November 6-7, 2017 - Rotorua, NZ

Our first destination, after driving Paul to the Auckland airport to pickup his rental car, and to meet his step-mom, was Rotorua.  This region is famous for it's geothermal activity.  There are geysers and hot springs, bubbling warm mud pool, and even some geothermal power production plants.

As we drove into town it was quickly apparent that this town is a major tourist destination.  There are lots of hotels and activities.  Not far into town we saw steam rising above some trees next to the road.  It was coming out of the nearby rocks and we detected a faint whiff of sulfur in the air.

We drove around looking for a hotel.  It took 3 stops before we found a vacancy so we took it, as it was already about 6:30PM. 

In the morning we drove to Wai-O-Tapu park.  It is a geothermal wonderland.  It provided just about everything we had been told about;  boiling mud, a geyser, hot springs, hot mineral pools, and lots of steam.  The diversity of colors was beyond our expectations.

Boiling mud video.  The sulfur smell was very strong.

A geyser just as it starts to erupt.

Now at full strength.

Geyser going off behind us.  It is almost over.

Unbelievable water color in this pond.  It did not look real.

It is hard to explain just how amazing this is in person.

Even the "moss" on the trees is colorful.

The range of colors here is spectacular.  The sulfur smell adds to the experience.

The moss on the rocks has an amazing range of colors.

Cindy checks out the green water in "Devil's Bath".

After the park we went out to a geothermal pool that you could bathe in.  We did not do so, but we saw several people in the swimming pool, and several others in hot tubs.  The water next to the walkway was boiling hot and you could feel the heat in the air from it.

A steaming river running through the hills.

We then returned to Rotorui to visit the information center.  There we picked up a brochure about the Redwood forest and decided to go hike there for a few hours.  But first we went to a few places that the man at the front desk of our hotel suggested we see.  They are off the beaten path a bit, so most people don't know about them.

A geothermal feature in a park in the middle of town.  Rotorua, NZ

Steam coming out of the ground in someone's front yard.

Boiling water running right through this residential neighborhood.

A cool statue with steam boiling behind.  This is in
a residential area that most tourists never hear about.

A huge redwood tree.  I didn't even
know they existed in New Zealand.

Hiking in the redwood forest.  It was beautiful.

November 6, 2017 - Future plans

Our original airline tickets home were for Nov 21.  We didn't have any idea when we would arrive in New Zealand, because the boat crossing from Tonga was entirely dependent on the weather.  We arrived sooner than originally thought we would, and as a result, we have a lot of time left before the flight home.  We could have changed the tickets and come home early, but since arriving in New Zealand, we have talked to quite a few people here that have told us of spectacular places to see.  New Zealand is made up of two islands, and we are currently on the north island, which you could spend weeks and weeks exploring.  The south island is reported to be even more spectacular.

We have decided to stay here and catch that Nov 21 flight home.  We have rented a car and are going to spend 5-7 days driving southward hitting the highlights we have learned about on this island.  Then, we will turn in our rental car in Wellington, walk on a ferry, and pick up a new rental car (still considered a one-car rental) in Picton, on the north end of the south island.

We will then drive south along the coast, seeing most of the "must see" places we have been told about.  Our final destination is Queenstown, near the southern end of the south island.  Queenstown is a huge travel destination with more than 3 million visitors every year.  This rivals Yellowstone back in the states.  We catch a flight on the 21st from Queenstown and arrive in Auckland about 4 hours before the flight back home.

We willbe posting as frequently as we can.  I can tell you already that is is going to be very difficult to select which pictures to post.  We have so many exciting places to visit.

Stay tuned.....

November 1 - 5, 2017 - Northern Explorations

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 After the boat chores were complete, we started exploring our surroundings.  We borrowed Jerome and Karen's car for several days and drove into Whangarei, up to the Bay of Islands, to the town of Opua, and even took a small ferry over to Russell.  We explored a cave that had glow worms on the ceiling, which looked like twinkling stars overhead.  We hiked down to a beautiful beach one afternoon.  We visited a waterfall.  This is truly a nature lover's paradise!  Everywhere you look it is green.  Very green.  The grass grows everywhere here.  In fact, we have been told, New Zealand has the perfect combination of rich soils, rainfall, temperatures, and terrain to make it one of the best places for grass to grow.  As a result, the cattle industry is thriving.  With a year-round, nutritious food source (the grass), the cattle industry is king.  Sheep used to dominate the landscape here, but not any more.  Cows are everywhere.

180 degree panorama.  Typical of what you see while driving here.

The large, and very new marina in Opua.

Catching the ferry to Russel.  Our rental car is the white Toyota Corolla.

A stone path across the creek that flows inside the cave

Glow worms on the cave ceiling.  Their light is blue.

The cave entrance.  Fantastic formations and colors.

The scenery here is truly spectacular.  The terrain is hilly and the roads are filled with curves.  It would be a sports car or motorcycle enthusiast's dream to have roads like this everywhere.

On Friday a friend of Jerome's flew in from Queenstown (on the south island) for a weekend visit.  Blair is a Canadian who has worked with Jerome on several big construction projects in the US.   Blair has been living in New Zealand for the past 5 years.   He took all of us out for a day long driving excursion and it was amazing.  Blair likes to drive fast though, quite fast.  We felt like we were strapped into a rally car at times, zipping through the winding roads.  It was fun, and thrilling.  Blair is a great driver though, and Cindy and I felt safe, even though he was going much faster than I would have with a car full of passengers.

Blair standing atop a little lookout platform.

All the staterooms on-board were occupied, so Blair found a room through Air B&B which was only a few blocks away from the boat.  The owners, Mike and Jennifer, invited us all over for a BBQ on Saturday night.  We went and it was great fun.  It just so happened that once a month this couple has a big BBQ and the night we went was the night of their big gathering.  There were 20+ people there and we had some interesting conversations with many of them.

Having dinner with a bunch of new friends.  We even learned a lot about
Rugby, seen on the TV behind Cindy.  Mike and Jennifer's house.

Mike and Jennifer's dog Millie took a liking to Cindy

It is tough to choose which pictures to post, since there are just so many awesome pictures of the beautiful scenery here.

Hiking around with Paul

Cindy making her own trail

Looking for a book at the library.  No luck.

Paihia, NZ

Whale Bay.  Awesome sand beach, near Matapouri NZ on the Tutukaka Coast.

November 01, 2017 - Clearing customs

After our arrival in New Zealand at 2:30AM and tying up to "C" dock, Jerome, Paul, and I had a celebratory glass of wine, which ended up being two bottles long!  We went to bed at about 5:30AM expecting customs to come wake us up at 9:00AM.  Unfortunately, the customs agent arrived at about 7:45.  Yikes!  I was SOUND asleep and even Paul's banging on my door did not wake me.  Cindy and I are sharing a room and she had to start punching me to get me to stir.

We all sat in the salon while the customs agent asked us questions, looked at our customs entry forms, and chit chatted about several topics, one of which was Trump.  It seems that everywhere we go Trump is something people of other countries want to ask us about.  It usually starts out with something like: "what is going on with your country?"  This is not meant as a positive statement!  Anyway, after about an hour or so, we were done with our personal and boat entry into the country, but we still had the agricultural inspection to do. 

The agricultural inspector arrived about an hour later and looked at the inventory sheets we had filled out.  She then said it was usually much quicker for her to just look at the ship's "stores" to see what we had.  She spent about 30 minutes looking in refrigerators, freezers, cabinets, lockers, and coolers.  She took what was not approved for entry into New Zealand, and left the rest.  She took most of the meats, most of the fruits and vegetables, all of the processed frozen foods, and lots of seemingly random items, including an opened bottle of New Zealand honey.  Had the honey been sealed we could have kept it.  After filling a large garbage bag with perfectly good food, we got our stamp of approval.  We asked what happens to this food and she told us that it will be incinerated and then buried in a land fill, at least 6 feet under.  New Zealand is serious about keeping out foreign contaminants and pests from their country.

After that, we attempted to connect to the New Zealand shore power system.  However, it's completely different than what we have back home.  The marina has an electrician to help with these matters and Jerome arranged for him to come and get adapters, or whatever else was needed, so we could get connected to electricity.  It took a day for the electrician to come up with a solution.  He put a new end on one of Jerome's shore-power cords, then made a new "pigtail" to connect to the shore-power receptacle.

A New Zealand shore-power connector

The final cable assembly.  Jerome's cord diameter was too
large to fit in the New Zealand plug.

The marina wanted us to move to a different dock.  Jerome went over and looked and the cleat arrangement in the new slip and it was not going to work for a boat this size.  Henceforth, the marina told us that they would install new cleats.  It took many, many days for the special bolts to arrive before those cleats could be installed.

While we were waiting for the cleats and the shore-power cord, Paul and Jerome washed the boat.  It takes a long time to wash a boat this size.

Jerome washing the exhaust soot off the satellite dome.
For most of the crossing the wind blew the exhaust from
the stack right onto the dome.  

While Paul was washing the boat I fixed some random electrical items on the boat.  I replaced a failed depth transducer.  I replaced the control panel for the stabilizer system, which had a bad section in it's LCD screen.  I also replaced some indicator bulbs at the helm, and looked at the issue with the fuel pump alarm.  It was a damaged plug (on the end of the two wires).  Jerome says the damage happened back in Mexico when the John Deere technician was trying to resolve a different error message.

The receptacle on the fuel pump.  Under a magnifying glass I could see signs of
previous damage to one the "blades".  This was damaged back in Mexico but
it should be fine.  The real damage was done to the plug that connects to this receptacle.

The damaged plug.  It will take a John Deere tech with specialized
tools to either fix this or install a new plug.

Karen arrived in the afternoon with their car.  We are looking forward to getting off the boat and doing some land-based exploration!

October 25 through 31, 2017 - Passage from Tonga to New Zealand

Jerome left the boat at about 8:30AM, with his wife Karen, and everyone's passports.  He got Karen to a cab which she took to the airport to catch a flight to New Zealand.  Jerome had to visit the customs office to check-out of Tonga.  He arrived back on-board around 10:00.  After securing the dinghy on the boat deck, we pulled anchor at about 10:30AM and slowly motored out to sea, leaving Tonga behind us  The winds were light and the skies bright.  Unfortunately for me, I was not feeling well.  Overnight I got sick and threw up a few times.  I have deducted that I got sick as a result of the sandwich I ate on-board the flight from Fiji to Tonga.  It was a turkey sandwich, and it tasted a little "off".  I should not have eaten it.  Cindy and Paul did not eat their sandwiches.  Paul said his sandwich looked a bit "sketchy" and he decided not to take the risk.  I did, and I got sick.  Paul is a friend of Jerome's that has also joined us to move the boat.  So, there were four of us on-board;  Jerome, Paul, Steve and Cindy.

One of the nicest pilothouses around.
Jerome's Nordhavn 60.

I did not feel very good that first day, but fortunately the ride was pretty smooth and easy.  Even so, both Paul and Cindy quickly succumbed to sea sickness and neither of them were feeling well by late day.  We spent the first day getting familiar with the boat, and settling into our routine.  I was feeling almost back to normal by evening.  We each stood 3 hour watches at the helm, followed by 9 hours off.  Jerome took the 6:00-9:00 shift, Cindy 9:00-12:00, Steve 12:00-3:00, and Paul finished up the rotation in the 3:00-6:00 slot.  Each of us had 2 shifts per day (AM and PM).  At each shift change, the incoming watch-stander performs an engine room check.  You use a temperature gun to check the temperature of several items, as well as checking for any leaks, or water in the bilge.  It takes about 3 minutes.  The temperatures get logged into a notebook.  Since Cindy was sick, I ended up doing double duty for 2 or 3 shifts, meaning I was on watch from 9:00-3:00.  I was getting pretty tired by the time she recovered enough to be able to stand watch.

One of the display screens.  Radar on the left.  The chart in the upper right.
On the lower right is an engine room camera.  You can seen Jerome taking a
temperature reading of the transmission.  He is in the back of the engine room.

Cindy on watch, Jerome talking on the Sat phone

Paul grabbing a bite to eat in the salon.

Cindy doing some homework on one of the salon couches.

Standing watch basically means that you are the sole person in charge of the operation of the vessel.  You are monitoring the engine gauges, the radar, chart plotters, the VHF radios, and more, to make sure that everything is operating as expected, and that we are staying on course and not going to run into anything.  It is an easier job during the day than at night, when visibility is reduced to near zero.  We had mostly cloudy skies during the entire passage, so there was no moon to light the way.

Paul catching a nap on the second salon couch.   The smoothest ride is
in the salon and it becomes the "bed" of choice when the seas get rough.

Cindy during her late-night watch.  How many 15 year old girls do you know that
are in charge of a multi-million dollar yacht, in the middle of an ocean,
 while everyone else aboard is sound asleep?

During the second to last night, on Cindy's watch, the engine suddenly sounded an alarm.  There is a digital display panel that revealed a problem with the fuel pump.  This boat, as with virtually all Nordhavns, is a single engine boat.  There is a small auxiliary engine that can drive the boat at about half speed.  The main propulsion comes from a single John Deer diesel.  This diesel has one fuel pump, so this alarm definitely got our attention!  A diesel will not run without fuel....

The engine computer has detected a wiring fault with the engine's fuel pump.
We are still about 300 miles offshore.

 Jerome had this same error about 1 month ago in Fiji and was able to track the issue down to one of the two electrical connections on the fuel pump.  He wiggled and pressed on the connectors a month ago and the alarm stopped.  It has not happened since.  We also stopped the alarm by wiggling and pressing on the connectors.  The alarm would go off very randomly, with breaks from every 10 seconds to more than 24 hours.   We dealt with this for more than 24 hours.  Jerome and Paul went down with some blue painter's tape and taped the connector to the fuel pump to help keep it firmly pressed into the fuel pump.  That took care of it, and the alarm did not sound during our last 24 hours to New Zealand.  We did not want to disconnect the connectors until reaching New Zealand for fear that we might break something and render the main engine inoperable.

We had dinner together every night. This was the only time we all sat down together
to eat.  Every other meal was up to each person, and depended on their watch schedule.

During our last dinner together we had a slight mishap.  The seas had been building and changing direction throughout the day.  They were now the biggest of the trip, and coming from the port rear quarter.  This presented the biggest challenge for the stabilizer system and at times the boat just could not remain level and would suddenly lean to one side, then rapidly back to the other before returning to a level position.  Just after sitting down to dinner, and after pouring a few glasses of apple juice into cups, we experienced one of these events.  It sent the table sliding on the floor, and toppled the apple juice cups.  We spent the next several minutes cleaning up the spilled juice, which went everywhere!  Other than that single incident, the seas did not cause us any problems.

We arrived in Whangarei (pronounced Fong-ah-ray), New Zealand, at about 2:30AM, on October 31.  Whangarei Bay is huge, with oil tankers visiting an oil refinery.  We headed to the Marsden Point Marina and tied up to "C" dock.  We were supposed to go to the customs dock ("B" dock), but it was already full with several boats that arrived just an hour prior to our arrival.

We traveled just about 1100 nautical miles, and were underway for a little more than 6.5 days.  The weather was fantastic for this crossing.  Many boats get completely beat up trying to make this trip, and these waters have a very bad reputation for rough seas.  We had the perfect weather window, thanks to Jerome's two weather routers.

Video of the seas while underway

Now for some fun.  New Zealand has many things to see and do.  We are going to spend the next few weeks exploring.  The challenge is going to be deciding what to see, and what not to see!

"Daybreak" tied safely to the dock after 1100 miles at sea.

Jerome, Paul, Cindy, Steve.  Whangarei, New Zealand.

October 31, 2017 - Last day in Fiji

I'm catching up now on the blog, since there was no internet access for over a week.

On our last night in Fiji, Cindy wanted some microwave popcorn.  We brought along a few boxes of microwave popcorn, because that has helped calm Cindy's stomach when the boating gets rough.  We had no microwave in our hotel room, but the restaurant told us that they could heat it up for us in their microwave.  I took the popcorn down and presented it to one of the chefs.  The kitchen crew had never seen microwave popcorn before and I explained to them what to do.  I have inferred that they did not cook it for the requested 2.5 minutes, or it could be that their microwave does not have the necessary power.  It came back looking just like it did when I gave it to them.  So, I said, "Give it another 2 minutes."  It came again looking about the same, except the bag was starting to show signs of overheating.  No popcorn tonight - sorry Cindy.

We couldn't get this popcorn popped in Fiji.  Oh well....

We spent our last day in Fiji driving around to kill the time before our flight to Tonga.   Fiji is an interesting place, but certainly not the exotic tropical environment I was expecting.  The landscape is surprisingly flat and brown.  There are lush green mountains here, but the majority of the countryside is not that interesting, considering that we are in the tropics.  It is still beautiful, but nothing like Bora Bora or Tahiti.  Kauai is much more tropical and lush.

Typical Fiji dwellings

There are lots of these fresh fruit stands alongside the roads.

A Fijian bus stop

More fresh fruit.

Typical landscape during our driving around the island.

We went back to our hotel to pick up our bags, which we left in their baggage room.  Then, we headed down the road to a small (and inexpensive) restaurant for lunch.  During our lunch, the winds picked up and dragged a cruiser's dinghy ashore (it had been anchored out when we arrived).  Not long after, a small boat also dragged anchor and ended up on the beach.

This helpful local tried to rescue a cruiser's dinghy, but could not get the outboard
motor tipped up.

I would have helped with that dinghy, but I was quite busy
at the time.

We will soon get a closer look at the boat that is anchored out.

That boat dragged anchor and washed ashore.

We arrived at the airport and returned our little Suzuki rental car.  Clearing customs was easy and quick.  Surprisingly, nobody has asked to see the letter that I have been carrying with me.  It is from Kathy, and it says that I have her permission to take Cindy (a minor) out of the country.  We were told many times that Cindy would not be allowed to travel with me without this letter.  However, nobody has seen this document at any point along our travels.

It was a quick 2 hour flight to Tonga where Jerome was waiting at the airport for us.  We hopped in a van and drove about 45 minutes from the airport to the dock where his dinghy was tied up.  Then, a 20 minute dinghy ride out to his anchored boat.  Jerome's wife, Karen, was aboard.  We got to spend the evening catching up, and turned into bed early.  We are leaving in the morning after Jerome checks out of the country with the customs officials.  Karen is catching a flight to Auckland, New Zealand, in the morning.  Sadly, Cindy and I never really set foot on the island of Tonga, except at the airport, and then for about 50 feet from the van to the dinghy.  It looked much like Fiji, at least from our brief van ride.