Not long ago, it seems like yesterday, I was bemoaning the fact that our entire plan for the next couple of years had been completely shot down in flames. And I waxed poetic about the fluid nature of cruising and how you need to be flexible.
And we sketched out another rough plan – head to New Caledonia and maybe Vanuatu before coming back to New Zealand. Sounds good, right?
Wrong.
Turns out the fickle gods that govern marine mechanical devices were not so down with that plan. Never mind the entities that safeguard the borders.
The Autopilot – Not Actually the Deal Breaker
We had a nice trip from Tauranga to the Bay of Islands. We had more wind than predicted, so we sailed most of the way and only had to motor the last couple of hours when the wind shifted on the nose and died.
As we motored, we picked up companions as a small pod of dolphins shadowed us, playing our bow wake and playing and splashing along for over an hour. Unfortunately, in the middle of this the autopilot died, so I didn’t get to watch them very much.
To make a long story brief, the binnacle control head shorted out and a new controller for our old autopilot couldn’t be had for love or money. Some obscenely expensive used ones were available from the other side of the world, but for that money it made more sense to replace the whole system. That was expensive, but easy and only took a day.
While we were doing the sea trial for the autopilot we ran across a family of Orcas!
While this was a setback that costs us a week or two, it’s not what really messed things up.
Steering Redux
We noticed in a routine check that the steering column we’d just spent a ton of time and money fixing in Tauranga was leaking oil and water. The repairs didn’t work.
This was a crushing blow. We were in the heart of winter. The walls were weeping from the cold and condensation, and we were going nowhere fast.
With another haul-out and long shore stay pending, we made some decisions.
Around this time my parents announced they were finally moving out of the house they’d lived in for thirty-five years. A while back I’d promised that when that finally happened I’d come back to help with the task.
Even if the repairs went quickly, we’d be pressed to find a weather window and sail to the tropics and still have enough time to make it worth the visit before we’d have to come back again. So we made the call to pull the boat in Whangarei and fly back to the U.S. for two months to help my parents get out of the house.
We’d come back in October – spring in New Zealand, spend a pleasant summer sailing back to South Island, when move on in April or May of next year.
Right.
Out of the Frying Pan
Things went well for the first few weeks. We changed Danielle’s flight back to college to match ours and had a nice visit with Will on the way to the east coast. We caught up with family, and started to help sort, pack and clean the house.
After a few weeks we started the Visa application for New Zealand, requesting eight months (of the maximum nine month visa length) so we could leave by the end of May. We knew we’d need chest X-Rays again, so we booked them for the first date we could.
Our first word back from NZ immigration was that we needed a report from the FBI because we’d be exceeding two years total from the FBI. This was now mid September, and we were scrambling to get ready for a short jaunt up to the east coast to see family.
I was getting concerned with the timing now, as we were only a few weeks from heading back to NZ. In my e-mails to immigration over the FBI issue and X-Ray timing, I asked if I could extend our request to June, just in case, since we’ve run into June in the past trying to leave New Zealand in the fall.
“We will only approve you for a four-month stay,” came the answer.
Let me repeat…
“We will only approve you for a four-month stay.”
Gut punch.
Involuntary Hiatus
Our flights back to New Zealand are October 3rd. Four months in New Zealand puts us in the middle of summer, or as it’s known in the tropics, “Cyclone Season.”
We ran afoul of New Zealand’s “nine months in eighteen” rule, where you can only be in country nine months out of every eighteen. Arriving as we did in March, we’d used five of our nine months up. We had no idea this rule existed as our prior visits to NZ did not cross this limit.
NZ can, with mechanical failures of emergencies, add another three months. But you can’t apply for it in advance and there’s no guarantee you’ll get it, so we have to plan on only four months.
When sailing from New Zealand your options are limited.
- North, to the tropics. See “Season, Cyclone.”
- West, to Australia
- East, against the trades to French Polynesia
We won’t even talk about going South from NZ, even if the penguins wanted us…
North isn’t an option until April or May. We’ve been in Australia for the last two years. Not only do we really not want to go back (Sorry Oz, we love you but it’s time to move on) but we’re not even sure we can because we’ve been there so much of late. And we already know we don’t have the visas for French Polynesia.
So where does that leave us?
Here, back in the U.S. with no real way to reach our home until February.
Back in the EST
The moving truck came to my parent’s house yesterday, and they spent last night in their new apartment. It’s lovely, but a bit stuffed with boxes at the moment. But our job is done, I’ve handed it off to my sister to help with unpacking. Though there’s lots to BE done, we can’t do much more.
So our plan, while we try not to dwell on being displaced and homeless for the next four months?
Our plan is to look on the bright side. Some bonuses include:
- Holidays with one or both of the kids. In NZ, wouldn’t see either at Thanksgiving, and only Danielle at Christmas. We’re planning Thanksgiving with Danielle and my parents and Christmas with all four of us. Somewhere, location TBD.
- We haven’t been in the U.S. for Thanksgiving since 2011. Do you know how hard it is to find a turkey in November outside the U.S.?
- Nevermind how a turkey small enough to cook in an oven that can barely fit a loaf of bread. We’ve been roasting ours on the grill the last few years.
- Time to write. There’s not much else for me to do, so with few distractions I can focus on the fiction and freelance work I’ve been ignoring so long.
- The place we’ll be staying is only an hour and a half from a Skyline Chili. This is huge for someone who hasn’t lived in Cincinnati in thirty-five years.
- I won’t have to get up at 4:00 a.m. on Monday mornings to watch football. I can watch the Bengals lose with Buffalo wings, nachos and beer like a normal football fan instead of black coffee and breakfast cereal.
- Since we won’t be in New Zealand for six months, we didn’t need to drive to North Carolina for the chest X-Rays (don’t ask…)
On the downside, storing our boat on the hard for four more months is a huge unplanned expense. As is buying a car, changing flights, etc. etc. So we can’t be all “let’s rent an RV and go land cruising” since it would be wiser to put a few bucks back into the cruising kitty instead of burning them faster.
So we’re back on Eastern Standard Time for the next four months and still getting used to life in the USA again. There may not be many blog updates for a while, unless I play catch up.
About Those Orcas…
There were three. A large male, a smaller female, and a baby. We were inshore, less than half a mile from land on a casual cruise to adjust the autopilot when we spotted them between Russell and Paihia.
They came VERY close to the boat. We followed them around – keeping an appropriate distance – for over an hour as they swam back and forth.
The last picture isn’t a good picture, but it gives a sense of just how close they came to the boat. The mother and baby came over to check us out. They caught up to us from behind and cruised up right behind the boat. Close enough that they were almost under the davits.
In this picture, that swirl of water isn’t our wake, we were barely moving fast enough to maintain steering. If you look closely you can see the black form under the water and a tail.
Now and then we got a nice reminder why we do all this.
