Farewell to Tayrona

14. Jun. 2016
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Australia, The Boat
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7 Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Coomera, Australia

Before leaving Australia for good, we went back to see Tayrona one last time. I’ve been thinking about how to say goodbye to our boat. It’s a challenge because the role it played in our lives is fluid and unclear. Is it a home? An infant? A guardian?

I’ve realized that Tayrona is the closest thing I’ll ever have to a dragon.

Hear me out…

Physically, Tayrona is a pretty good dragon match. She’s got a pair of fifty-foot leathery wings that snap and flutter in the wind. Her fiberglass hide, while not quite impenetrable, is tough as nails and topped by a scaly non-skid deck that has carried us to distant lands. She accepts only those who are willing to learn her peculiarities and sends others cowering back to the shore. Her race is of vain, moody creatures, mercurial, but without malice. A contented purring and a silky glide under blue skies turns to a grumpy rodeo with nothing more than a passing cloud bank. She instills abysmal fear in some, bottomless greed in others, but still, she’s an unquestionable symbol of adventure and intrepid spirit. Tayrona possesses magical qualities too, speaking telepathically to others of her kind all over the world, and turning sunlight and wind into sweet water, tinkling icicles, and crackling electricity.

Sailboats, like dragons, are insatiable gluttons for treasure, with a ceaseless lust for that which is prized most by mariners. Gleaming stainless, shiny black-gold, and the finest fabrics money can by: it’s the crew’s job to find such plunder, lest her humor turn foul. But behind all this she’s a fiercely loyal friend, who would “wait dutifully at anchor” for us as long as her talons would hold her to the ground. She’s fought across more than thirteen thousand miles of open ocean for us and she’d be ruined on the rocks before letting us come to any harm. Does this make me sad to be leaving her? Unequivocally. Crushingly. More than I can express with words. But men aren’t meant to sail the seas all their lives and sailboats are. So rather than mothball an immortal dragon’s wings, leash her to the earth, and make her wait for us to come back, we’ll find her new riders. We’ll leave her to sailors who will point her bows again into adventure, who will sail her through the winding labyrinth of the Great Barrier Reef, anchor her off headhunter shores in Papua New Guinea, and send her purring out across the endless seas where she’s happiest.

So now it’s time for us to say goodbye to our good Tayrona. Countless thanks to you for ferrying us safely to the other side of the world, for sheltering us against hammering rain and crushing waves, for the people we’ve become in two years before your mast, and for the many lives you’ve touched on this journey. May you carry your new riders far and wide, my good friend. Although they may call you by another name, you’ll always be our Tayrona.

Now enough nostalgia. Go get that horizon, sweet girl!

Last Days in New Zealand

24. Apr. 2016
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New Zealand, Passages
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2 Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Bay of Islands, New Zealand

Well, it’s time to go. We’ve been drifting around New Zealand for almost six months and the time has come to head for Australia. Half a year seemed like a long time to stay in Kiwi-land when we were planning the trip, but so much has been packed in that the time has flown and all of a sudden it’s time to go. Plus, it’s getting to be fall and the weather is oscillating between gorgeous and rainy, and I my wimpy blood just can’t handle that kind of climate swing.

Standing in our way is the mercurial Tasman Sea. Somehow in my mind the Tasman looks like an ogre with a boar’s head, jealously guarding Australia’s golden shores. It’s late April now, and the highest chance of finding Taz in a pleasant mood. This is the sweet spot after the hurricanes stop threatening to drop in from the north and before hellacious winter storms roll up from the south. The window seems to last about four weeks and we’ve been watching the weather patterns closely as they develop over “The Ditch.” For the crossing, we’re enlisting the services of Bob McDavit, a local weather router guru who we used coming down from Fiji. The reassurance of an extra pair of eyes in the sky with current meteorologic data cannot be over exaggerated. I’d seriously sell my left kidney for it.

In the last couple weeks we’ve been working to get Tayrona gussied up and ready for sail and sale. After two years of salt abuse, some of the woodwork looked road-rashed like it fell off a Ducati. The varnish on the cockpit table was completely gone and the brightwork around the boat had dings and scuffs. Brightwork is commonly known in the non-anal-sailor community as ‘wood.’ We brought the two tables to a good local carpenter, and then I sanded and varnished everything else myself. It was a lot of dust in the boat, but now it looks sparkly and new. Hot showers in the marina take care of the dust even though you have to pay for them. I love the adage passed down from our friends on Pao Hana that, “Four dollar shower is more than twice as good as two dollar shower.” True dat.

We also took the bimini off and replaced all the zippers, enjoying our convertible for a couple of days in the process. Predictably, we got a good deal of rain just about that time. I also went up the mast and polished the upper rigging, changed the oil and engine mounts, replaced the sink faucet and refrigerator latch, replaced head mirrors, and ejected tons of redundant equipment. Four anchors? Who needs four anchors? Tayrona is sitting a good six inches higher in the water.

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Although a host of projects filled our time from dawn to dusk, but we did get to spend time with friends. Most of our cruising buddies are gathering in Opua, staging here to provision before sailing to foreign shores. Our intended trajectories spread out in all directions, and it’s bittersweet to talk about everyone’s plans for the next months. The end of this entire trip is showing itself on the horizon. I’m taken aback by the realization that we likely won’t see some of our good friends again after we leave here. There are only a handful of boats that cross the Pacific Ocean every year, and in sharing stories and libations over thousands of miles of ocean crews form a unique bond. Sailors are brought together by mutual love of the life aquatic, the freedom of the boundless ocean, and more than a touch of masochism. Sailing friends celebrate the stunning experiences and bemoan the sorrows of sailors together, leaning on each other for support and camaraderie in some of the most beautifully inhospitable places on earth. Then, as it always happens in life, especially ours as expatriates, paths diverge. You have to say goodbye, wish each other fair winds and following seas, and know that your courses may not cross again. It’s sad, but part of the deal.

On a positive note, we picked up Denny from the Kerikeri airport after five flights from Traverse City. I expected to see a trickle of midwesterner come oozing out of the airplane door and puddle on the tarmac when the hatch was opened, but he showed little signs of travel wear. That’s a good sign for crew! We all went out for ribs, and in the next days got a few more things done around the boat and introduced him to friends we’ve been sailing with for the last year and a half. Watching the weather we got dire news about the conditions in the Tasman. Our weather router predicted winds and seas to be “VERY HIGH”, so we sensibly opted to let the trough pass the north island before venturing out to Brisbane. No sense getting needlessly pummeled.

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It worked out well, actually. We had some down time to explore the old whaling town of Russell and get out to the islands for a couple of days.

Now, before shoving off, we’re checking out of the country and replacing the lost ballast with provisions, water, and fuel. Can’t get too greedy about the speed. Looks like the passage weather will be good, worth the wait as a big ugly trough is ripping through The Ditch right now. Taz seems to be in good spirits.

So now it’s time to go. That’s the short of it. Hauling anchor in the morning and out we’ll go on the falling tide. Back to the sea with Tayrona one last time.

Tayrona’s Return to Opua, NZ

06. Apr. 2016
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New Zealand
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No Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Northeast coast of New Zealand

Before shoving off north, Miranda and I took our favorite mooring for a few days to get some work done on the boat. We ended up blowing off our to-do list to spend time with our Kiwi friends Bruce, Linda, Mel, and Nico, locals of Beach Haven. Bruce and Linda have an amazing house overlooking the water, complete with a boathouse and dock. We met them in our last couple of months around Auckland and have gotten together here and there when we’re in the neighborhood (read: moored out in front of their house). They took us out to a burgeoning taproom with local beer, we met up at a weekend farmers market, and went out to lunch. One night they even had us stay in their gorgeous house when we miscalculated the tides and Dinghy was stuck in the mud. It’s been fun to be around long enough to connect with interesting people. The flip side is that it’s sad to start saying goodbye to said interesting friends. On our last eventing in Beach Haven, we took Dinghy over to their boat shed for “an afternoon glass of wine and some snacks on the wharf,” turned into many glasses of wine, turned into delivery pizza, turned into trading our sailboat for Bruce’s country home in north New Zealand. Yup, these are those kind of good buddies and a perfect day was had by all. In the early morning we rode the tide one last time under the Harbor Bride and out of Auckland with heavy hearts and and slightly aching heads.

The winds were light as we left the city astern. We motorsailed to Omaha Bay our first day, then made for Whangarei the next. Miranda and I anchored Tayrona off Marsden Cove and went out to dinner with our friends on Georgia. We were all so involved in catching up from the last couple of months’ activity that we didn’t realize that we’d likely not be seeing them again after that evening. Back aboard Tayrona later in the evening I stood on the transom and watched the birds play in the flood lights of the shipyard. Their feathers lit up in orange under the sodium lamps as they caught insects, but they disappeared from view as they flew outside the light’s beam. The birds disappearing and quickly reappearing was an oddly comforting sight after saying goodbye to good friends.

The next morning we rounded Whangarei Heads and continued on our journey north, this time with much more favorable winds. It was a long sail up to Whangamumu Harbor, but in twenty knots of wind with full canvas up we scooted right along. It felt great to be stretching our sails after several weeks in Auckland.

When the sun was high overhead, a pod of dolphins swooped in to ride Tayrona’s bow wake. They ended up staying around the boat for two hours, jumping, cavorting, and carrying on. They’d take off for a few minutes, then chase the boat down, surfing along in the following seas. When they’d approach from the starboard, their spray caught the sunlight and lit up in rainbows. It was like an eight year old girl’s dream- dolphins and rainbows. I kept looking around for a boy band to show up riding unicorns.

Over the past two years I’ve developed a special technique to capture underwater images.

Sometimes the dolphins would zoom by the boat in a silver streak. They’re blowing bubbles out of the top of their head as they swim, leaving a trail like smoke off a stunt plane. I thought it might be dolphin flatulence.

After a night in secluded Whangamumu, we ran again under accommodating winds up to Cape Brett. We squeezed between the headlands and Motukokaku Island, the seas tumultuous from waves reflecting off the sheer bluffs. It can be difficult to see the sides of the pass with the sails eased out on a run. Sort of like driving your car with newspapers stuck to the windshield. We came around the point and jibed the mainsail, fighting some current to make it through the pass and feeling like real sailors with our fancy maneuvering. Then we were back in the sheltered waters of the Bay of Islands. The wind was still ripping at twenty knots as we raced into Opua- the place where our whole New Zealand adventure started and will soon come to an end.