New Zealand to Fiji Passage Sail
April 25 thru May 8, 2010

Mike Boggess here! I am reporting on my time spent with Mike, Marney and Gary in New Zealand and Fiji.

I left Denver, Colorado in the afternoon of April 23rd and arrived in Auckland NZ at 5:25am on Sunday the 25th! Long flight but I arrived with great anticipation and energy even though my luggage did not. After taking the Airbus Express into Auckland ($16) I hung around the harbor and had a cup of coffee and scone before walking to the Sky City Bus Terminal to catch the 10:15am Inter City bus to Opua Hill (4 hours) where I will find Shellette! Beautiful ride up the East coast of Northern NZ. Got off the bus and saw a sign to the Opua Marina (I km). Started to walk to the marina and a van pulled up and asked if I needed a ride. It was Mike and Marney! They were coming back from a shopping trip in Paihia and timed their return to coincide with my arrival. A welcome sight! We proceeded on to the marina where Gary picked us up in the dinghy which we loaded up with the groceries then headed out to Shellette who was anchored peacefully in the marina. She is a beauty! All 55’ and 27.5 tons of her! Took a quick tour of her and put my stuff in my cabin (complete with ensuite toilet and shower) and Mike, Marney and I took the dinghy to the marina Café and had lunch. I had seafood chowder that was out of this world! After lunch we went over to the boatyard and found a couple from Brazil that Mike and Marney had met earlier along their journey. Silvio and Lillian had set sail from Brazil and were planning to be at sea for 2 years! They were “on the hard” performing some maintenance and repairs on their boat. Really nice couple! After a nice chat we went back to the boat and had a wonderful steak and potato dinner cooked on the grill! I was then introduced to “10,000”, a dice game that was played throughout our trip. Marney and Gary were the big winners tonight! Went to bed and slept so well!

The rest of the week was spent on Shellette in the marina in Opua. Day 2 Gary and I went into Paihia and looked around, had lunch and got some groceries at the market. While looking around we went into a shop that sold furniture and accessories made from the Kauri tree. After talking to the shop owner I decided that a trip up the coast to see the shop where the Kauri wood was being tooled into furniture, bowls etc. was in order. There was also a forest preserve along the way where the protected Kauri trees grow in the wild. Since my retirement I have become a Luthier building handcrafted guitars. So my interest in this wood would be to investigate the potential for using this wood in some future builds!
So with that in mind Mike, Marney and I rented a car the following day and drove up to the museum/shop and walked through the Manginangina Kauri forest. These trees and the wood just blew us away! What an amazing tree and story!

“Kauri (Agathis australis) is a conifer of great antiquity. Its ancestors arose during the Jurassic period – 150 million years ago- when dinosaurs roamed the earth! The Kauri is among the largest species of trees in the world. Some Kauri trees grow to a height of 200 feet, with a girth of 40 feet. The largest Kauri tree on record had a girth of 77 feet and was 72 feet high, just to the first branch .Carbon dating of one tree showed it to be more than 1000 years old when it died. The Kauri trees still grow in New Zealand, and other locations around the Pacific Rim, including Australia, the Fijian Islands, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and New Caledonia. Only 3% of the Kauri population remains today. The early settlers of New Zealand harvested incredible amounts of Kauri around the turn of the last century, using it first for ship building, and then for everything from houses and bridges to furniture and household items. Law now protects the Kauri trees that grow in New Zealand, and there are reserves in various areas of the North Island. Ancient Kauri trees, however, are not found any other place else on earth. The oldest fossil of New Zealand Kauri is 175 million years old.”

I think that there may be a future guitar build that will include some Kauri wood!

The next day we pulled up anchor and motored to Moturua Island and hiked a trail up and around the island (3 hours). Spectacular view all around the Bay of Islands! We had a little lunch and then motored over to Motuarobia Island and spent the night there in Cook’s Cove!

Up early and Gary and I took a hike up to the top of the island before breakfast. More stunning panoramic views! We than pulled up anchor and motored back to Opua where we took a ferry across to Russell (a little town across the bay) to have lunch and stroll around. Back to the boat where Mike got a guitar lesson on this “Treesong” guitar! He is getting a nice strum pattern and is fingering several chords!

The next couple of days were spent provisioning the boat for the passage, filling out paper work for Customs and getting ready to set sail for Fiji this Saturday, May 1st!

Saturday May 1, 2010 – Set Sail for Fiji!!!

Hoisted the Main sail and unfurled the Genoa, we’re on our way! Winds from the southwest! Cold on your neck since they come from the south across Antarctica! The water temperature in NZ is 62 degrees! Winter is coming, good thing that we’re heading north! I have done a little sailing but never something as ambitious as a passage sail. There is something romantic about setting off into the sea and the unknown! I don’t know what to expect but I think that I am ready for what comes. Time will tell! I have always been in love with the idea of sailing but now I will find out if I love the idea of sailing or sailing itself. I’ve had thoughts of “what would happen if…” of “am I tough enough…” of What if I get sick…” etc. I have put those thoughts aside and will deal with what comes when it comes. At some point I have to surrender to the fact that I am not in control and I must deal with what ever happens each day. I want to be a good shipmate and want to do my part, whatever that is. I have more questions than answers and I have a great deal of anticipation! I am prepared to make this crossing with Mike and Gary and the sea, sky and horizon. I love the idea of being alone together relying on each other for 7 or 8 days. I look forward to getting to know Mike and Gary better. I am looking forward to a nightshift when I am truly alone with my thoughts in the dark, just me, the moon, the stars and the sea. I am humbled by the thought of sailing along at 8-9knots over the ocean floor passing 8,000ft below. Of sailing beneath the Milky Way millions of light years above me! Something about that depth and distance that gives one perspective of oneself in relation to the world. We are mere specks in the Universe and our troubles that seem so important and sometimes overwhelming seem so insignificant now. We set sail into the unknown. We begin new routines and schedules and duties that will be shaped by the events that unfold before us. As we set out to cross the South Pacific we will turn the comforts of civilized world upside down and maybe shake out some illusions and maybe realize some truths. Or maybe we will just sail and not think about anything at all and just have a good time. I hope that there will be a little of both. I read a passage tonight in my book “Wind, Sand and Stars” by Antoine De Saint-Expuery which had to do with just these things:

“Old bureaucrat, my comrade, it is not you who are to blame. No one ever helped you to escape. You, like a termite, built your peace by blocking up with cement every chink and cranny through which light might pierce. You rolled yourself up into a ball in your genteel security, in routine, in the stifling conventions of provincial life, raising a modest rampart against the winds and the tides and the stars. You have chosen not to be perturbed by great problems, having trouble enough to forget your own fate as man. You are not the dweller upon an errant planet and do not ask yourself questions to which there are no answers. Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.
The magic of the craft (Shellette) has opened for me a world in which I will confront the black dragons and the crowned crests of a coma of blue lightnings, and when night has fallen I, shall read my course in the stars.”

As the sun set in the West and New Zealand faded in the South, we sailed North to Fiji and looked with great anticipation and excitement to the East wondering just what sunrise would bring to us tomorrow. Between now and the dawning of the new day we will have the night sky in which to bounce our thoughts like a skipping stones over the water to a new horizon…