Well, we've experienced our first major course correction. As of 24 hrs. ago, we decided to go to New Zealand instead of continuing north to Hong Kong. I mentioned last week, when we arrived in Tonga, we were overcome by what a perfect cruising ground it is! And, as we understand from talking to many who have been to Fiji, Vanuatu, and the Solomons, it continues to be just as lovely from here onward. Cyclone season is approaching. If we are to get out of the zone and arrive in Hong Kong by Christmas, we would have to skip through all of these countries barely stopping. We just can't do that! There is too much to experience. Clint has also been invited to minister throughout Melanesia, so, we want to take some time to be able to set up meetings. Most of these places get so little outside ministry because they are too remote and only accessible by boat.
Thank you to all who helped us to make this decision. We got about 6 emails that unanimously encouraged us to go to New Zealand. So many things have come into place in the last few days. I applied for a job at Auckland City Hospital working in trauma/ER. We did not have any charts for that area. This morning we made a request over the VHF radio to buy charts from anyone who might have them. Who should answer our need but Lin and Larry Pardy! Lin and Larry are well-known in the cruising community. They wrote the first book Clint ever read about sailing, Cruising on Seraffyn in 1974. We have followed their articles and heard them speak at many boat shows. I just thought it was special and significant that we were able to get together with Lin this morning and talk about going to New Zealand and further planning for later journeys to Hong Kong and the Red Sea. I remember that the first night I ever met Clint in Tahoe in August of 1978, we sat on his living room floor looking through Sail magazine and talking about Lin and Larry's experiences. Now, we're out here ourselves! Unbelievable! By the way, Lin mentioned that in their 35+ years of cruising, they have found that nurses are the most adaptable women to the cruising lifestyle. So there you have it!
Colin is still in Auckland. It will be fun to be reunited with him. Abbey wants to go to high school there. We will be staying until April when it is safe to sail back north. We want to fly Alicia down to see us. Flights are very expensive, so we will have to trust those finances to come together.
We had the best time Friday night! We entered the local sailing race. It was a blast! We invited 5 others on board, a family from New Zealand and a boy from Poland. I told everyone that they needed to tend to their lives 'cause Clint is very competitive. Well, when the countdown started and we were tacking for position at the start, something just came on me! I got soooo excited! I started whoopin' and hollerin'; we were cranking on the genny winch and trimming those sails to perfection! It was an open class race so a trimaran pulled out in front and made it around the first mark, next was a 46 ft. sloop, then us out of a field of about 12 boats. When we came up to the 1st mark, I yelled out to the sloop that had just rounded it that we were going to catch them, all in good jest. Well, we just stayed after it. We had all 3 sails up, we were hanging out the side, and after rounding the 2nd mark we started closing on the boat ahead. As we came to the 3rd mark we were right on their stern! Clint came up on their starboard side to steal their wind, but we were only about 50 yds from the 3rd mark. I yelled out, "Hey, we're from Vegas, and we just have to do this. Your boat is more valuable than ours if you want to risk it!" They must have thought I was a lunatic so they fell off a little seeing that we weren't going to give any on the squeeze around the buoy. We swooped 'em! It was great! They caught us back before the finish. Overall, we finished 5th 'cause 2 small boats had a handicap and only had to complete half the course. We won 2 free lunches at the yacht club! We were all so proud of Kairos. She's a heavy boat with a full keel and we kicked that sleek 46 footer with her fine lines and fin keel. Kairos is a champ!
We're in a great anchorage right now. I'm sitting on the deck with my laptop. We're anchored in 12 ft of crystal clear water. I can see bright blue starfish and yellow tangs swimming through the coral heads below. It's a bright sunny day, the waves are rhythmically lapping the shore. All kinds of birds are singing to each other in the trees. Clint, Abbey, and I just got back from snorkeling a 100ft. wall that drops straight down from a rock island off the mouth of this bay. We saw a deadly banded sea snake. There is no antidote if you get bitten. Death is certain and quick. I guess the deal is that their mouths are so small that they can only bite a human between the webbing of fingers or on the ears. So, if you snorkel around with your hands closed into fists over your ears you should be pretty safe! I don't think they bother you if you don't provoke them. They're very pretty to watch as they glide through the water like a ribbon.
Well, it's the next day, and since I haven't had an opportunity to send this update, I'm going to add to it! Clint and I did a dive this morning; we saw an amazing display of coral and fish. The water clarity was incredible! After the dive, we explored the many little islands and found a perfect white sand beach all to ourselves. We drove the "ding" right on the sand and had fun exploring our little paradise. Back at Kairos we ate lunch then Clint, Joel, and I headed for dive number two. Clint and I used tanks and Joel free-dove with us. Our max depth was 65ft. Joel was like a little sea otter as we explored another great wall dive. We saw some species of fish that we couldn't even identify in the guide book. Afterwards, we continued along the shoreline and drove the dinghy into a cave. It was very large, about 100ft. in diameter with a ceiling about 70ft. There were thousands of little bats and stalagmites and stalactites. Cool little tunnels extended back from the main entrance. We are going back tomorrow with Abbey to check it out some more.
A family from So. Africa is anchored next to us. They have a daughter a year younger than Abbey. Since they anchored last night, Abbey has spent every waking moment with Kerry. They're having a great time. We will probably be sailing with them down to New Zealand. Gotta go for now, we're boat hopping for appetizers and dinner.
Love ya, Janet