London and the Great Job Search

02. Feb. 2016
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Life on Land, New Zealand
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9 Comments

Author: Pete

Location: London, UK

Miranda and I left our pretty girl on a safe mooring in Auckland and flew literally to the other side of the earth to the Search Associates job fair in London. No kidding, New Zealand and the UK are pretty much antipodes, diametrically opposed through the center of the globe. Two years of anticipation boiling down to one weekend of interview mayhem made it pretty much impossible to sleep on the airplane. Instead we watched a lot of junky movies in the thirty-six hours on the move through Melbourne and Dubai.

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Had a couple pre-fair interviews with schools in Dubai, London, and Beijing. It was a good warm-up, getting our brains back on track after the decay and rot that comes with watching Mission Impossible III through VII back to back on the plane. Ugh… That evening we had dinner with my siblings along with friends Sinziana and Robert who live in London.

Got back to the hotel in time to get some sleep, but our fancy built-in body clocks hadn’t synced to other-side-of-the-world-time yet, and woke Miranda and I up promptly at 3am. We didn’t fight it, and jumped into planning our educational attack. After a great English breakfast (what’s up with the tomato and beans?!) alongside other jittery teachers, we marched onto the conference center battleground, armor-clad in suits and shining shoes. It was novel to be wearing a suit not made of neoprene and any shoes at all! The horde of a few hundred teachers besieged the school administrators hunkered behind conference hall tables like well-tailored barbarians. Miranda and I signed up to interview with several schools, being declined by only one, and ourselves declining several schools’ invitations, like from the Intertribal School of Mogadishu, and the Very Excellent Democratically Elected Peoples’ Republican Academy of Pyongyang. Pass!

We interviewed with schools in Germany, Mongolia, and Switzerland, along with second interviews from Dubai, London, and Beijing. At the end of the day we had job offers from many of them, but not our top pick! We still had a second interview with Switzerland that we were holding out for. Job offers stand for about twenty-four hours, so one can’t wait too long to accept, but it gives you a chance to juggle some of the options in your head. Actually, juggling helps with focus and eases stress. Plus it fills out your resume!

My body clock realized it blew the previous night’s wake-up call, helpfully tried a different hour, and woke me up at 1am. Fabulous. I read in bed for an hour, savoring the comfort of a real mattress, then eventually got restless and took to the darkened streets of London to walk off my jittery insomnia. In three hours of ambling, I found the river Thames and watched the current rip under the bridge, soaking up the calm before the storm. Water seems to have a certain magnetism for me. I always feel drawn to it. Not sure if I’d spearfish in the Thames though.

With a handful of good job offers already in our pockets we cleared our schedule for the following day to focus on the second interview with the International School of Zug and Luzern. We met with the administration team and spoke with them for over an hour about pedagogy, educational philosophy, and work history, before they offered us the two math positions we were coveting. It’s customary for schools to give you time to think over an offer, so we thanked them and walked cooly out, turned the corner, and did a good deal of silent fist-pumping and jumping around excitedly. We signed contracts with them an hour later.

That evening we went out with the crew to celebrate. Our friends Robin and Erwin (and their beautiful girlfriends) were in from Belgium and joined in the evening’s reveling. Sunday, we all spent the day wandering through the British Museum and traipsing about London. As is commonly known, no other method of perambulation is as British as traipsing.

The variety of transportation to get us back to Tayrona was laughable. We dragged our bags through the London streets to the ‘tube’ which took us to an overground train bound for Heathrow, before catching airplanes to Dubai, Melbourne, then Auckland, where we hopped a bus to the main city docks and caught a ferry boat out to the bay where Tayrona was moored. Then after forty hours of travel I swam out to the boat and got the dinghy to pick up Miranda! Planes, Trains, and Automobiles? That’s all you got, John Candy? Phooey and pshaw!

The International School of Zug and Luzern is an excellent school in Lucerne, Switzerland, just south of Zurich. The middle school and high school where Miranda and I will be teaching respectively are on separate campuses, a few kilometers apart. After two years of never being more than thirty-eight feet from each other, the distance might be a good thing for our marriage. This isn’t our shot, but it gives you the idea of what Lucerne looks like.

We are so excited about teaching in Switzerland! At the moment, I think we’re too tired for it to really sink in. For now, we’ll sink into our berths to recover from this ridiculous horse race.

“And there’s the gun! The schools come charging out the gates, London and Dubai making a early break; Ulaanbaatar puts on the speed but then falters as Beijing surges past on the straightaway. Beijing overtaking Germany, now fighting for position on the inside, neck and neck; WHAT’S THIS!? Round the final bend, Switzerland comes out of nowhere! Germany and Beijing trying to keep pace as Switzerland takes the lead! Switzerland breaking from the pack! Pulling away from Beijing and Germany! Switzerland! Opening the gap on the final straightaway! It’s Switzerland! Over the finish line! SWITZERLAND! IT’S SWITZERLAND!! There you are, folks! Switzerland takes the gold at the 2016 Pashouwer/Gorkiewicz London Fair Derby!

Great Barrier Island and Auckland

31. Jan. 2016
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New Zealand
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1 Comment

Author: Pete

Location: Great Barrier Island and Auckland, NZ

After a few rainy days in Kiarara Bay we sailed north, out of Port Fitzroy around a jutting headland to Katherine Bay. Ashore, just inland of a quiet, sandy beach we found a parthenon of massive tree trunks arching out of the ground, thick branches full of air rooting plants. A dozen rope swings fabricated from heavy ship line hung like . Didn’t take much coercion to get us launching off branches, stretching climbing muscles that have been dormant for some time.

Katherine Bay was beautiful but rolled all night, and not in the good way. The next morning we sailed fast under twenty knots of wind back around the headland, returning to Kiarara. The short, costal hops between bays and islands have been enjoyable. Most sailors start their sailing careers in costal waters. We missed that part and went straight offshore. I’m seeing the error in our ways. The next day we hiked Mt. Hobson, a six hundred meter peak, four hours uphill BOTH WAYS! At least that’s how it felt to our coddled legs. The trail was stunning, crossing rivers and gorgeous, and winding through rain forests where the few remaining Kauri behemoths strained to seed offspring and repopulate the area after the huge logging boom of the 1800’s. The view from the top was breathtaking. We could even see our little boat! Sometimes that’s disconcerting; if you see it floating away there’s a four-hour downhill slog to go get it.

Sailing south along Great Barrier Island, we staged for our jump back to Auckland and were escorted by a pod of dolphins. Later, anchored in Bowling Alley Bay, another pod showed up, cavorting and jumping. We donned wetsuits and joined them. The cloudy water made for a spooky experience with our streamline mammalian cousins. They were obscured in the occluding murk until they were close enough to almost touch, then they’d veer off, laughing at our aquatic immobility. Let’s see who’s laughing when you’re on the beach, Flipper!

Sailed eight hours back across the Hauraki Gulf. Miranda and I wrestled a Kingfish aboard part way through the trip. I already had some fillets in the refrigerator from spearfishing in Bowling Alley Bay, so we let him go.

Parked the boat in front of Auckland. The anchorage is exposed and a little choppy from the ferry wakes, but it’s got the best view in town. On the rainy days in Port Fitzroy, I designed a part for the engine control panels on SketchUp and 3D printed them at the public library. They worked out so well and cost nothing to print that my brain has been constantly thinking up new things to design and build for the boat! They created a monster!

Found a safe spot up river to leave our baby for a couple days when we go to the job fair. Had one last good sail to stretch her legs before a week of lounging on a mooring off the Beach Haven wharf. Sit, stay, good Tayrona! No parties while we’re away!

Coromandel to Great Barrier Island, NZ

05. Jan. 2016
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New Zealand
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No Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Coromandel and Great Barrier Island, New Zealand

Coromandel is the rugged peninsula that forms the eastern side of the Hauraki Gulf near Auckland. We motor-sailed in scant wind heading east in calm seas and tucked in behind Whanganui Island just off Coromandel Town where Jessica would be leaving us the following day. We soaked up the rest of the afternoon on the boat and had a lovely farewell dinner watching the sunset.

After dropping off our precious cargo and poking around town, we pulled anchor and sailed out of Coromandel Harbor in light breeze and raking summer sun. Swimming off the bow was an obvious choice on a slow sail, floating between the hulls, climbing up the transom and then hucking off the front again in a mismatched game of leapfrog with Tayrona. We did have the good sense to leave one person on the boat at all times. Once anchored off Rangipukea, we went ashore to stretch our legs, keeping a watchful eye on the ‘fully functional’ bulls that guarded the beach.

The next day brought winds from the south, solidifying our tentative plans to go north. We put up the spinnaker and scooted happily along the Coromandel then across the Colville Channel to Great Barrier Island.

Great Barrier Island has only a few roads and no electrical grid or internet connectivity. Despite the island’s isolated feel, she sure didn’t seem lonely as we settled into Whangaparapara Bay. Kiwis, the mammalian variety, had flocked from all over to spend New Years on the island. We tracked down the Kaitoke hot springs, hidden in the interior of the island, about two hours hiking from Whangaparapara. The headwaters of Kaitoke stream are fed by volcanically-heated upwellings so the whole stream is steaming hot. The Maoris used to bath in the river as a ceremonial cleansing to return to normal life after warfare. The stacked stones that created pools in the river were quite possibly as old as human habitation on the island. Even in the crowded ‘silly season’ around Christmas, Miranda and I had the pools to ourselves!

We heard that there was a New Year’s to-do in Port Fitzroy, the next anchorage north so off we sailed in and out of the rocky islets along the coast. The day dawned clear with piled, poofy clouds on the horizon. Soon, high altitude cirrostratus clouds moved in; they’re almost invisible when looking aloft but show up as distinct halos around sun. I remembered that the halos are almost always harbingers of imminent inclement weather and my novice meteorological skills didn’t disappoint. The forecast for the next three days predicted thirty-knot winds with gusts to fifty. We pulled in close to shore just beyond a silty drop-off and laid double anchors out in chest deep water to make sure we weren’t going anywhere. Then the weathermen made good on their predictions and the winds howled in. It was more than a little unnerving to see the anchor chain pull almost horizontally out of the water when the gusts hit and we were sitting on a low tide.

Dionysus must’ve had a word with Zeus about the night’s proceedings because the celestial levee held for a few hours into the new year before the deluge came down in buckets. We were back on the boat by then holding on with Tayrona through the gale. Welcome to 2016!