Tawodi Sailing Adventures

No mortal combat required.

That’s why the Captain rented a bike first thing Friday. Accustomed to behemoths that could double as anchors in a pinch, it was surprising when he returned home with a carbon fibre road bike that seemed to weigh less than a bag of potato chips. I admit- I was a wee bit envious but the boy was suited, fueled and ready to fly before I could do more than trundle the thing round about a parking lot.

Without wasting time he found Baldwin Street, purported to be the world’s steepest, and rode up it.

Standing there surveying the sweep of an asphalt cliff below him he realised he wanted a photo to mark the occasion and then he realised the camera was in the backpack that he’d left in the gift shop at the bottom of the street. Another proof that anything worth doing is worth overdoing. Down he went. Up he went.

Saturday had him out of bed just to one side of dark oclock. Off to meet a cycling group. He missed the group but rode himself out to Taiaroa Head and the Royal Albatross Center. Armed with his formidable gregariousness, he managed to ingratiate himself with the Albatross Center staff who, charmed by the round-the-world sailor, promptly provided him with a private mini-tour of the place.

And then Sunday brought us the gift of a visit. John, a member of the Pacific Seafarer’s Net, and his wife Myra drove down from Christchurch just to meet us and wile away a day in our company. They spent what seemed an ungodly amount of time in a car to have the pleasure AND they brought gifts beyond themselves. Not that a bottle of wine isn’t always appreciated but the best present ever is something with a little homemade love put into it, something like a wee stuffed Kiwi bird complete with a personal call tag and his own radio headset.

With John and Myra we spent Sunday marveling our way through the Otago Museum. Great displays all over the building but the best bit may just have come from Ken Benn’s performance as Charles Darwin. The guy’s got Darwin down or the museum has a really amazing restoration facility, amazing enough to bring back the dead.

On Monday, after three days of playing the Captain put himself back to work on Tawodi and I took the slip of a bicycle out to the Royal Albatross center. Ah the joy of being on a poor man’s pony again - grinding out 40km into the wind and then flying home with it’s helpful hand on my back. Just like sailing, going downwind on a bike is bunches easier than going to weather.

45.52 S 170.31 E Otago Yacht Club, Dunedin.
Burnt diesel fuel all night and, in the morning, rounded Taiaroa Head and slid our way down towards Dunedin. By 7 this evening we’d wedged our way into the Otago Yacht Club, entertained Customs and Quarantine, chatted ourselves up to whoever we could corner, been interviewed by the local newspaper, weaseled rides to, first,the bank-thanks Craig and Sierra and, second, to the outside of a restaurant- thanks Robin and Morris, wandered our way through the college district, ate a hamburger and, pausing in a local cycle shop to inquire about rentals found ourselves meeting the 2009 Female World Champion track cyclist, Alison Shanks.

Funny, wonderful, little world we live in.

It’s always nice to have World Champions impressed with our little adventure.

Of course we were operating on caffeine, three hours of sleep and the thrill of having the color green back in our lives. It’s all together possible she and everyone else in the cycle shop were humoring us hoping we’d go away quietly without hurting anyone,

Tucked in with a raft of tourist literature generously provided by Kevin of the O.Y.C., well fed, tied up just off the Pacific Ocean and finished with our job of going round the bottom bits of our planet we look forward to sleeping well tonight.

Look for photos on the site in a day or so.

46.19 S 166.10 E Just Shy of New Zealand
Carried the mainsail all the way across the Tasman Sea. We’re waiting for Mother Nature to strike us blind for the arrogance of flailing about, south of 45 degrees latitude, with so much canvas showing. After 6 months worn away since leaving the beatific waters of San Diego Bay who can blame a body for being a wee bit skittish, a tiny bit superstitious. A picnic in the countryside with butterfly wings whispering past while we chortle and gambol in the merry flowers of springtime; that would NOT be an apt terrestrial analogy to our voyage.

There’s more of a ‘quest through oozing labyrinths populated by angry spiders and nefarious, but clever, creatures’ feel to what has passed. The Captain shakes his head.

“It’s not that bad.”
Blessed with a perpetual sunshine and happy skies outlook and a decidedly selective memory the Captain dwells only in the effects of our current leg.

Who am I to deny him?

It’s been oddly nice crossing the Tasman Sea.

A bit bedeviled by uncertain winds- 3 knots, no 20 knots, no 12- the breeze maker seems a bit addled over what it should do-but, otherwise it’s been downright fine.
As we creep closer to New Zealand, fat and happy birds swirl around the boat, rainbows appear in perfect, Leprechaun-promising arches at least once a day, the seas are kind and though the carrots have gone a bit limp, the apples remain crisp. No monsters, storms, disasters, no drooling walls or fuzz ball mold demanding its own berth. There was one awful moment where I had to touch a dead squid to get it off the boat- the Captain was occupied, otherwise I’m sure he would have come to my squealing, shrieking rescue. Other than that horror, all’s been pretty well.
The morning hours should give us our first sight of New Zealand’s Southern Island and by late afternoon we may well be sliding Tawodi’s hull back into the Pacific Ocean. 122 days, give or take a few, since we last floated on those waters.
To the Captain’s great joy, not only will his boat be back in the Pacific Ocean but the local television station of Dunedin wants to do a little news blurb about us. The Captain all but shimmers with anticipation.

Nothing like the promise of an audience to bring a shine to a story-telling, salty dog’s coat.

And the crew? How does the crew feel about television coverage?

Well, the crew stares off towards the horizon while trying to shove her natural state of introversion off the lee side of the boat. Shyness will just have to swim for shore because what kind of crew-member would want to have a little thing like that interfere with a Captain’s happiness.

44.51 S 154.20 E 555 Miles West of Southern New Zealand.
It seems an almost obscene gesture; the Captain out raising the mainsail. What in the world is he doing, trying to flip-off Momma Nature?

Only up to the first reef, as if that might be placatory, and then only up after pacing a bit, cocking his head, and going through all the tiny dance steps of serious consideration. He whittled away hours, finger tented in front of his face, brooding over the wisdom of it all because, heaven forbid if we come off as cocky; saints preserve us if the furies of the Southern Hemisphere take it as a gauntlet thrown down.

We crawled back through memory trying to think of the last time the big slab of Dacron had been up. Couldn’t recall and then we were into more than a few pages of the log-book. We settled on labeling it ‘a while ago.’
A bit like shattered dogs- twitchy, uncertain about when Mother Nature will swat at us with her giant rolled up newspaper, we flinch, gather up our tails and head for hidey-holes. That much sail- that’s a commitment, an act of faith given over to forecasts and current conditions- two things proven to be only as reliable as a politician’s word of honor.

Cowardice it’s not- just simple wisdom. This place has claws, teeth and a few hundred years worth of ghosts clamoring all about. No doubt relatively pissed off ghosts if they had to drown in waters this cold.

Anything less than cautious sailing is best left for other, less deadly, less spectrally inhabited bits of water.
And yet, here we are broad reaching under gray flannel skies through water that shimmers like oiled gun-metal, an extravagant field of fabric hoisted and flying us along the Tasman Sea. Here we are with our fingers crossed.
Added to the obscenity of almost carrying full sail we’ve been underway for two days and only 560 miles remains between Southern New Zealand and us.

This is absurd. A panic over consuming the fresh vegetables swallows up meal planning- they- those vegetable tossing officials inhabiting quarantine buildings world-wide, will throw it all out when we get there. And how is anything less than a month at sea enough time to establish the battle lines between the mold and us. That our boat and New Zealand show up on the chart plotter together- where’s the anticipation in that? Where’s the moment of celebration to be had when vessel and destination are on the same page?
We don’t get that party but we can celebrate coming back into the land of colossal albatross. No matter how many times they’re seen or spoken of these birds, soaring effortlessly, punctuating the energy contained in water and sky, these feathered lines of moving grace in a place beset by fierceness- they own a part of our joy- give us smiles by simply gliding past. What elegance slips along in their flight, what simplicity.
Thus it goes and thus we go. Nothing’s over till it’s over but right now it’s all lovely. A good moment to dwell in and move through. With luck, a moment that will carry us all the way to New Zealand.

43.47 S 149.29 E 775 miles west of New Zealand
“We’re a bit backward, a little behind the times if you know what I mean.”

Marvelous how many times a citizen of Hobart would opine apologetically about their little island’s less than metropolitan ways.

Marvelous considering we’d be standing there in our ragged sailing clothes, hair disheveled, waving about calloused hands, replete with cracked cuticles and dirty fingernails while smelling faintly of diesel and a strange array of cleaning products. We listened to their sheepish comments about Tasmanian being a bit slow, listened while we didn’t have a clue as to the state of world affairs, plowed about the globe with only the faintest hint of geographic sense and shamefully lacked a variety personal electronic widgets.

Clean streets, working mass transportation, ample parks, a plethora of public restrooms and a pretty darn good selection of pate, brie and wine, it was hard to see what was ‘backward’ about the place.

Especially when it was given over to me, a person who studies their hands to make sure I’ve got right from left correctly, who spends an majority of their time battling various forms of mold while fretting over the difficulty of keeping marine toilets clean. Take that and spice it up with occasional antiquated bits of verbiage that fall from the Captain’s lips about ‘uppity’ folks or queries over whether I’m wanting another one of my ‘foo-foo’ drinks.

Foo foo? Is it possible we’re so far round the bend from hippness that we appear to be cutting edge?

Or is it the studying on the rather vast selection of ‘two-headed Tasmanian’ souvenirs that brought the comments.
One evening, gathered up along the side of Constitution Basin, a man who makes his living traveling about shearing sheep explained the two-headed Tasmanian as a joke, a bit of shallow gene pool humor.

And then he grimaced, looked off into the middle distance.

“Although in some of the valleys it’s not really much of a joke.”

Well that much is true world wide.
The backward little Island that hardly seems backwards at all falls behind now. One night spent in front of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania waiting for thunder, lightening and too much wind to pass along, a final evening anchored off the sweep of white sand dunes that curve about Crescent Bay and now we’re rolling toward New Zealand.

Rolling grossly.

The Captain cheerfully requests I not vomit on the laptop.

Roger that- No vomiting on the laptop.

The Captain calls it nice sailing. I call it something else. He eats endlessly. I try not to watch. He laughingly reminds me that the worse thing about seasickness is that it doesn’t kill you. I use the inside of my head voice to respond.

Maybe tomorrow I won’t have to spend so much time outside leaning over the rail studying the water slipping by. Maybe tomorrow downwind sailing in lumpy seas will seem like fun. Either way we’re off on a short trip across the Tasman Sea. Hopefully, short, quick, dry and peaceful.

Right below Hobart there’s a hairy eyeball of weather staring at us.  Staring and packed with an overzealous amount of multi-feathered wind arrows and crowding isobar lines.  The Captain scrutinizes it, nodding.

“It’s only supposed to blow 35 up here.” He’s pointing to a vague blob on the screen.

I can’t help but wonder when 35 knots of wind fell into the ‘only’ category. 

Regardless, we look to be held up for an extra day- why willingly venture into 40 knots of wind, likely to be 50, wouldn’t be a surprise if it were 60, just so we can get up to that place where it’s ‘only’ supposed to blow 35?

Enjoy the town rather than rushing into the Tasman Sea’s lair of big, bad weather.

Enjoy the town now that the pleasure of rebuilding the toilet (holy mother of awful tasks) scooping water out of the lazarettes,  polishing stainless, running all our fuel through a filter (now that we’re quite sure the engine won’t run on seawater), laundry and the war against mold, lay temporarily behind us

That why the Captain’s off riding again today, this time along side a very elite group of runners, runners enjoying their ‘easy’ run in a three-day series.

Easy is a 33 km trot up and down Mt Wellington and it’s the last leg of an endurance event pairing sailing and running. 

To my mind the ultimate in strange athletic pairings used to be the Winter Olympic event binding cross country skiing to shooting a gun.  Not so anymore.  Now there’s this ‘Three Peak’s Endurance Race’ 

Sail all day- arrive and no matter what the time or conditions, dash off the boat, run 65km, finish, get back on the boat, sail away, land, run 35 km, finish, get back on the boat, sail away, land and end it all with a nice little 33 km dash up and down a mountain.

There’s a sailing crew and a running crew.  Apparently any means of human propulsion is allowed to get the boat from place to place.

And I thought what we were doing was nuts. 

It could be said that one of life’s small pleasures is stumbling across unexpected, vibrant bits of healthy insanity.  Tends to make the rest of us feel almost normal.

So we go on loving land life; a dinner out, a street market wandered through, a movie watched and a grand collection of interested souls meandering past the good ship Tawodi. 

A large thanks to all the fine Hobartians who’ve stalled their meanderings and sat down for a nice chat with us.   That pause, that curiosity- that’s the stuff that shrinks our world, offers us all the beauty of a truly global community.

Hobart, Tasmania

42.

The Captain dwells with this number. It weeds its way into everyday, perhaps with a bit of slight of hand- moments when 40 or 44 or even 46 is close enough so let’s just call it 42, shall we?

We’re not precisely at 42, with all those time zones crossed it’s hard to keep straight the calculus of elapsed days, but we’re closer to 42 than 41 or 43 so let’s just say crossing the Indian Ocean took 42 days, shall we?

42 days after departing Cape Town on Tuesday at 1 am we were sailing in 45 knots of wind under a black flannel sky.

At 9 am, showered so as to be mildly presentable, we were entertaining Hobart customs- they came with their own folding table, quarantine- they had a backpack filled with forms and labeled clipboards, the port authority- he had a form, one form and a herd of Australian drinking stories including various ambiguous warnings about Friday and Saturday nights.

At 8pm we were sitting on board, blinking our way through a mild sugar coma- one slice of pumpkin ginger cake, one slice of violet crumble cake- watching Shaun of the Dead, the preceding 42 days safely slipping into the groove of story and memory.

Two days later.

My feet have run over the grounds of the Botanical Gardens and the Soldiers Memorial Avenue. Eyes besotted by crooked trees, the curve of mountains, the colour green; nose awash in the smell of dirt, grass clippings, fish and chips; ears trying to take in voices, dogs barking, laughter, the susurration of leaves.

The Captain’s out, right now, pedalling a rental bike of mammoth proportions, weighty enough to insure it will not be leaving terra firma easily. Being toured about by Grant, a friend harvested from the collection of sailboat dwellers in Hobart. Hopefully the Captain’s filling eyes, nose, ears and lungs with wondrous things. Hopefully coming home intact, undamaged and happy.

Laundry has begun.

Tawodi has been bathed.

The weather’s a perfect peach in a fine orchard.

And the Indian Ocean, well, that one’s in the past.

In Ushuaia Isabelle Autessier told us not to underestimate the Indian Ocean.

That is one seriously good piece of advice.

Enjoy the photos, look for more in a few days and thank you to everyone who has so generously donated to our cause.