012 that are mostly still there today. They were the only method that was still reliable after a year.
  9. Re-attach the anchor
  10. Figure out how to dispose of a 600 pound pile of rusty chain

Chain markers. The markers, and the chain, get grotty pretty fast but they don’t fall out.

Along with the chain, we have a few other things to do. We’ll be replacing all the sacrificial zincs, and cleaning off the dinghy bottom. And just doing spot checks on everything under the water to make sure it’s all good.

The chain choice involved a fair amount of research. In 2012 we went with what was regarded as the de facto standard for top quality anchor chain in the U.S. at the time. We were shocked when it started to rust a year later, and when chunks started falling off it. Being in New Zealand, a metric country, 7/16″ isn’t easy to come by. We’d had problems with our original 12mm gypsy in the states with the 7/16″ chain and had to replace it. We didn’t think we’d be buying new chain for at least another decade, so we dropped the old gypsy off at Marine Consignment of Wickford to sell.

And here is where they earn a HUGE shout-out. In the months leading up to our departure I was over at Marine Consignment of Wickford weekly dropping off carloads of stuff we wouldn’t use or didn’t want that was still worth something. Over the following years I’ve been in touch with them from time to time and they’ve sent us occasional checks for items sold. It’s how they work, they will hold stuff for years and track your credit, it’s better than some of the dodgy home goods consignment stores we dealt with that want to claim your stuff if they don’t sell it fast.

A couple of weeks ago I called them in a panic; a new 12mm gypsy looked like it would cost something like $900 or more. So I decided to check and see if they had sold my old gypsy. With one phone call and about five minutes, they were able to find the gypsy and tell me it was still available. And they owed me more money. I sent them a NZ address, and they mailed it out the next day along with a check for my sold items less the cost of shipping the gypsy. So it cost me about $48 to get my old gypsy back, and I ended up net positive since they sent me a nice check to boot. I can’t say enough good things about dealing with these folks. They have a wildly eclectic mix of old and useful boat stuff in their inventory and I’ve found a few things there I couldn’t get elsewhere too.

In the middle of this work, we also have to get passport pictures taken and apply for our visa extensions.

It’s going to be a busy week.

Posted in haulouts, heads, hell, liveaboard, maintenance, misery, New Zealand, projects | 3 Comments

The Prodigal Post – Getting Caught Up

On Jan 29th, 2016 Published By B.J.

My apologies for not posting for nearly two months. It’s been busy since coming back to New Zealand, and I’ve been wrapped up in some other things that have kept me from updating the blog. And, as usual, when we get someplace we stay for a long time, blog updates slow down. Why? Because we get in a routine, and you don’t want to hear me post “Go up, had breakfast, Danielle did school while B.J. wrote, made dinner, etc. etc.” every day when we haven’t done anything exceptional.

Visit Home from University / Holidays

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Decked out in Christmas lights

A few days after I got back from the U.S., Will was scheduled to arrive in New Zealand for the holidays. He only got two weeks though, so we determined to make the most of it. Our original plan was to get the boat to Auckland before he got in, but that got shot to pieces when I had to travel. It didn’t matter, we hadn’t seen him since July and were thrilled he was coming home.

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Ridiculous NZ Christmas Crackers!

As it turned out, we spent a pretty mellow family holiday together, and it was great. We took Will out to some places he’d missed, and went out into the Bay of Islands again for Christmas. We had a small amount of running around to do, but not too much. Christmas on the boat is a much more mellow affair. We’ve gotten away from the massive pile of presents Christmas morning. Part of that is our kids aren’t little any more – their toys tend to be smaller and much more expensive! And it’s tough to make a big pile under a two foot tree. But most of it is the scaling back we started doing when we moved on board in 2012; we just don’t do the same Christmas insanity that is so prevalent in the U.S. None of the countries we’ve visited around the holidays do it up quite like the U.S. does!

Will and Kathy continued what may become a Christmas tradition if we’re near someplace with a campground next year – they headed off on Boxing Day day to sail off in the Pudgy and spend the night camping on an island. Danielle isn’t an enthusiastic camper, and Will and I don’t fit in the Pudgy together, so camping by sailing dink has become a mother-son tradition. Danielle and I stayed on the boat, made snacks, and binge watched on movies we know Kathy would hate (vampire flicks and goofy slapstick).

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Campsite on Urupukapuka Island. Evenstar is across the boat, in the cove made by the two outcropping points of land in the upper right.

We also took some walks, played some games, took some expeditions and just spent timing enjoying feeling…complete…as a family again.

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A pair of dolphins Will and B.J. saw cavorting on our way to the snack bar on Urupekapeka for a beer.

We expected the New Year’s eve the weather to be lousy. A trough (low pressure pattern) came to move through, with high winds and heavy rains. Our initial plan to spend New Year’s off of Russell like we did last year didn’t seem like such a good idea. We were hoping to see all the boat lights and the fireworks again.

It was protected enough, but we had to get in the car on the 2nd and drive to Auckland to put Will on a plane, and we didn’t want to have to re-anchor the boat in the predicted thirty-five knots of wind and torrential downpours. Getting the four of us and his luggage to shore in the dinghy in those conditions would be enough of a challenge. So we exercised some discretion and came back to Opua. It was still a nice evening, we ate a nice dinner in the middle of the night, opened champagne and laughed a lot.

Two weeks are still too short, but we’ll have the whole summer break starting in May!

Other Excuses for Not Blogging Much

The primary reason my blogging output has dropped dramatically though isn’t visits from children, holidays, passages, or other things. It’s because I’ve done a lot of writing.

Some that have read this blog have suggested I should write a book about our travels. This is not that writing. It may happen, some day, it may not. There’s a lot of blogs-turned-books about cruising out there and I’m not sure the market needs another one enough to justify the time it takes. And writing a book takes a lot of time.

Instead, I’ve tried my hand at fiction. Since sometime starting last July I’ve written about 140,000 words of fiction, comprising two separate novels and starts on two others. Now, I’m focused on fixing and polishing the first one so I can try to sell it. And turning the second one into from a first draft into something more rich and coherent. This takes up a lot of time, and a lot of my spare time that I’d otherwise be blogging or pounding the keyboard on social media.

I won’t go into too much detail on these projects, as they may never go anywhere. But it’s something that, like probably half the people out there, I’ve always wanted to try. Everyone’s a writer, or so it seems. But actually finishing a story…that’s a lot of work. Even if it sucks, it’s a nice milestone.  So I am trying to write every day, in fact I usually AM writing every day – my target is 3,000 words per day. But I haven’t been writing blog posts.

If it seems that the writing will be meeting some commercial success some day, I’ll be screaming it from the mountaintops here. Mostly that will be links to an author website.  But I’m not going to turn this blog into a writer’s rumination page.

Going Forward

So outside of writing, visits from Will and the usual day-to-day tasks that’s most of what we’ve been up to in New Zealand.

We’ve got some projects coming up that I’ll talk about in another post: replacing our anchor rode, painting the bottom again, and some very gripping stories about the boat plumbing.

So sit tight, I’ll be back in no time with you favorite stories about rebuilding plumbing systems in exotic places!

Posted in dolphins, Family, Good Times, New Zealand | 2 Comments

Guest Blog – Sailing to the Channel Islands

On Dec 18th, 2015 Published By B.J.

Today we’ve got the first Guest Blog on Sail Evenstar. A few weeks back I was approached by Tom Ward, a marketing assistant at Marine Super Store in Portsmouth, England, about a guest post. Marine Super Store is a large chandlery with two stores in the UK and an online shop.

This isn’t something we make money off, but is does give us a chance to “cross-pollinate” our reader base with theirs, giving the blog more exposure to new readers which is something I’m always up for!  Yeah, there’s a link or two…helps my search results and theirs; they are a chandlery after all.  But you get to hear about some cruising grounds on the other side of the world from where we are…don’t mind the British spelling!

Sailing to the Channel Islands from Southern England

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It cannot be denied that we are currently experiencing something of a mild winter and temperatures are more in line of what we see in early spring. Unfortunately for the majority of us our boats have long been winterised and stowed away; I am sure that more than a few of you have already had thoughts enter your mind about getting back out on the water during this surprisingly mild period.

That being said, we all love spending a bit of quality time with our friends and family over the Christmas period and enjoying the festivities. It also gives you a chance to review your collection of badly-sized sailing jackets that you received from members of your family. While I am sure that their efforts are fully appreciated, it doesn’t take away from the fact that it makes us yearn to get back out on the water and feel the wind in our faces.

With that in mind why not look to the future and start planning your next UK sailing holiday? Luckily for those of us who are based in the UK there are numerous beautiful sailing routes around the whole of the country. From the South coast of England we have easy access to the English Rivera, The Channel Islands and even France.

In order to whet your appetite in the build up to the spring, we have decided to compile our favourite list of sailing destinations that are reachable from the south coast of England and will be presenting to you in the coming months.

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The Channel Islands

Those for you, who like us, are lucky enough to live on the sunny south coast have easy access to so many beautiful sailing routes. From the navigational challenges of the Channel Islands, to the stunning beauty of the English Riviera, it is hard to claim that Britain does not provide us nautical lovers with plenty of happiness and avenues of exploration.

As we all know sailing to the Channel Islands can be something of a challenge due to the pilotage and navigation challenges that awaits us. This is especially the case if your boat can take the ground due to the fact that this allows numerous drying anchorages to be implemented.

Unless you have a relatively powerful vessel, then you are often required to wake up early in order to catch the tides. Due to the fact that the area is inundated with strong tidal streams, sailors are required to plan fairly conservative offsets in order to avoid being set down tide of your intended destination.

Dangers

Although relatively few dangers present themselves, this is something which needs careful consideration before setting sail. You can expect to encounter poor visibility around 10% of the time and relevant precautions need to be taken. You will find numerous small islands dotted and hazardous rocks often extend up to 5nm offshore. Luckily these are well marked and so any risk is kept to a minimum.

If you have GPS setup correctly then you should encounter very few problems and will enable you to approach most harbours in poor visibility. However cross tides can often change in the area and often require changes of around 20 to 30 degrees in order to keep you on track.

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The Islands Themselves

If you have been before then you will be aware of just how beautiful the islands themselves are as well as the coastline. You are also not too far away from a variety of other French islands as well, which are just as, if not even more beautiful.

As you would expect, the most popular time to visit is during the summer months, with July and August being the busiest times. If you do decide to visit during this period then you will be rewarded with spending some time lazy on the beaches and enjoying the mix of French and English holidaymakers.

There are many marinas located along the coasts and they are more than prepared for coping with the busy yacht traffic. Or, if you prefer, you can anchor off the relatively quiet beaches due to the protective headlands.

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Upon Arrival

Due to the islands’ diversity, there are a wide range of experiences awaiting! Whether you are after something more than a little lively, then St Peter Port and St Helier certainly have more than enough life about them! Or, if you prefer, there are also the sleepy areas such as Sark and Herm.

There is plenty of free information available for visitors written in both English and French. While the islands are English, luckily the food is more French and you sample for exquisite seafood.

Another consideration that needs to be made is that the Channel Islands do not have VAT, and are therefore popular destinations for tourists picking up goods fairly cheaply. As the Channel Islands are British Crown dependencies, and therefore outside of the EU, and therefore outside of the EU VAT zone. However, just to ensure that you are even more confused, they are part of the EU Customs Union. You are therefore required to fill in the relevant UK Customs forms.

Please check back for our next Guest Blog, a closer look at the French territories near to the Channel Islands!

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Cruising, Guest Blogger, UK Sailing | Comments Off on Guest Blog – Sailing to the Channel Islands

Catching up in New Zealand

On Dec 17th, 2015 Published By B.J.

Apologies to all for dropping off the face of the earth after our last post off the coast of New Zealand.

One thing I did not mention is that while we were en route to New Zealand I got word from the states that my ninety-seven year old grandfather had taken a turn for the worst and was hospitalized. By the time we reached New Zealand it was evident that I needed to get to the U.S., and quickly.We cleared into New Zealand on Thursday and spent the next few days scrambling to retrieve our car (and get it road ready…new inspections and registrations), and catching up on a few things that needed fixing before I left Kathy and Danielle alone on the boat. We weren’t able to secure a slip or a mooring before I left, so we had to make sure they were ready to stay at anchor.  On Sunday they drove me to Auckland to catch a flight to the states. I just returned a couple of days ago and seem to finally have my body clock back on antipodean time.

Blog updates were…not on my mind.

I did not make it in time to see my grandfather before he passed, but spent two weeks stateside with his funeral and helping my parents get things sorted with the funeral and after his passing.

Having a grandparent until you are almost fifty is something special. I was very, very lucky in that I was able to have adult relationships with all of my grandparents. My grandfather (on my mother’s side) was my last surviving grandparent, and my kids had the joy of getting to know him while growing up. He came to dinner at our house every week for years and was always around for holidays and other times.We visited him at the beach where he lived and saw a lot of him. One of the hardest parts of the decision to go cruising was knowing that we’d not have the regular contact with my grandfather that we all loved. Our kids had a special relationship with him, and it was tough with all of us spread over the globe.

Until a few weeks before he passed he still lived in his own house, on his own with only minimal help. He’d relocated to Virginia, to an assisted living facility near my parents, but only lived there a few weeks before his condition started to slip. Up to the end of his life he did it his way, strong and fiercely independent. He was a special man that played a large role in all of our lives, and will be sorely missed.

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One of my favorite pictures of my grandfather with Will and Danielle.

The Rest of the Trip

If you’ve been waiting for three weeks to find out how he trip ended…maybe you should Like the Facebook page! I did do some quick updates to let everyone know we were alive over there. Social media is a lot less work than blogging…

The last day, finally, the wind picked up again. After a morning of lighter winds it picked up and had a good, solid fifteen knot breeze from the Northeast. As we approached New Zealand though we sailed into a fog bank, and we didn’t end up sighting land until we were inside the Bay of Islands at about a distance of a mile or so from shore!

The last day was the most fun sailing of the trip, with visits from a couple of Albatross to go with the breeze. With the wind, fuel did not turn out to be a problem at all as we sailed from shortly after daybreak until we dropped the sails to motor up the channel into Opua.

Guest Blogger

We’re going to try something new in a couple of days. We’ve been approached by the Marine Super Store, a UK based chandlery, to do a guest blog post. So you can look forward to a piece from England about sailing in the Channel Islands. Those of you in cold, dank climes this time of year will be able to read about a bit of summer sailing and traveling. I know its someplace I’d like to visit after reading their piece.

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