When Dean and I first met, I bought him a card with a huge door on the front, ajar. At the very bottom of the door was a tiny, terrified kitten, poking it’s head out into the world. That’s how I feel right now. Inside the card said, “the best things in life are outside of your comfort zone”. This is how I’m trying to feel right now. I can’t believe I’ve left my furbaby again, my family and friends, university routines, and our lovely marina community.

Of course this is just nerves and I have a full perspective of where we are going and what we intend to do there. I keep looking at images from Suva, or Ovalau and I’m already there. I’m looking forward to us experiencing the Pacific in a different way this time, outside of the perception of the paradise dream and assumptions about traditional lives. I know it’s not going to be easy, but I also know that this can bring great things.

I had a conversation with an Canadian woman yesterday about travelling. She spoke a lot about travelling through places like India and how difficult it is to cope with beggars and poverty. I said that I thought that this was one of the aspects of being privileged and being able to afford to travel, and that if you chuck in the capitalist-human efforts of climate change, we must all continue to challenge our connections to people. Silence. Must get better and delivering things.

It’s been quite a journey so far. We sailed from Mana to Auckland, up the West Coast. We stayed in Auckland for a few days and caught up with family and friends, then headed back up to Opua. The choice to go up the West Coast was inspired. The argument goes that if you go up the West Coast there is nowhere to hide if it all turns belly up. But, with weather prediction software being as good as it is, and this coastal weather being a lot more settled and predictable than the terror East, we figured the changes of things turning belly up and being in extreme weather, were slim. Also, our last trip up the East Coast in 2015 was a total nightmare.  I almost enjoyed the sailing this time (ssshhhh).

Highlights so far:  having our crew member Ian back on Pebbles – you are fabulous Ian, thank you so much for supporting us in your lovely way and for being such an interesting person; seeing Mt Taranaki and Cape Reinga; meeting Noah for the first time (my Dad’s Godson); sitting in the library at Auckland University and thinking “wow, I’m here”; catching four fish on the way up, some of which is still in our freezer (tuna and mahimahi). Lowlights: missing Zena like crazy; sailing boredom with occasional terror; breakages/things going wrong on the boat include main sail, head sail, gennaker, batteries, anchor light, furler, fridge lid, dinghy. WTF? And realising (again) that the sailing community, while amazing, can be very sexist: on the regular VHF cruisers net the other morning some funny (not) man decided to auction up his wife in the buy-sell-swap section. Some men pitched in with funny (not) comments so I pitched in with “sexisim went out in the 80s guys”. Silence. Realising that NOT being out of your comfort zone feels bloody fabulous!

Click on the photos below to read the captions. Next time I’ll work out how to get them in chronological order.

Steve, our crew and marina neighbour, is arriving today. Can’t wait. We hope to leave on Monday. I will post a photo of our last image of New Zealand then, otherwise, Fiji here we come!

Penny, uber fruit caker maker.

Victoria Park. I love being a tourist – there’s so much freedom.

Arriving in Auckland very early in the morning (photo: Ian)

Best fish recipie

Cape Reinga area.

The lovely young man at Harvey Norman in Wairau Park who told us to return our printer that we bought in Wellington for a much better one. This is the photo printer bought for my Living Memory photography project in Fiji – thanks donors!

Very strange to get your head around how this is possible

I didn’t realise Auckland was actually beautifull

Dean pulls up ANOTHER fish

Thanks Colin!

The inner workings of my mind for my Master’s thesis – quite a fullon place to be.

So beautiful. Thanks Jeff and Claire for caring for her so well.

A rare nice photo of the two of us (photo: Ian).

Pebbles in the boat yard.

Cape Reinga, pouring a glass of whiskey for Peter and Ian’s Dad (photo: Ian).

Auckand harbour.

This is my view of the world while seasick and bashing into 25 knot of headwind just before Cape Brett. I have renamed Cape Brett something that I can’t put in this blog.

Mt Taranaki, and the spirits of Pukeonaki and Ruataranaki.

Yes, Zena is coming with us.

Taken by Ian. Some sailing moments are all about the birds.

Comparing sustinable climate change adaptation with sustainable development is quite a challenge when you are sleep-deprived at sea.

It has been said that sailing is mostly extreme boredom, punctuated with moments of terror. Dean just asked which one this photo is of.

Nightshift…very, very spooky

End of last bottom clean. When we got to Westhaven Marina, one of the first things they asked is when I’d last cleaned my bottom.

The West coast. Thank you.

Red thing (my bright idea of washing this towel in salt water to save on fresh water meant it will never dry. Dean told me this but because I hate being told what to, this towel sat on the back of the boat for days – I consider this respecting eachothers space. Blue thing – our BBQ. White striped thingy hanging off the rails – our new MOM (man overboard module). Replaces horseshoe rings and Dan Buoy. The amount of times I practice our woman-overboard procedures in my mind is a bit of a worry.

That’s Dean in the sled. He volunteered to be rescued in the Sea Rescue Sled demonstration at the Island Cruising New Zealand display in Opua. These lifesaving sled’s are made by our clever and lovely friend Lloyd Valentine. http://www.searescuesled.com

Auckland harbour. Boaties midnight is 9pm so we’re often up to see the day arrive.

Number 384230239878 of the clever things Dean has done to get our boat read. This is the anchor remote thingy.

It tasted yummy, but it’s very sad that we caught this mahimahi off the coast of 90-mile beach. Because of warmer waters (partly from human-induced human climate change) the kinds of creatures coming to our waters is changing. We met a diver in Pahia yesterday who recently saw a turtle in the Bay of Islands. Yes, very cute, but that turtle will soon die as the sea temperature get colder for winter.

First time on Rangitoto Island! Hardly any Maori history/stories to be seen in any tourist information. Really DOC?

One of my favourite places – Mansion House Bay on Kawau Island. My Gran and Granpa used to take my sister and I here whenever we stayed with them at Snells Beach. I had no idea about the damage that colonisation did to Maori (and is still doing) when I was a little girl, visting this place. That’s okay. I’m making up for lost time now!