Life of a Sailor - "So, do you get to steer the ship?"

When I'm Captain, Grant get's to steer!

This is one of our most FAQ's. The answer is NO. Grant is an Engineering Officer, so he works in the engine room. I am a Deck Officer, which means I am in charge of the overall navigation of the ship when I am standing my bridge watch. I cannot fix our position on the chart, do collision avoidance, communicate on the VHF's, GMDSS, and internal comms, or do any number of other clerical work such as logbook entries, if I am standing around steering the ship. And how am I going to know what course to steer if I'm stuck behind the wheel? Ah, somebody has to tell me the course, and that person is me. So I need somebody else behind the wheel, so I can give them a course to steer. In short, no, I don't get to steer the ship.

Me at work. Notice I am not steering.

Proof that what Grant says I do for living is true: I'm heading to the coffee pot for a refill, after which I'll put my feet up and enjoy the view.

In reality, most of the time the ship steers itself. In the old days, (like a few years ago), we would put the ship in auto pilot, and the ship would use whatever rudder it needed, within the limits I input, to keep the ship pointed in the direction dialed in. We still have that option (the old iron-mike), but in addition we have a "Track Mode" or as some people call it, ECDIS mode. Basically, we go to the computer with electronic charts (Electronic Chart Display and Information System) and input our route. This is displayed as track lines on the screen. Once we're pretty darn close to the line, like less than a tenth of a mile off, we switch the steering stand to "Track" mode. Once on Track mode, the ship doesn't just steer a course automatically, it accounts for set and drift, and steers whatever course it needs to keep you on the line. For instance, the track line may be 090 (east), but because of current, we are being set to the south. The ship will then steer a little more northerly, say 088, to make good the 090 track line. And I don't have to do a damn thing. The computer and GPS does it all. Another cool thing, is when we are on a Great Circle route, which plots as a curved line on our flattened out Mercator projection charts, the ship will continuously adjust course along the curved line. Pretty cool.

When we have traffic, or we are too close to land for it to be prudent to let a computer drive the ship, it goes back to auto pilot. I evaluate what course we need to steer to make good our track line or give the traffic an appropriate wide berth, and then tell the AB on my watch what to do. He dials in the course, and checks the magnetic heading. When traffic is particularly heavy, there is a large course change, or we are steering very close to land, I put the ship into hand steering, or what people think of when they ask, "do you get to steer the ship". Now the AB on watch is steering the ship by hand. I give courses, and even rudder orders if needed, and he repeats my orders back to me and tells me when he is steady on course.


My view from the bridge. Hey weekend warriors. Just so you know, when you try to cross my bow, I am steering 700 feet from the bow, and going 25mph, so you might want to rethink your strategy!

Now for a sea story: A few years ago while in Kodiak, we had such a big storm that our ship parted 8 mooring lines over the course of the day (very dangerous, people can die, and one of our men almost did). Our dock in Kodiak is really crappy as there is no breakwater, natural or otherwise, to protect us from the seas that roll in. We had a tug holding us against the dock and our bow and stern thrusters going. The longshoreman wanted to quit, but we still had hatch covers off. It is illegal and just plain stupid to go to sea, especially in a storm, with huge holes into your hull. We convinced them to get the hatch covers on, but they refused to lash the containers as they wanted off the ship. (Hatch covers weigh several tons each, so require a crane to move them.) All hands were on deck securing the containers. I was called to the bridge with the Captain and Pilot to get all the navigation equipment going so we could leave. Well, it was time to go, but we looked around the bridge and realized we didn't have a helmsman! The Captain looked at me and said, "Robin, you have to steer." It had been about six years since I steered a ship, but I hopped on, and apparently did a good job. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the AB finally made it to the bridge to take over. Phew. Just goes to show, we have to be ready to do anything, and perform all job functions at any time while out there. And I must say, if I ever "get to steer the ship" it's because the "shit has hit the fan", so to speak.


A heap of parted mooring lines. The line is several inches in diameter, or was.


View from the offshore side of the ship at the Kodiak dock. Though a nice day today, you can see we are open to any seas or swell that come in. This exposed, even a little bit of swell makes the ship surge away from the dock.

Everybody Else Is Doing It, So I Will Too.

I never considered myself a Michael Jackson fan. I am a grunge rocker from Seattle, after all. But tonight I find myself drunk off PBR sobbing while I watch his memorial service on my worn-out, rabbit-eared television (FYI this is only Robin talking).

Since Michael Jackson died nearly two weeks ago, the span of his music career has been whored out over every media outlet imaginable. I recognize and enjoy almost all his music from when he was ten years old, to the end of his life, yet I never realized a lot of these songs were his, though it's obvious now. His work has always been like background music to my life, a sort unobtrusive soundtrack.

I clearly remember having this epiphany once before, though. I was at a dance club with friends, which I rarely do. I remember being severely annoyed by the crappy "music" when all of a sudden something new and fresh came on. I started nodding my head, rocking my shoulders, maybe doing a little hand wave, when suddenly the lyrics to "Billie Jean" smacked me upside the head. "Michael Jackson, duh!" More than 20 years after this song was first released, it was still the hottest, most danceable music in the clubs, (in this humble grunge rocker's opinion). But it was! It got everybody on their feet dancing, and I swear it was not just nostalgia. I mean let's face it. I was not even two-years-old when "Thriller" came out, and I assume most of my fellow head-nodders were about the same age. It's hard for babies to be nostalgic! It was just great music. And I think that is my main point. Much of his music is timeless. He was a true professional, a true talent, I believe he truly cared about people in his own way, and I now know I am a Michael Jackson fan.

So there!

The Life of a Sailor - The One Left Behind

This is the first piece in what I will call my "Life of a Sailor" series, which I hope will provide insight into our bizarre world. Fun travel pieces will also continue.





Grant shipped out a few weeks ago unexpectedly. He went to the union hall for a union meeting, and a great job fell in his lap. This has happened to him a few times in the past, but he still worries more than I do about finding work! So I drove around with him to his doctors appointments and on his errands for a few last minute items, then I bundled him up into his old Volvo at 6:30 am and sent him out to sea. I am left behind.

Most people assume that because I ship out as well, it is easier on me than the other wives and girlfriends. This job has one of the highest divorce rates for any industry. It's also hard for the young guys to keep a girlfriend through even one tour of duty. But though I have enough empathy, understanding, and love not to leave my man because of the stress of him (and me) being away for long periods of time, I often think our situation is harder and more stressful than the classic case where the loved one is left behind.

When one of us leaves, we have no idea when we will see each other again. Let me explain. We belong to different unions, as he is an engineer and I am a deck officer. His rotations are 90 days, and mine are 120 days, so presuming we get a job on the exact same day (never going to happen), our schedule is already off by one month. We are allowed to take a trip off for up to 30 days (or one round trip), so some of our work is as relief officers for short tours of one month. Frankly, one month is not enough to pay the bills, so after our trip we have to go straight back to the hall to try for another job. (This process is often called "Looking for a Ship", and John McPhee's book by the same title is an excellent read.) Often what happens is that one of us will get a job right before the other one is finishing her rotation. This has happened many times, sometimes so close that we are literally two ships passing in the night, hours away from our homeport but one is arriving, and one is heading out to sea. One year, between us shipping out and having to go to school for continuing education, Grant and I saw each other a total of six weeks! Six weeks, of which it was a day here, and a day there adding up to that six weeks. And we don't get daily phone or private e-mail contact like other couples who travel for work! When you have a traditional landlubber significant other, you know that they will be there when you come home from sea. That is not true for us.

The other part that makes it difficult for me, and probably Grant, is that our job is very dangerous. I know this first hand. I myself had to give first aid to a man hit by a mooring line which ultimately cracked his hip and broke his wrist and arm in five places. I thought I was holding a dying man with a broken back in my arms on the cold, wet deck of a ship in Alaska, with mooring lines parting all around us. Luckily I was able to get the two of us to a safe place while I screamed in the radio for an ambulance, and he gave me what he thought were his last words to pass on to his only daughter. I have also heard of major accidents in the engine room. I have been in storms so bad I was physically thrown out of my bunk and across the room....over and over again. Grant has had a fire onboard (nope, no firefighters on board. We are the firefighters, police, security, and medical personnel in addition to our "regular" jobs). Everybody has sea stories, and I frankly would prefer not to gain any more.

Sometimes when the ship comes back to our homeport, we get to see each other. We get to come home for a few hours, sleep, get up at 0600, and go back to work. We would never miss a chance to be together, but it is an emotional rollercoaster. The time is too short, we know the other has to leave but don't want to believe it, and again, we don't know when we will see each other next. This last time I picked up my man, I finally realized what it feels like for me. He feels like a ghost. Here, then gone, like he was never there in the first place.

The short of it is that when Grant and I kiss each other goodbye, we don't know for how long.

Cheers, and here are some pictures for you :)



Grant's home for the next three months. At least he got rid of his roommate (me)!



His ship. (Through the magic of Iphoto, I have erased the name of the ship and company logo from the bow)



The bustling Port of Tacoma. To the untrained eye, this looks like a bewildering array of industry. But if you look close (click to enlarge) you start to see that there are two bulk carriers at anchor awaiting their berths, a loaded barge at anchor, numerous sailboats and private yachts, four container ship terminals, a log and pulp terminal, bulk liquid cargo storage, a tugboat, and a railroad to carry the cargo out to the hinterland. This is a major part of what the global economy looks like.



A closer look. I'll buy a pabst for whoever tells me first, in the comments section, how many ships and where they are in this picture.

California Dreamin'

After three days home, we had the itch to travel again, so we threw our tent and sandals into my tiny two-seater hybrid car and headed for California.  Actually, Grant's union requires him to get a yearly physical at their clinic in Oakland.  Either way, a road trip was in order.

It was fun driving down the fast interstate after the slow roads of New Zealand.  Even though I didn't drive in New Zealand, there were moments of vertigo when I couldn't figure out what lane to drive in.  "Stay right, stay right, stay right"  We had people to see and places to go, so couldn't drive down the entire Oregon coast on Highway 1 like we wanted, but we cut over north of the California border as our friends live in Humboldt County on the Coast.  It was hard to pull over for pictures at highway speeds, but I tell you, the Oregon and California coasts were really giving NZ a run for her money with the views.  We will really have to hit the Oregon Coast soon, because if I remember right, it is even more scenic.



Our friends took us and their new kids on a local hike called something like "fern gully".  It is where they filmed much of Jurassic Park.  At the beach there were elk, or "elk goats" as our little buddy called them.  I had no idea elk lived at the beach.  I assumed they were all toughing it out in the cold snowy mountains like in Jackson Hole.  If I were those JH elk, I would extend my migration to the warmer California climate.


                     Watch for Dinasours!

                           "Elkgoats"

We also got to go see the end of the famous Kinetic Sculpture Races, where Burning Man types build man-powered vehicles that must peddle down the road then become waterborne and peddle/paddle down the bay a ways, then back to land again to cross the finish line, more than 30 miles all together! It makes for a very long weekend.  More effort goes into the artistic aspect of the vehicles versus the mechanics, but all together a very cool artistic/engineering/athletic feat, and a well deserved beer was had by all at the the finish line.  Here are a few of our favorite competitors...







                  Octomom!!!!  If you don't know who she is, leave a comment and I'll explain.

Down to the Bay Area.  We had a great time with our college buddies and their new family, but Oakland isn't that exciting, so no pictures.  Plus, we don't put pictures of our little buddies on the internet!  Sorry for you because all three new little buddies are very cute.

North bound we cut over East towards Bend, OR to visit Grant's sister and brother-in-law a.k.a. our friends.  In Bend we went on a hike near Mt. Bachelor, but despite the 90 degree weather, the amount of snow left on the trail stopped us in our tracks.



Along the way to Bend, and further north to Seattle, we saw all of our resident volcanos, or Mountains as most people call them, and even got a few pictures.  The Cascades are pretty impressive.  One thing about people from the Pacific Northwest is that at any moment they can point out at least five volcanos, whether you can see them or not!


                   Mt. Shasta?


                          Mt. Shasta from the north


                       Elk Lake and Mt. Bachelor, Bend, OR


                       Mt. Saint Helens, a confirmed volcano!

That's it for now.  Grant shipped out today on the domestic Alaska run.  I'm hoping to find a ship in July despite the gorgeous weather in Seattle.  It's a small world and a small industry, so you won't be getting any juicy gossip from us concerning work, but we may be able to show you some ship pictures and tell you some very vague sea stories.  Stay tuned.

Cheers

Van-free in Auckland

                         Home sweet home, where did you go?

How to not get your van stolen in three days in four easy steps:

1. Do not put "for sale" sign in window advertising brand new tyres.
2. Do not fill out mandatory forms that must hang in your window with your address. Ignore the law until you sell, then write a fake address down.
3. Do not tell anybody, even the owner of a reputable hostel, where you are staying, that your van is for sale, and that you have a buyer lined up but are looking for alternatives in case your buyer falls through the following day, especially if that reputable person sells vans to backpackers, has a garage, and gives you a speech about Karma and spiritual stuff. (He's the only person we mentioned to where we were staying)
4. Do not leave keys in the ignition (just kidding, well, not really, you probably shouldn't do that)

How to get Karma so mad that she throws you under a bus, in one easy step:

1. Steal Robin's van

On the bright side:

1. We wanted to get rid of the van one way or another.
2. None of our personal belongings were in the van (but you knew that anyway, didn't you, you little bastard)
3. Nobody was hurt...at least not us...physically anyway
4. We don't have to sit on a used car lot being a used car salesman today
5. Auckland has beer


Really guys, this sucks, but the police were really nice, though we don't expect them to find our white van amongst the 300,000 other white vans in this city, and if we do, we're sure it will be stripped. They answered the phone right away and were really sweet and professional. When we went to the central downtown police station in person there was no line, and the clerk chatted with us for a half an hour.

Unfortunately there are assholes everywhere, willing to take advantage of easy targets. We sort of feel guilty for letting out a little too much information to somebody we thought was a good bloke, but you know what? That still does not give them the right to take something of ours that we rightfully own. Here's the appropriate bumper sticker we saw while walking around; "Thou shalt not steal God is watching you stupid fuck!"

So we're scanning the newspapers looking out for bus accidents......

I would still say this is a safe city and country. In my opinion, the most unsavory people you may run into are often the ones making their living from young travelers (duh), though our hostel is fantastic. I woke our host up at 0730 this morning freaked out wondering what to do, and she stayed with us for hours helping with phone calls and anything else she could. We love her. Freeman's Bed and Breakfast is the very best, and what we were expecting in NZ.

More advice we can give you is to spend the extra $50 on stolen vehicle insurance coverage. Never leave your passport in your vehicle. We didn't, but we just want to really stress that one. Like individual stocks, do not invest more than you can afford to lose. What we lost will not financially ruin us. It was still less than a rental, or what the cost of staying in hotels and hostels would have been, so relatively speaking we still had a cheap vacation. When you go to buy a van, make sure you run a legal check. Also make sure the seller is the actual registered owner! We did this when we bought, but whoever stole our van will be able to flip it to some clueless young couple no problem. Only one of our potential buyers asked about a legal check. All other people only looked at the price, and didn't consider the engine or legal status of the vehicle. Whoever buys our stolen van will be shit-out-of-luck, and I feel more sorry for them than us. At least we got three legal months of joy out of her. They will lose money and their vacation when found and seized.

We'll be home on Saturday, and we're looking forward to watching the Mariners, drinking the best beer in the world, ordering real iced coffee, and visiting our friends. I'm also looking forward to driving my little two-seater hybrid car around instead of a huge van. Grant is really looking forward to this, as it is my turn to do the driving for three months.

Cheers, and here are some pictures of the Far North



Bay of Islands - The bay of Islands is pretty. We went sailing and had a good time.

Cape Reigna - Cape Reigna is one of the most spiritually important places for the Maori people. It is at the very far North end of the North Island, where the Tasman sea and Pacific Ocean literally meet. You even see the line where the seas crash against each other from different directions. It is also where the Maori believe all their souls go before dispersing to the spirit world, Hawaike. They actually go through that tree's roots down to the next word and "disperse". Where the oceans meet is also where they believe some gods met and created life (or something). So there you go.


                                    Cape Reigna


                 Close up of the "dead people tree" (Robin's words)


                       Looking towards the Tasman Sea


                   Where the seas meet, a clear line in the sea!

Then we visited some sand dunes at Te Paki. An activity you could do is to surf or boogie board down the steep dunes. We only managed a short walk.

Norte!

Grant and I made it to the North Island with no problems, though the ferry didn't have enough sight-seeing windows. (You can tell a mate wrote that - they compulsively need to see out the window to make sure they don't hit anything. We engineers never get to see out the window so wouldn't know the difference) After our ten days of ultra luxury in a hotel, we couldn't quite manage to move back into our van, so got another hotel in Picton the night before our ferry trip north. Then in Wellington, it was too cold and we wanted to enjoy the city, so we decided on a second night in a hotel. After leaving Wellington and driving to Hawkes Bay, we finally forced ourselves back into the van. It was actually like a mini homecoming with warm beer, dirty dishes and all.

Hawkes Bay is the good wine region of NZ (don't tell that to the other NZ wine regions). Hawkes Bay around Napier is the only region that produces a few good reds, whereas the rest of NZ is so cold they mainly pride their white varietals, with the few reds tasting quite thin. This of course comes from our oh-so-sophisticated beer guzzling wine palate! The fall foliage was pretty, and the weather was fine, but as we were enjoying the local bounty I think we forgot to take pictures. Oh well - it looked good and tasted good even though we consumed the evidence.

From there it was on to my biggest attraction of NZ, one of the things I came here most for, the famed volcanic TONGARIRO CROSSING!!!! The Tongariro crossing is rated as NZ's best day hike and is extremely popular. It consists of hiking through the volcanic region of the North Island with spectacular views and incredible terrain. However, heavy rains and gusts up to 85 kph meant that nobody was going on the mountain for at least several days. So we drove on to Waitomo Caves so as not to waste our time waiting for hope.


                              What did we sign up for again?

We signed up for one of the (expensive) cave tours that Waitomo is famous for. The tour included abseiling, blackwater tubing, and climbing up waterfalls through a maze of caverns. First we were outfitted with extremely tight wetsuits (they always underestimate the beer belly beneath my coat) with fleece underneath, and shorts and a climbing harness on the outside. We then drove to a cave where we learned how to abseil. We were supposed to lower ourselves down a tight, long, dark, hole into the cave. (he said.....) Actually, after ensuring we knew the knots and techniques, the two guides tied and clipped us in, then lowered us down themselves, but hey, we're paying for the training and the safety, not a real death defying adventure. In the cave we put an innertube around our butts, jumped off a cliff into the (cold!) water then pulled ourselves along a rope up the river. (No wonder those wetsuits were so thick!) After that, we all turned off our lights, and the guides took us on a "romantic" float back down the river while looking at the thousands of glow worms.

The glow worms are pretty cool. They live on the roof of the cave and look like a starlit night of galaxies and constellations. They are not actually worms, they are maggots, and they don't glow, their poop does, so what looks like a cave full of stars is actually glowing poop all around us. Romantic indeed.

After needlessly crawling through tight holes, we then needlessly climbed up some short waterfalls, with the guides placing our hands and feet for us with an occasional boost on the bum to get us up. Despite all the help, the trip left me cold and exhausted, and my muscles ached for days. It really pushed me to the edge, and hence made me feel really bad about how weak I am considering my age. I won't even tell you how bad my hips hurt while straddling the waterfall rock faces trying to pull myself up. My excuse is that I'm 5'1", so was proportionally more spread eagled than the rest of the crew. (Incidentally we had a lot more fun in the tropical jungle of Belize caving into the Mayan sacrifice cave.) Right, so on to the thermal center of New Zealand....



Rotorua proved to be nothing like what we remembered when Grant and I really were young 7 years ago and spent a nice evening soaking in the hot tubs away from the training ship. So we drove further out of town to stay at a holiday park with really nice hotsprings. We did plunk down some money to see some thermal wonderland or other, and it was nice, but not thrilling. I would say that if you have never seen geysers, boiling mud, and sulfur hotpools, then definitely go to Rotorua. But, if you have been to Yellowstone National Park and you are short on time in NZ, as one of my best friends advised, you can probably skip Rotorua with a clear conscience. Like I said though, if you've never seen this stuff before, than I highly recommend the area. And really, go check out Yellowstone if you haven't.



After killing about four days with our adventures, we called about Tongariro, and the shuttle companies were canceling for at least a few more days. That meant that even if we decided to be stupid and hike the mountain anyway, there would be nobody to pick us up on the other side, so death by exposure would be a near certainty. I had to give up my goal and move on, but I guess there is always next time.


    There are more bugs on the North Island, though fewer sandflies.

Luckily, we drove North to the Coromandel Peninsula where the weather cleared and we had a few beautiful days of sunshine. The scenery was pretty and the drive was pleasant enough, but nothing too dramatic. It's really something to be spoiled by the grandeur of the South Island! Same on up towards the Bay of Islands. (We actually sort of shot ourselves in the foot in that we our now a little pressed for time to see all we want to see in the North. We have already given up on seeing some stuff, and we are now driving a lot more than we ever did in the South just to get to the spots we do want to see.) We are sitting waiting for the rain to stop in a day or two, then we'll plunk down more money to check out the Islands.


                          Coromandel


                        Looking out from Cathedral Cove


                      Pretty Cathedral Cove, Coromandel

Probably the highlight, or the most intersting, part of our North Island tour so far was at the locals pub we went to last night where we met a nice Maori concrete contractor who enlightened us on a lot of culture. First, he said he was the youngest of 15 kids!!!! His oldest sibling is in his 70's! And he said that was average for Maori families. Then, he said he dropped out of school around ten or eleven, and got some 12 or 13 year-old girl pregnant!!!! We figured this out because he told us he was 40, then he mentioned his oldest daughter was about to turn 30. We laughed at the math, but he said it's true he fathered his first child around the age of ten. We can't decide if he's kidding or not, but it's sort of one of those things where you can't make that shite up. And you had to have been there to see how serious he was. Crazy, but he was a good mate to have a few rounds with, and gave us more insight into rugby, and actual Maori history and culture besides his family life.

Until the weather clears, we'll see you next time. Our van is for sale, so if you know anybody who wants an awesome van, tell them to check out our ad on the Auckland gumtree site. Keep your fingers crossed we strike a good deal next week!

Cheers.

Life of luxury, or attack of the killer bees?

                                      Mom's jet-lag day

Mom made it to NZ no problem. We took it easy the first few days for Nancy's jet lag, and because the holidays made it impossible to do much of anything. We had fun playing frisbee on the beach at Rabbit Island near Nelson,


                      Why not fly all the way to NZ to play frisbee?

and were able to go wine tasting despite the weird alcohol rules. Apparently, the wine lobby convinced the NZ government to give wineries a break - I suppose for tourism and marketing purposes though it seems everyone we spoke with disagreed on the rules(though some had the explicit rules written on their sales license). One can only hope they will extend this to craft breweries in the near future. A trip into the village of Mapua ended up being the main local's Easter attraction, with a huge fair and market(you can't really have a proper fair when alcohol sales are prohibited now can you? What do the drunken cowboys do when they're not allowed to drink?). There were throngs of people, but plenty of free parking in a sheep paddock. At the waterfront, we were able to introduce Mom to our Welsh friends Sian and Rob, so now we have proof they are not just our imaginary friends! We buggered off as they were having lunch, and Mom would never be able to keep up with our debauchery. We did learn how badly Grant and I screwed up not picking grapes. The wine employers fed them lunch and dinner, all the wine they could drink, and gave them plenty of breaks. It sounded more like a party than anything, and when it was all said and done, they made $300NZD for 12 hours work over two days. That was for two, in US dollars that works out to about $12 and hour plus perks. Oh well, it will still be harvest season when we get to Hawke's bay in a few days, so we may have our chance!


With the holidays mostly wrapped up, we headed to Abel Tasman.


                          Start of Abel Tasman track

It was a glorious few sunny days, and the hikes we did were delightful. The first afternoon we walked a short ways up from the head of the track to a small beach.





The next day we took a boat ride the length of Abel Tasman National Park, then back to Bark Bay where we walked about 7 or 8 km south to Torrent Bay for our boat pick up. (Some of the walks have a great service where you can catch a water taxi to different parts of the walks, walk a section or two, and be picked up. This adds great versatility to your schedule in that you can do one short afternoon hike, or a one or two day walk and still have access to transportation so that you don't have to commit to the entire walk if your schedule doesn't fit the time required to complete it. We'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but for Grant and I, it was the flattest trail we have been on in NZ and still provided rewarding views.




           Mom's dream to walk across a swing bridge comes true!

As we had goals of making it to Kaikora down the East Coast, we decided to skip Golden Bay, and head Southeast to Picton and the Marlborough Sounds. The drive from Havelock to Picton was a pretty, winding road, but a little long. When I say winding road I mean narrow and about 35 kph average speed - we spent a lot of time in second gear and a lot of time in the pullouts letting others pass the slow tourons. We still had time to sign up for a boat cruise and walk on the Queen Charlotte Track. This four or five day tramp is awesome. Get this, they transport your pack for you from campsite to campsite, so even if you're tenting it instead of staying in a luxury lodge, all you have to carry for four days is your daypack!

Our captain was really nice. I wandered over and asked him which island we were passing, and his reply was "It's ok, women aren't very good with maps". I started laughing my arse off, and had to tell him what I do for living (professional navigator for those who don't know yet) and that turned into some pretty good conversation. Grant and I were dropped off at the start of the track, Ship Cove, where Captain Cook spent a lot of his time. (Apparently the Marlborough Sound was one of his favorite NZ areas, and he used the spot to beach his vessel and clean the bottom and do out-of-the-water maintenance and other chores such as astronomical observations and botany.)


                          Captain Cook's real cannon.  Fire in the hole!

Mom was dropped off further down the track, and our plan was to overtake her and finish the walk to Furneaux Lodge together. That is what we did, and everything was fine until about ½ hour after we met up with Mom.





                         Did someone leave their headlights on?

Right, so first off, thank god my mom is a doctor! She is allergic to bees and wasps to the point of anaphylactic shock (meaning the hives get so bad she can't breath), so carries an epipen with her, most of the time. Luckily we remembered it, because a few minutes after she switched to her sandals, a wasp flew right between her toes and stung her. It didn't take long for us to realize what had happened as Mom was swearing like a sailor, but Grant and I were useless. We did manage to get the epipen out of her backpack, but then Grant nearly passed out (he has a hard time with needles), and all I could do was read the instructions over and over again out loud. Mom finally grabbed the needle from me, dropped her drawers, and jammed the damn thing into her thigh herself! Boy is she tough. Next time I'll know what to do for sure. After her ordeal, she still had to hike an hour to our pick-up point with a throbbing foot. Luckily for us, the adrenaline made her really pick up the pace, though the boat wasn't leaving early anyway. So we all had a round at the lodge and tried to laugh off Mom's near death experience.

We were able to get another epipen from the pharmacy without a prescription, so I would highly recommend buying one while in NZ if you think you are remotely susceptible to major bee reactions and go on any hikes longer than an hour or two outside a hospital. It is easy to use. You take a cap off, and jam a dull point into your thigh, then some mechanism spits out the needle and injects the epinephrine for you. It's idiot proof (well, ahem, you know what I mean).

Kaikora was next on our list, and was definitely a highlight of our trip, and hopefully Mom's too. On the way there, we stopped at a view point with hundreds of seals. They stink! All that fish or something.



We got to stay in an ultra-luxurious waterfront hotel with a heated towel rack and spa, then we got to go on a cool boat tour to see albatross, and other seabirds. Albatross are a major part of seagoing folklore, and they are huge! We saw other seabirds too. The albatross have something like a 3 meter wingspan. It's hard to show their size in the pictures, but trust us.





They have to basically fold their wings up twice when they tuck them in. Really cool. We also got to see tons of dolphins, but no whales.



We skipped the whale tour as we are a little jaded from our profession and coming from the Puget Sound, but that was for the best as all whale tours were cancelled due to fog anyway. So we lucked out and got to see all there was to see and more choosing the bird tour instead of the dolphin or whale tour. The hike around Kaikora peninsula was really nice too, though the fog didn't allow for many views aside from the beach. Nice rocky beaches though!


                   Kaikora Peninsula walk.  We hiked down here too!

Mom's trip was coming to an end, so we drove her to Nelson the night before, took her on one more death march up to "the center of New Zealand", then packaged her up in one piece for her long ride home. Luckily, she will arrive before she left, so should be in pretty good shape. I hope you had fun mom, we sure did.

So, we're off to the North Island to play with some volcanoes. With less than four weeks to go, one in which we must sell the van, I am getting nervous I don't have enough time to see everything!

Cheers.