We’re waiting out our last few days here on the Coromandel Peninsula as the wind whips around little Motui island and lashes at us in our hidey hole.  We’d like to be moving on by now, but it’s been feast or famine wind-wise lately and right now it’s dishing out more than we care to stomach.  But we have a thin trickle of internet connection here behind our rock, so here are some more pics of our recent Coromandel activities.

When we came to Motui Island the first time, the weather was much more tranquil.  We arrived in fine form after finally enjoying the first sail of the season.

We found a picturesque anchorage with many piebald shags, young and old, standing sentry.

When the winds threatened to back around to the west we moseyed over to the other side of the island.

We’ve been putting our time at anchor to good use tackling a number of the items on the to-do list:

like unstopping the stopped up fridge sump pump

greasing the jib furler…

doing some sail mending,

kluging up a spinnaker sprit from a boatyard dumpster mast,

making some respectable sheet bags (that will also fit a sheet head, if needed),

putting eye splices in our parachute anchor lines (in case the kaka hits the fan some day)

and improving our offshore harness accessories, including our very own individual locator beacons (we used to share one and swap it at the beginning of each watch), a pocket for the light, leg straps, and mini air horns (Nicole and Aaron’s idea, thanks guys!).

Though we’re eager to move on we’ve learned we have to go with the flow out here, so we’re not too impatient.  We feel the pressure building for the big trip home but for now life’s pretty relaxing and we’re trying to savor it.

The weather has had us running up and down the Coromandel Peninsula as the wind swings around the clock to the tune of 20-35 kts (twice a week). At one point we went back south and anchored in front of Coromandel Village in 8 ft of water but still 3/4 of a mile from the beach. Coromandel is at the head of a very shallow and sticky bay. The local boats are tucked into the mangroves.

The village is a sleepy place with a strange hold on tourists. Lap dogs yawn.

Sharing an ice cream cone brightens their day.

People grow flowers on the sidewalks and trim their cottages in lace.

Weathered agrarians purposefully go about the business of extracting livelihoods from the green hills.

Their livestock add weight until it’s too dark to find the grass.

We are always on the look out for signs of evolution among the more perplexing organisms in our world.  The sweet little cutter Jocasta was sadly mired in the tidal mud for much of the day in the Coromandel village marina until she was naturally selected for an upgrade.

In an evolutionary wink of the eye she grew appendages.

And slowly crawled into the pasture.

There is a woman in Waiheke named Emily who, through a program called Watoto, is well acquainted with the child soldiers and victims of Uganda’s decades-long civil war. She is also known on the island as “Miss Fruit and Veg.” When her friends from the Ugandan village of Gulu took their stories on a world tour of Child Soldier No More, Emily made sure they stopped in Waiheke.

She wanted them to meet the people of her own village. Cable Bay Vineyards donated their art garden for the evening, a who’s who of NZ corporations paid the bills, and the Waihetians turned out en masse.

There are few things as festive and relaxing as vineyard theater in a small village on a summer night.

Village high school kids managed the crowd and multiple generations sat together on the grass.

We all shared the same sense of security and well being as the villagers of Gulu before the war started and this was where the story began.

Before the war Gulu was “a vibrant community where the residents worked together to meet each others needs.” There may also have been lots of singing and dancing.

Then the maniacs in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) showed up. They butchered, tortured, enslaved, and raped their way to regional power.

The LRA left kids in their wake who had been forced to murder their own friends and elders, orphaned, raped, mutilated, infected with HIV/AIDS and subjected to unimaginable abuse. We heard many of their stories. 

There was a sudden change in the atmosphere at Cable Bay Vineyards as the focus shifted from Sauvignon Blanc and toddlers playing in the grass before a perfect view of the Hauraki Gulf and the Auckland skyline to the horror of these Gulu kids living their daily nightmares. And perhaps the discomfort grew as the Ugandans gave us their greatest lesson, that they had forgiven their oppressors by the example of Christ on the cross. They now stand together as former soldiers and victims with no malice towards anyone, and feel free to move on with the rest of their lives.

The girl in the red dress was actually orphaned by the father of the girl in polka dots. Heavy stuff.

Just a quick note to say we’ve had no Tsunami events here on Waiheke Island. There were reports of some unusual currents in the far north but we’ve not noticed anything here.

We had fun in America. In summary, we spent every waking moment either working or eating with our awesome friends. You might never fully realize how good your friends are until you spend a year or so away and then roll back into town. As childless rovers with no local family we’ve always downplayed our regional attachments, but we’ve learned that our Seattle people are like extended family and they make up most of the value in our workday lives. We were also surprised to discover how hard it is to get to see all our friends in the space of two months while working full time. We got to see most (but not all) of them.

And so it was that we squatted with kp for two months, and got down to some serious brewing.

We kicked off the culinary season with some typically elegant spreads by our favorite culinars in Magnolia, Beacon Hill, Ballard, and Edmonds. There was a full-on Chinese New Year dinner…

and Jordanian night …

Actually, there were so many fantastic meals that we completely lost track of the documentation and descended into irresponsible gluttony.

It was mostly eating, but there was a relaxing overnight at Noah Stables,

and a new research vessel to work on.

Clearly the best way to start a 4-month trip is to overdose on your mother country so we scheduled a couple of days in LA with Z&K, our well-connected Santa Monica connections. Before we could say “fishnets and high-heel boots,” S was in (borrowed) fishnets and high-heel boots and we were booked into a taping of the Late Late Show, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and a concert (Local  Natives) at the incredible Disney Concert Hall in downtown LA.

But K’s favorite part was rolling with the posse on Z’s fat tire, cruising the streets of Santa Monica

and Venice Beach (where the four wheelers roll).

With our hosts exhausted, our waistbands straining, and our heads spinning with American culture, we packed our gear and headed for LAX.