Happy New Year

Happy new year. Fair winds and calm seas to us all in 2015. It shall certainly be a new beginning for me in multiple ways. Brisbane 445 miles and 4 days away.

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Tasman Sea.

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Dolphin and Pilot Whales

Dolphin and pilot whales around the boat at dawn this morning. Favorable winds today. Headwind all day yesterday.

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A Penguin Just Swam By

We are underway. Penguins swimming alongside the boat.

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We sail tomorrow AM

Last minute projects and provisioning today. Went to the Mount Maunganui farmers market and solidified my estimation that Mom would love it here. Except they drive on the wrong side of the road and there are no Cadillacs.

We are almost out of here. NZ Customs is scheduled to check us out at 9AM tomorrow morning. As soon as we are processed, we sail north along the east coast of NZ until we clear the cape, then we head for Brisbane. As soon as we are under sail, I will start posting our position here every 10 minutes.

NZ seagulls are colored different than North American seagulls and have a different call, but they are flying scavengers just like their North American cousins. Every small thing not attached to the boat gets taste tested by a seagull.

If everything goes to hell - like if Catnip sinks - we have a small dingy with a small sail (that I have named our Shackleton Escape Pod), hand held radios, signal flares, a hand-pump desalinator, an EPIRB, my satellite communicator, ...

And we can always row to Australia.

I may get a post and a few emails off tomorrow AM, but otherwise will be incommunicado for 2 weeks or so.

High Perspective

Went to the top of the mast today ...

To inspect all the rigging and repair the running lights ...

Got a nice view of Catnip ...

From the boatswain's chair ...

I obviously lived to tell the tale ...

Not exactly shipshape ... yet

The cold and the rain have moved on and now it is paradise - perfect weather.

We ventured out yesterday to run a few errands. Tauranga may be the most ideallic place I have ever been, nicer than Kahala, nicer than La Jolla. Mom would love it here.

The wind forecast has us planning to depart on Monday, so we have three more days to make Catnip shipshape. She presently looks like a bomb went off because of all the projects we are doing, but we'll have her put back together shortly.

Kia Ora

New Zealand is absolutely lovely. Beautiful, green country. The people are shockingly polite and friendly and helpful. I'm told that the weather is lovely, though it has been cold and rainy since I arrived.

I did my best to sleep on the flight, but it was mostly an eyes-closed 13 hour contortion. Who designs airline chairs? There is no possible position where the body is adequately supported and comfortable enough to sleep. So I arrived very tired and sore. They served us breakfast 2 hours out from Auckland, so I watched the movie Gravity at the end of the flight. Great movie. I love the George Clooney character - confident, not-attached, very present in the here and now, observant and appreciative of this present moment. It was a good reminder at the start of my adventure.

On arrival, I caught a city bus to downtown Auckland, waited 2 hours, then boarded a bus to Tauranga. It was raining pretty good and the bus' windshield wipers stopped working, so we were delayed quite a bit stopping in each little town to try and get the wipers repaired. There was a soggy German fellow that boarded the bus with a bicycle in one of the little towns that sat next to me. Every winter, he takes 6 weeks off from work (as an architect in Germany) and solo rides a bicycle in a foreign country, this year New Zealand, last year Cuba, the year before that Thailand. I admire his spirit and wish him drier weather for the remainder of his holiday.

We finally arrived Tauranga in a downpour, so I put on my foulies (foul weather clothing for sailing) and walked a mile or two through the rain to arrive at Dwight's boat, Catnip. It is quite remarkable how easy it was to rendezvous with Dwight on minimal information. Dwight had sent me an email not much more elaborate than "walk to the water front, turn left, go over the bridge, I'm in slip F43" and after traveling halfway around the earth, I walked directly to his boat. The marina is very nice, much nicer than the marinas in Hawaii, and the marina restaurant is apparently owned by the drummer for AC/DC.

So I arrived soggy and cold and exhausted and my priority was to eat a hot meal, take a hot shower, and go to sleep flat on my back. Dwight steamed some broccoli and cauliflower for me, the showers in the marina were plenty hot, and I slept like a stone for 9 or 10 hours.

What day is it, anyway? I think it is Thursday as I write this, though it is Wednesday in the US. Crossing the international date line is a difficult thing to get your head around. We spent Thursday AM doing projects on Catnip - cleaning, sanding, painting, caulking - and we have a few more projects to make Catnip shipshape. We studied the wind forecast and it looks like Monday is the day to depart and head north, so we will provision up tomorrow, Friday, and maybe run around and catch a few local sites. Apparently Hobbiton is nearby. The water temperature is 65 degrees and it is still overcast, though it is no longer raining, so it is too cold for swimming, surfing, even paddle-boarding, though there are plenty of surfers out.

The plan is to disembark on Monday, sail north up the east coast of New Zealand, around the north cape, and then head for Brisbane and the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. We'll make Brisbane in 2 weeks or so and re-provision, then head out into the Great Barrier Reef.

I am charging batteries as I type, so I'll start taking and posting photos. I'll lose internet for a few weeks on Monday when we set sail, so I'll get some pics posted before then.

And so it begins

The last few days were frantic, frenetic, and even now, sitting in LAX, I am tying up loose ends. WiFi is a blessing and a curse. But the trip has begun. Dear friend Angela Wakeham, bless her, is house and dog sitting, and she gave me a ride to the airport this afternoon.

And so, decked out in tres chic haute couture, I venture forth. As silly as I look, I hardly turn heads in the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. The LAX renovation is turning out fantastic, at least the international terminal, though it pains my bourgeois sensibilities to pay $16 for a soupçon of vegetables.

I'll be in Auckland in 17 hours. Then a 2 hour bus ride, a 1 mile walk, and reunion with Brother Dwight and Catnip.

Audentis Fortuna iuvat

I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.

Where on earth am I

I am carrying a small GPS that supposedly communicates with Iridium satellites and regularly posts my location here. (The password to view the map is FootFinAndFeather.) It also gives me the ability to send and receive text messages and an SOS distress signal, though there is a charge for every communication, so I suspect I'll do most of my emailing and posting from coffee shops during shore leave. Feel free to ping my location, but please be judicious sending me messages - emergency use only.

Wisdom comes with age and experience, right?

I did the Tucson Marathon back in 2006 and reported my experience here. Eight years later I returned, so much wiser and more experienced. Not.

I had a few months of really good training under my belt when I signed up for the race, but I spent the last 6 weeks on the road, working in Kingman, Springerville, Elko, etc., so I had not run in 6 weeks. Wisely, I planned to do a 26.2 mile low stress jog. I wish I had read my 2006 race report to reinforce that prudent plan.

I was at the start on time this year, but intentionally was the last person to cross the starting line since I was just out for a leisurely jog. But right away, I got excited. I was passing the slow starters and I felt great. I was clipping off 7 minute miles and I could not slow down. A couple of miles in, I caught the 3:40 pacer and I thought, "This is where I need to be. I'll hang with the 3:40 group." There was a little hottie - blond pony tail out the back of her running cap, narrow hips, athletic legs - holding 8 minute miles and I thought I could run behind her all the way to the finish. But half way in, 13 miles, the course climbs some tough hills. I hung with the 8 minute/mile hottie, but those hills hurt me. And then I slowly unraveled and imploded.

I felt fantastic for the first half of the race that I covered in 1:46. From 15 miles to 20 miles, my fatigue slowed me down and at 22 miles we hit a ferocious hill and I blew up. The last 4 miles were a miserable walk of shame. The second half of the race took me 2:53. So I went from thinking I was going to run a 3:40 to actually turning in a 4:39.

I would have been better off jogging for 5 hours.

Post race banana and orange carnage in the beautiful Tucson winter weather. My running costume, mostly the hat, earned many comments, but a few people remarked on my sandals.

Photos of my race are here.

Brother Dwight's Adventure

 
When I moved to Honolulu in 2006, one of my first professional and social connections was with Dwight Streamfellow, an eco/enviro/green construction contractor with a 34' catamaran, S.V. Catnip. Dwight's dream was to cruise - to travel the world, specifically the south Pacific, in his sailboat - and hopefully share the experience with his youngest daughter, Sienna. Sienna was 12 years old in 2006.

Dwight and Sienna cruised the south Pacific for seven months last year and 19 year old Sienna recorded her experience here. They left Catnip in New Zealand and returned to "normal" life. Sienna went off to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo to study agricultural and environmental plant sciences. The student newspaper did a nice article on her adventure.

I will be joining Dwight next week in New Zealand to help him sail Catnip across the Tasman Sea and up the Great Barrier Reef.

But more immediately, I am running the Tucson Marathon tomorrow. I was training really well up until 6 weeks ago when I began a non-stop out-of-town field-work marathon. I haven't really run in 6 weeks, so my strategy for tomorrow is to have a pleasant 5 hour jog with nice breaks at the aid stations.

The dissolution of a persona

December 15, Fly Tucson – LAX – Auckland, New Zealand. Catch a bus to Tauranga, connect with Brother Dwight and CatNip. Sail across the Tasman Sea and up the east coast of Australia, along the Great Barrier Reef. I’ll be gone at least a month. I may not come back.

And so it begins.