Well, well ,well, where has the time gone? For those who are still checking in on us and we hope there are some, we are still in NZ enjoying a mild winter in Whangarei while we wait now for a suitable weather window for the trip North to the warm and beyond. Over the past six months we have been very busy and are finally settling in to preparations for departure once again. Having been home to Canada, sold our home of over twenty years in a little beach community on the coast for a ridiculous amount right at the top of the curve and bought a new place about a hundred times nicer on Nicola Lake, three hours inland, then left that house, reluctantly I can assure you, and came back to the boat to undertake more improvements and maintenance, to sitting out some foul weather, we are now finally slowing down to the point we can get back into the routine of boat gypsy. That was a long haul but well worth all the effort. Moving sucks the big one but the new place is ultra fab or as they say down here "it's right flash eh". Nicola Lake is 20 min from Merritt, a growing town of I think 5,000 or so, hey we have a Wal Mart! The lake is a jewel of the interior region which is quite arid compare to the wet coast with great sport fishing of rainbow and Kokanee salmon. To get to our place you drive through a huge cattle ranch then along the lake to Nicola Lakeshore Estates a very cool upscale development we never knew was there. On one drive to town we counted over a hundred deer and all kinds of other wildlife. There are Cougars, Bobcats, Bears, Moose, Raptors, and all manor of critters all around us. We have deer living in our yard! Couldn't be better. Our Yard,,,well land, is sort of like sore balls,,,,, yup I'm sitting on a couple of acres! I hope someone got that one. Anyway it does have a certain pull drawing us back there but it will be there whenever we get back.

So what has happened lately? A-TRAIN is in perfect condition again having undergone yet another extensive spa treatment and tugging at the lines to stretch her legs after being restrained for seven months. The new wildly awesome main sail should prove a real performance contribution and we are looking forward to some really fast sailing. Yes fast is FUN! Currently there are but a handful of transient cruising yachts still left in NZ. As always the yachts here are from all corners of the globe. Who came up with that one anyway? In case "they" forgot, Duhh,,,Chris Columbus proved there were no corners quite a while back!! I think that is why it is called a globe! Anyway, we have all have been held back from departing due to the La Nina effect, which has generated a constant string of fast moving deep, low pressure systems marching across the Tasman Sea, interspersed with tempting but tiny departure windows which rapidly slam shut with ass kicking conditions not many of us want to experience. There have been a dozen or so groups depart over the past couple of months and it seems at least a couple yachts from each group return to NZ with damage or worse, having been caught in the slam. Remember this is the Southern Pacific, direct neighbour to the Southern Ocean, a most horrid place to be and it is wintertime! Don't mess around down here in winter! So we will do what we always do and wait for a forecast that suits us before we venture back to sea. It will be like the first time again after so long tied to a dock with an umbilical cord attached to a tall box on the dock through which magically flows all the luxuries associated with normal life, like unlimited electricity and fresh water. Every time I look at the connections to shore I see miracles in process that we take for granted in normal land based life. Not so once we cut the cord but that will all come back pretty quickly. The transition we have talked about before from the relatively benign and static coastal conditions to that of actually being at sea can be interesting at times. The constant action and three dimensional movements of the boat in a seaway are much like being in one of those test pilot gyro contraptions that have three rings all spinning different directions and you are supposed to get control of the thing to prove your competence but of course the sea, while being able to come up with all kinds of action tests does not usually succumb to humanly control and thus we adapt and endure until we become accustomed once again and accept that this is life at sea and static is no longer a constant except on the radios. Everyone goes thru it, the queazyness , the loss of balance and sense of grounding, the bumps and bruises, the questioning period like what the heck are we doing out here and why, but then once over it you become one with the motion and life on an angle seems normal again. Then night time comes which is when all the interesting shit happens and the real tests begin. But we can talk more about that once we get out there.

We are wrestling with the next destination and cruising season at present and have not fully decided on our options which of course are many. A good goal to plan for upon retiring is to have available to you, numerous options for you to chose from in order to stave off boredom. Ya right, we never find time to be bored, but it is a reality that plagues others we know who have retired early and find themselves with a big callous on their favourite tv remote control finger, a general softening of just about everything and lack of drive to undergo the surgery to have the couch removed from their ass. The best thing we ever did was get out early with a plan that demands you be active, alert and tasking yourself and sailing will do that and more.

So where too? One plan involves back to Fiji, it is just too nice, then off to Vanuatu to stare down into the active volcano while it is spewing lava boils which sounds cool. Apparently you hike up the mountain in the afternoon arriving near dusk, see the action as dark settles in and then hike back down in the dark. Sounds pretty good and of course there is much more to see throughout the island chain of this remote country. From there down to New Caledonia a French foreign territory with all kinds of cool stuff and back to NZ or even Auz. for the cyclone season of Nov to April in the Southern Hemisphere. This route was part of the plan last year but we ran into issues with refrigeration which kept us in Fiji too long. Perhaps just a trip to Auz would be in order where the East coast and Great Barrier Reef could offer some new adventures. There are dozens of deadly poisonous critters and great white sharks waiting to be investigated there and we have thought about that. Then there is the trip back home to Canada option we are looking at as well. This one is a slightly larger undertaking especially at this time of year. The traditional route consists of an earlier, say April May departure Eastward from NZ dipping down to 40 degrees or more South, that is the edge of the Southern Ocean folks, to find Westerlies or at least less Easterlies and hold an Eastern course for about 1500 NM before making an arc Northward to shape a course for Tahiti in all about 2600 NM or around 5,000 Kms. From there one heads nearly due North to Hawaii, 2300 NM which involves crossing the ITCZ and the Equator again, more interesting stuff, then from there you go NW in a big arc around the N Pacific High nearly up to Alaska depending on where the high is sitting and curve over the top of the high finding westerlies and slide downwind for the West coast, about 2600 NM or so. All mileage is approx and based on what the sea and wind permit you to do. Departing April from NZ puts us departing Hawaii by about mid June, the start of the North Pacific hurricane season. Departing NZ for that route now that winter is in full swing and skirting the edge of the Southern Ocean is simply not in the cards unless you are record attempting maniac with a death wish. So that window being closed I looked at heading Northeast, with stops in Tonga, no way we can pass that part of Oceana and not stop at Big Mammas yacht club,,,then Samoa and then either beating up wind Eastward towards and maybe even make Hawaii or just heading due North from Samoa until we feel a wind shift that allows angling NE. All very doable. A month long study of weather along all possible routes leaves me thinking this might be the best way to go. Looking at reaching Hawaii, via Samoa and a couple of atolls along the way, while it would be a good pit stop, involve shorter hops and provide a chance to rest up or fix gear that might choose to expire along the way, I can't help watching the depressions and hurricanes spinning up from the Golfo de Tuantepec ( might have misspelled that one) and marching towards Hawaii every week and thinking that it looks a lot like a bowling alley and not at all attractive. The chicken little dash across the ITCZ dodging squalls is testing enough. Currently there are no less that four topical depressions come hurricanes in that part of the ocean. Hummm? Maybe Hawaii should be left to Starboard and we do the Supertramp thing and "take the long way home" Samoa to Vancouver direct. It is a serious undertaking and one we are up for or will be once we make Tonga then Samoa and shake her well down. If it all seems good we will probably go for it. It can't be too bad can it?