Sailing started out nice, and we were happy to use our new spinnaker, and then came the rain...
Then "tomorrow's rain" arrived today. Fortunately, instead of getting blasted by high winds, it slowly decreased to nothing as the rain intensified. Our poor spinnaker became so heavy with it that it could no longer support is own weight. The new wind arrived enough to the side that we pulled it down and replaced it with or regular working sails. That gave us a chance to try the whole wardrobe.
As we pulled into North Channel, separating Kawau Island from the mainland, the land of the former completely blocked the wind. Well, we were getting ready to start an engine soon, anyway...
The rain increased until it was one of those where the drops are so big and numerous that they were hitting everything with a splash and sending droplets back into the air as a thick mist that soaked everything. I lost sight of both shores. Since I was soaked through, I urged Maryanne to stay inside, so at least it was only one of us that got drenched.
That only delayed the problem for her. As we rounded the corner into Bon Accord Harbour, which almost bisects the island, it was clear that the rain was showing no signs of letting up. She would have to go out in it after all while we anchored. At least she had enough notice to bundle up first so that her ten minutes in the deluge only resulted in the outside of her outfit getting wet.
The next day was forecast to be the arrival of real cats-and-dogs rain. We planned to spend it tucked up in the dry, perhaps even running our new heater if necessary.
It ended up being a frustratingly nice day. Every time I checked the forecast, it said rain was imminent – really heavy rain. We'd have a look at the weather radar and see great red and magenta blobs barreling toward us. Then they would meet the sea, take an ever-so-slight right turn, and pass half a mile south of us, leaving us with mild, glorious weather. We both really wanted to have a look around, but every time we would check the weather, it looked like it would be a really bad idea to get more than five minutes from the boat, not without swim trunks, anyway.
Thus, it was a little bit of a relief when, at 5pm, we finally started hearing the first drops hitting the cabin top. Within minutes, the din was so loud that we had to raise our voices just to converse. All we could see on the other side of our windows was a continuous sheet of water running down. That's more like it!
Once the rain petered out in the wee hours of the next morning, it was replaced with clear skies and light winds. The day was shaping up to be the nicest for two weeks in either direction. Our plan for it was simple: Everything.
Normally, this would mean getting up in the dark, or at least near-dark. This time, however, the thing anchoring our day of tourism was a tour of Mansion House. Mansion House is only open from 12:30 until 2:00. We backed up the time it would take us to row ashore to Schoolhouse Bay, and then walk one of the forest trails between, and decided we could go about our morning slowly and leave about 10:30.
As I was busying myself down below with other tasks, I overheard Maryanne having a phone conversation with Lin Pardey. They were trying to decide on the best time for Maryanne and I to come for a visit.
Sailors, you can skip ahead a bit if you like while I explain to the non-sailors who this Lin Pardey is.
It would not be an exaggeration to characterize Lin Pardey as the most influential sailing writer alive today. Up until a couple of years ago, if you asked any cruising sailor in any anchorage in the world which sailing writers had the biggest influence on them, the Pardeys will come up before they need to enlist their other hand for counting. There are lots of good sailing writers out there, and lots of prolific ones as well, but Lin and Larry Pardey's work is in the short pantheon of cruising gospel that is must-read for anyone dreaming of selling up and going off to sail the world in a small boat. Nowadays, when we ask the question, a minority of the younger crowd will start off by listing their big influences as some YouTuber or another. Sure, they have color video you can watch without having to crack open some smelly old book, but I guarantee those same YouTubers got started by reading Lin and Larry Pardey.
The Pardeys built their now iconic wooden boats, Seraffyn and Taleisin (mostly Larry), each without an engine. They then worked their way around the world working as riggers and shipwrights, using their own boat as a 'brochure' before taking up the writing (mostly Lin) that made them names that will forever be at the tip of every sailor's tongue. No offense to Cap'n Fatty. We like Fatty, but by the time we discovered his stuff, we were already all in on this whole sell up and go sailing thing, in no small part due to Lin's (and sometimes Larry's) writing.
Sadly, Larry died in 2020 of Parkinson's Disease. Lin has been blessed with finding a new love in her life:partner and fellow sailor David Haigh; they are both still actively planning sailing adventures for the future. Lin also helps coach other sailors achieve their own dreams, she is totally amazing.
Maryanne wanted to invite Lin and David to dinner abord Begonia. Hearing Maryanne on the phone with Lin was like being a young idealist, looking out the window of the pub at the busy streets of Boston, daydreaming away, and then suddenly realizing your wife was at the next table clinking mugs of ale with Thomas Paine and his merry group of rabblerousers. They were chatting away as if they had been friends much longer than the three actual minutes since the beginning of the phone call. In short order, we were told to pop around tomorrow for a visit. Well, I'll be...
In the meantime, we had stuff to see. We rowed to Schoolhouse Bay and then headed for the trailhead to Mansion House. We started with the long trail, but soon discovered it was closed due to storm erosion. We had to settle for the medium trail, which was very nice if I don't mind saying. I particularly liked the abundant birdsong.
We arrived at Mansion House too early, which allowed us to have a leisurely stroll through the adjacent gardens. Then we repaired to the café, where me met what may be the most apathetic, disinterested, and unhelpful person we have ever encountered standing behind a café counter. She wasn't hostile. She just didn't try. She didn't even try to try. We were clearly far too boring for that. We took a table anyway, and were digging through our backpack for our own impromptu lunch when the chef happened by. Maryanne got his attention and he could not have been more helpful. We quickly learned that there was much more on offer than, "uh, nothing" and put our order in, much to the consternation of the woman at the counter, who now had to ring us up.
Well, Mansion House was splendid in the way that Victorian houses are. It was originally the Manager's house for the local mining company, but was then bought by Sir George Grey, Eleventh Premier of New Zealand. He imported exotic flora and fauna alike and used the house for a getaway from the bustle of the mainland and to entertain his friends. It went into disrepair for a while before an unsuccessful stint as a resort in the 1900s and is now administered by the Department of Conservation, which is in the process of restoring it to Grey-era condition.
Maryanne and I had intended to get back to Schoolhouse Bay via the third, shortest path. We decided instead to cobble together a much longer route home that took in the rest of the island's trails. That way, we won't have to feel like we had missed anything.
A hike ashore, exploring the old copper mine infrastructure and on to the Mansion House with their resident peacocks
Back at the dinghy, we even kept rowing right past Bagonia and kept on going until reaching the Kawau Boat Club for a couple of coldies. As soon as we sat down, we were beset upon by a jolly local farmer who was out on a two-month solo vacation, sailing this part of the Hauraki Gulf, while his wife held down the farm. After spending a couple beers with him, we couldn't decide if the vacation was for him or his wife. Ba-dum!
Drinks ashore at the boat club
The next morning, at a properly respectable hour, we weighed anchor and headed around the corner, following Lin's directions to the mooring in front of her house. David's children and grandchildren had been visiting and were planning on leaving today. We arrived hours before the agreed time with the intent of pottering around on the boat until then. Just then, David was loading the family and their bags onto the ferry at Lin's dock. After seeing them off, he called out to us and told us he was going to town (on the mainland), but Lin said we were welcome anytime. No need to wait.
After seeing us leave Begonia to row ashore, Lin came down to the dock to greet us warmly. Then she told us there was a little problem she wanted to discuss with us.
Back at the house, over tea and cake, Lin explained that David had seen us come in and told her he wanted to meet us, but he wasn't going to be back until much later. After modifying Maryanne's original offer of dinner aboard to afternoon tea and cake with Lin, would it be too cheeky to reinsate the dinner plans for David's benefit?
Absolutely no way. We are outta here.
"That sounds just perfect!" Maryanne said.
That gave Lin time to de-kid-ify her house, and us time to – actually, Begonia still looks pretty good after the haulout, she just needed some light tidying.
Whilst ashore we were invited to explore the private trails that connect the beaches and properties for this corner of Kawau, before saying farewell until dinner
Maryanne cooked up a delicious asian noodle feast that she was having increasing difficulty keeping me from sneaking bites of. As the appointed hour approached, Lin called and said David was running late. Could we reschedule for tomorrow? I was disappointed in the news until I realized I would get to eat my portion, plus Lin's, plus David's. I'm not beneath doing that. Maryanne is a good cook.
The next day, in increasing winds and the threat of impending rain, we could see Lin and David walking down their dock toward us. We thought they were going to hop into their little runabout, but instead, they upended the dinghy that had been overturned on their dock, then David rowed it over to us.
Dinner was amazing. It wasn't necessarily the food. Maryanne had whipped up our best stuff the night before, so we had what was pretty much a run-of-the-mill dinner for me and her for the second go.
Dinner was, of course, amazing because of the company. David and Lin are both really down-to-earth people. Our dinner aboard was not unlike countless other dinners we have had with other friendly cruisers along the way. The main difference was a matter of both quantity and quality. During her years of sailing, Lin alone has sailed about twice as far as Maryanne and I have to date. Add to that that most of her sailing was done in a small, wooden, engineless boat, in the days where you had to find your way around with a sextant. Also, she has done some sailing that Maryanne and I would never even consider, like her westbound circumnavigation against the Southern Ocean's prevailing winds.
As we were going around the table, telling one story after another, I was struck by similarities between Lin and Maryanne especially.
Maryanne has heard me say this before, so she knows I mean no offense, even though it doesn't look so great on the surface; One of the things I really like about Maryanne is that she doesn't look like much.
I don't mean that in a physical sense in any way. I think Maryanne is very attractive, of course. The poor thing still has to spend a good chunk of her time fending off my advances. What I mean is that, although she is gregarious, she is fairly reserved about her own accomplishments. I often think that, if you were a rush-hour commuter and sat next to her on the train, you would have NO idea that she wasn't another run-of-the-mill commuter going to her typical thankless cubicle job. Only by talking to her for a few minutes would it slowly become clear that there is WAY more to her than there appears to be. I see that part all the time, even when she's sitting there doing nothing in particular. It's one of the reasons I like her so much. Lin seems to me to be in the same category.
There are a lot of people in New Zealand who see the country by campervan. If you were one of those people, not a boater, who ended up stood behind Lin at the grocery store while stocking up for your big road trip, there would be little to indicate that the diminutive woman in front of you wasn't just some friendly local doing her weekly shop, and not the world's most famous and influential sailor.
Going around the table, the conversation turned to the Drake Passage. We've got a couple of good stories about the Drake Passage. I was using the one about being out on deck on a hundred-meter ship in fifty-five-knot winds and thirty-five-foot seas as an example of why we have no intention of ever going anywhere near there in Begonia.
David has also been in the Drake Passage, also on a ship. His ship hit an iceberg that tore a twenty-meter gash in the hull (luckily above the waterline.) It had to be repaired enroute while they limped to South America.
Lin's Drake Passage story was a little different. She said the day she and Larry rounded Cape Horn (the notorious southern tip of South America) in Seraffyn, which measured in at just under twenty-five feet in length, the weather was actually pretty nice. Then they were hit with a seventy-knot storm and had to heave-to for four days. During that time, they were knocked down (where the mast hits the water) by a fifty-foot wave. They later learned that a church on the Chilean mainland at the same latitude had been completely leveled by the same storm.
That's the kind of thing I was talking about. "Hey Honey, have you had a chance to talk to the nice lady next door? She's REALLY interesting!"
But wait, there's more!
We were talking about boats. Lin's boats are iconic. She and Larry sold Seraffyn forty years ago to pay for their property on Kawau. After talking about Taleisin, Lin gestured over her shoulder and said, "She's right over there."
What ?!?!
We knew that she had sold Taleisin years ago, but hadn't understood that it was to a couple who keep her in the same harbor. I had noticed the boat out of the corner of my eye and thought, 'Nice boat. It kinda reminds me of Taleisin.' Then I didn't give it much more thought.
Nope. That IS Taleisin; THE Taleisin. She is swinging only three moorings away from Begonia. I think the cockpit awning with the solar panels and the summarily bolted-on outboard engine threw me off. Lin explained that the new owners had sailed her to Tonga and back, but they also live in the bay. Taleisin now seems to be starting the process of suffering the slow, sad decline of a neglected boat. She still floats on her lines, though, and she still looks beautiful, once my mind digitally erases the motor. Now, every time I look outside, I make a point of checking on her, admiring her lines, and maybe saying a little, silent thanks for surviving everything she has seen.
When dinner aboard Begonia was finished, Lin and David traded places and Lin rowed the dinghy. That woman is tough as nails, especially for an eighty-one-year-old.
Maryanne and I had intended to stay on Lin's mooring for only a couple of nights. A big storm was on the way, though, and she told us we were more than welcome to stay the rest of the week, until after the storm passed. After a couple of days riding out increasingly bad weather, she called Maryanne and invited us to dinner at the house tonight.
What?! Well we couldn't say no.
Dinnertime tonight was literally supposed to be the worst part of the storm, now upgraded to an actual tropical storm. The whole reason we hadn't left yet was to protect Begonia from this very storm. Now Lin was inviting us to go out and do some socializing right in the middle of it. Uh, maybe tomorrow?
Tomorrow wouldn't work. She had other commitments.
Thus, Maryanne and I donned our full moon suit of foul weather gear, lowered the dinghy and rowed the short distance to Lin's dock. By the time we got there, there was already three inches of water in the bottom of the dinghy. I must admit that once we had the outfits on, the deluge didn't seem so bad. Still, we must have looked to any normal person like we were both nuts.
At the house, after having peeled off our foulies to leave a big puddle on the floor in a corner. It was an ideal day to spend indoors cooking. The house is in the lee of a big hill. The wind and rain were not nearly so bad there, arriving mostly as a heavy mist that did not make a din as it pummeled the roof. Having a house means that Lin doesn't have to be as constantly worried about the weather as we are. Also, she's Lin Pardey. She's seen worse. For her to have the same level of concern that we do, all the parameters would pretty much have to double. Over dinner with her, David, her older brother, Alan, and Alan's wife Marsha, who were both visiting from California, we would occasionally find ourselves saying things like, "Is it still raining out there?"
"Oh, yeah. It's still coming down pretty hard."
As long as Begonia wasn't skittering across the harbor, I tried to put it out of my mind. The wine helped.
Lin and David did it again. After hearing that David had been an environmental lawyer in Australia, Maryanne asked him if he had ever been arrested. Boy, she knows how to keep a conversation flowing.
He answered that he had not; not at an environmental protest anyway. There was that time, though, after sailing his boat from Great Britain to St Petersburg, that he got arrested by the Russians. Apparently, he forgot to declare some long-forgotten item they found aboard. He said they were very nice as they escorted him from the harbor and directed him to leave the country forthwith.
Maryanne then asked the same question of Lin.
Oh, yeah, she had one as well. She and Larry were in Tunisia and had sailed up a river to escape strong winds in the harbor; they had inadvertently anchored in a military zone. Since they had no engine, the arresting officer accompanied them as they spent hours short-tacking their way back to the harbor and a pair of waiting military ships there. By the time the trip was done, they were so friendly with the arresting officer that they were invited aboard one of the ships for dinner. Later, after reviewing their charts, it was agreed that Lin and Larry would have had no way to know about the restriction. Their charts and passports were handed back. They were now free to enjoy the country, which she says they did very much.
"Yeah, well, I almost got a pretty bad hangnail last week."
After re-donning our outfits, Maryanne and I had the same wet slog back to Begonia, who was just where we had left her after all. Hoisting and securing the dinghy was no fun, but once I had toweled off and changed into some dry clothes, things seemed much better. At least there were no dishes to do. It helped that the barometer was already starting to climb, which meant we knew the weather would start improving soon.
The next day was still windy, but at least the rain had stopped and breaks were forming in the blanket of cloud. We spent the day aboard while our wet clothes dried on lines in the cockpit. This was the big eye of the storm.
Although Lin's mooring is more than strong enough for Begonia, since the other side of the storm was going to push wind and waves into the bay from the opposite direction, Maryanne and I used the brief lull to sail onwards on our travel plans. We bid David and Lin goodbye, who gave us big waves as they boarded the ferry to the mainland with her family. We then made a pass by Taleisin just because.
Once we were out of the harbor, the wind really picked up. We spent the next few hours tacking to Mita Bay in Mahurangi Harbor (back on the Mainland, to the North of Auckland. By the time we got there, the wind was gusting into the thirties again. The other side of the storm was definitely here now. This time, we deployed our own, newly-replaced ground tackle and spent the next two days safely inside, protected from howling winds and pelting rain. We were really looking forward to when this thing passes. They have been saying Summer was supposed to start then.
Indeed, it did.
Finally, FINALLY, the weather turned nice for a change. Maryanne and I were out first thing to stomp around in it. Mahurangi Park has some nice trails, each with just enough up and down to make the relatively short distances feel like proper exercise.
At the next bay over from Begonia, we were perusing the signboards in the parking area when we met a park employee who had heard us and popped out of the public toilets she was cleaning to say hi. She was in what we thought was a particularly good mood for someone who is charged with that particular task. After a bit of back and forth, we learned the reason for this was that the park was closed. She reassured us that it wasn't really closed; having arrived on foot, we were more than welcome to roam around at our leisure.
What had really happened was that the rain and wind of the last few days had washed out part of the access road. The park was closed to motor vehicles. As it was the three-day "Auckland Anniversary Day" holiday weekend, and since the park is only a short drive from that city, she had been expecting the place to be mobbed with lots of people who don't treat the facilities as if they were their own homes. As it worked out, all she really had to do was verify everything was still clean from yesterday.
Maryanne and I only encountered about half a dozen other walkers that day. Without exception, their first comments were always about how quiet and peaceful it was today. It was so peaceful, in fact, that after we were back aboard for the night, we noticed the person we had met as we were launching the dinghy from the beach was now having the kind of swim where none of one's clothing gets wet.
A 7km stroll around Mahurangi Regional Park on a public holiday; we were saved from the usual crowds since the road was closed due to mudslides. All the rain has the plus side of creating a double rainbow for us!
Anchorage location in Bon Accord Harbour >> On google maps
Anchorage location in Otuawaea Bay (aka Mita Bay), off Mahurangi Regional Park >> On google maps
