Category Archives: boat teen

New Zealand: July 2019-January 2020

The second half of 2019 went on and seemed to do so quite quickly. We still went on our adventures, but it started to become just 3 of us, Christian, Taj and myself. Nina found her friends and she was at the age that she wanted to stay home. And Ellamae was back in the USA with her Papa. The term “Windy Welly” started to make its name very apparent in our area. Most days had at least 18kt blows, and if it was calm it was so only until mid morning. We continued to venture about, but the cold wind was already started to wear on us, especially living on the water in the winter and spring. With the camper “Sharkie” however, we still found warmer ways to get out and see New Zealand.

Most of our cold and dreary days between school hours were spent either at the library or at the huge indoor pool/aquatic center. The days when the weather was nice, we went out in nature. Taj loves his animals and his birdwatching from the hides. We also spent many hours at the skatepark.

… and plenty of Taj’s new sport: mountain biking

Our other entertainment: the new dinghy, named “Bunghole” after one of Russel’s (the founder of OCTenders) original videos describing the amazing light weight hard tender. In his video he describes the importance of having a bunghole and having the bung in the bunghole. The kids always referred to the OCtender dinghy as “bunghole” ever since watching that video in 2015. So when we finally got one we named her “Bunghole”.

Our new tender was so much faster and more efficient than our 10ft Montgomery sailing dinghy. With Mana Island about 10km away, we were able to snip out there on a calm day without a hitch. What a beautiful place!

Nina getting all dressed up and pretty. She had her first “Formal” (known in America as “Prom”).

5 more months of Playcentre for Taj before he started into TeRa Waldorf school.

Taj’s “powhiti” (last day) at Playcentre.

A little morning outing just out of Mana Marina and a bit north.

Both “homes” in one picture. (I circled the boat with red.)

For the October school break we took a shorter jaunt to the Wairarapa coast. Nina stayed back with friends as we searched for waves with friends .

From the south coast of the Wairarapa, we wandered up to Castle Point. A long trek in ol’ Sharkie with strong winds and windy roads, but worth it!

Just a few boat life pictures: Taj sewed his own tooth fairy pillow. He also learned to make is own eggs. And as always, just being goofy with dad.

Halloween in New Zealand is trying to become a thing. There were only a few houses that participated. Was fun nonetheless.

In September and November of 2019, I had to fly to the United States for work related things like keeping up my nursing license and continuing education hours. I was very fortunate to see my parents, my “sister from another mister” Rachael, and few other friends.

There were a few weekends in November that I had off, but Christian had to work. So I took Taj on some adventures! This one was just up the coast from Wellington to hit up some mountain bike trails and some hiking trails. This trip we just took the car and car camped. We kept in minimal and had a blast. We stumbled upon the Atene Skyline Track in the Whanganui National Park. What a gem! At the top, we discover the Kiwi Guardian program, which encourages kids to get out in nature by planting these posts along the trail with a password on them. Once you have the password you go online, input the password and a cool wooden medallion is sent to you! Taj was hooked! We also met this group of women along the path that were in a hiking group out of Wellington. They just loved how into the hike Taj was, so they asked to take a photo with them. On the way back we stopped by a sushi place. Done a little differently in New Zealand, they pre-make the sushi and have them displayed to pick and choose. We also stopped by the historic windmill in Foxton.

On our next little November Mom and son adventure, we went to Putangirua Pinnacles (above) and (below) the southern most tip of the North Island called Matakitakiakupe (aka Cape Palliser).

And the same adventure continued to a MTB park, a hike up to an awesome viewpoint and quiet camping near Mt. Holdsworth . This was the Tararua Forest Park of the Wairarapa side. Loving this #camperlife !

Taj at Riven Rock MTB park.

4 way video call for Ellamae’s 12th birthday. We were all in different places; Nina at her friend’s, Christian and Taj at the boat, I was actually in California for work and Ellamae was in Florida with her Papa.

Ellamae (Stateside) and her cousins from her Papa’s side of the family.

Nina’s 17th birthday! We kept it pretty simple with a mermaid birthday cupcake breakfast and dinner at Mama Brown’s with her friend Zoe.

Mama Brown’s Birthday dinner with friend Zoe.

Christmas time in New Zealand, means warmer weather and summer holidays off of school. Although school doesn’t end until closer to Christmas Day itself, we enjoyed plenty of warm weather activities. That being said, we found it hard to get into the Christmas Spirit with it being summer, because we had been accustomed to cold weather Christmas… winter, white, fireplaces, hot cocoa, etc.

Santa comes around on a Kayak here apparently.

Nina signed up for the Coast to Coast endurance race with her school! She was the biker of the girls team. The other two members kayaked or ran. She trained a bit with some longer rides, but nothing that would be like the actual ride. The race is a yearly event that starts with a bike course on the West Coast of the South Island, transitions to a running section up the steep and rugged terrain over Arthur’s Pass, and finishes with a down river race kayak section. Both girl and boy teams did great! The girl’s won first in their devision.

We volunteered driving our 7 seater wagon with Nina’s bike on top. The drive consisted of our first ferry ride over to the South Island, a drive down near the base of Arthur’s Pass, a drive over the Pass and back for the event and lastly down to Christchurch.

While we were in Christchurch we made a special stop to see fellow kid boat cruising friends that we met sailing in Mexico. SV Sangvind had sailed to New Zealand as well and were living on their boat in Christchurch. It had been about 3 years since we had last seen them in Mexico. (Sadly I did not get a photo of Sylvia and myself.)

The bathroom was through a “secret bookshelf door”… Nina was thrilled!

Can I “get fixed” please? Taj waiting for his morning cuppa at Get Fixed Bicycle Cafe.

Glimpse into Christmas morning 2019.

The Pōhutukawa (Christmas Tree) in full bloom.

That’s a wrap for 2019 in New Zealand for “A Family Afloat”. I’m sure I’m missing so much, but this gives a good insight to what we were up to. The next post we’ll be covering the first half of 2020. You’ll get to see more on the South Island when Mom Katie and Brother Phill come to visit, bringing Ellamae back with them. Also expect more adventures in Sharkie, and what it was like during the start of COVID in New Zealand.

A new year…will Shawnigan ever leave the harbor again?!?!

2 Replies

We haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been SLOWLY working on our second half of Tonga post (which will be over a year past the time that we were there.) For some reason, once I’ve uploaded photos to a hard drive, I find I have a hard time fishing them out to add to our posts. That’s neither here nor there… what this short post is about is how we’ve been in New Zealand over a year now, and as of today, January 1st, 2020 S/V Shawnigan has officially not budged an inch while at her new home in Mana Marina.

“What?!”, you say, “Shawnigan has not been out sailing for a whole year! A family that has done so much sailing, has not taken their boat out for a year?!” Yes, it’s true. Although we are still happily living aboard S/V Shawnigan, we have not taken her as much as a few inches here and there adjusting the dock lines. As the year comes to and end and to a new beginning, we hope to start taking her out more often, but who knows what this new year will bring.

When we left for “sailing the world”, we left with an open ended plan. Not really sure with what we’ll do, where we’ll go, where we’ll stay. As we made way towards New Zealand, thoughts of setting some shallow roots came to mind. Find jobs, put the kids in school, and see how it goes. Not long into our time here in the Wellington area, with my work as a nurse at the hospital and the kids’ involvement and enjoyment in the local schools, we decided to apply for residency. That whole process is still pending and we still don’t know where it is heading, but as it goes when we’re sailing, we go where the wind takes us. Well, I guess that’s not completely spot on for this situation, is it. Our time here and what we do next in this case is always being re-evaluated based on what we desire for the now and the future, financial status, and overall family happiness. Right now, we’ve come to the conclusion of staying put, waiting for our New Zealand residency, having fun and being productive at work and school, meeting new friends and building stronger relationships with them, and exploring New Zealand via our newly (not so) purchased camper van and hopefully by boat one of these days.

Honestly, after so much sailing, Captain Christian has quite enjoyed the break from moving place to place all if the time. I get that. Also, its been quite nice not o worry about dragging anchor, running aground, hurricane seasons etc. Don’t get me wrong, we love sailing and we’ll get back out there, but for now we are going with the flow here in New Zealand.

This is not a “year in review” post as one might think this post would be. My apologies if you were hoping for that. Knowing myself, if I was to go down that road, I’d never get the post out, because I’d be looking for all of the “right” pictures to post and things to say. For a glimpse of what we’ve been up to in New Zealand over the last year, its probably best to head over to our Instagram or Facebook page, where we are mostly up to date with pictures.

Here are a few pictures mostly in chronological order, just because..

9d0c7a9e-9dfd-4c1e-ac83-52579b38c81b 905182b8-5b9c-4669-b747-57f2fb2d20c1 ea2bc0ac-973e-4412-9774-7911222eb3d3 ee10af0e-bcf2-4977-ad8d-28f70b94598d 8c456d5a-305a-4778-957e-18c7268d0f43 2c4fc18d-fe99-40de-ac8f-1a64fd707686 8ff321a2-f6fe-4b25-8559-6535a21b3e55 3a7dc5ab-41f5-4894-a961-5644dab264dc 841c8a56-fdd8-4962-9bc9-03d12cc0f8bb 242e3900-05bc-43c0-be3f-daba42c685fb c7eb183b-d796-4b38-98af-80fde4a7eb49 0b6d5773-8496-4898-ba86-49e88fa04686 1dd58e63-3279-497b-840a-3a1acff55058 defa2578-624a-4b59-b237-edd05d8b9bc4 330c709c-c12d-4310-86a8-75d813335ea2

Happy New Year and we hope 2020 brings you many adventures!

~ @afamilyafloat

Drama on the way to Tonga…

2 Replies

Is posting a blog like sending a thank you card>>> you have a year to do it and it’s still acceptable? We’ll just say it is and better late than never!

After we left French Polynesia we did a quick stop at one of the northern Cook Islands called Suwarrow. Read about it here. The quick stop was due to weather planning. We could either go then and now or possibly end up waiting 3 weeks on a very deserted island before our next weather window. As inviting as that was, A: we didn’t have enough fresh produce for that and B: we wanted to get to Tonga just in case Christian’s staph infected foot wound took a turn for the worst. I would post a picture, but afraid the content would be too graphic for most.

The passage from Suwarrow to Tonga was quite lovely, but not without a hitch. Christian was not able to put any weight on his wounded foot, so we left with all the sail and galley work up to me. The passage from Suwarrow to Tonga would take about 5 days, roughly 600 miles, the time was right, the date was August 23rd, 2018. Mid-day we weighed anchor and motored down the channel. Upon leaving the pass out of Suwarrow the main sail was already hoisted and the 120 head-sail was out. The wind was perfect, the motor was no longer needed. As we exited the pass the wind was solid. Yes! It was going to be a great sail out, but first I needing to furl in the jib a bit with the wind direction and speed picking up. We were all very excited to be heading to Tonga. Along with the excitement came a bit of overzealous manoeuvring…. I went to the furling line to pull in a bit of sail. I questioned whether or not I should let out the sheets (letting the lines on the jib slack) in order for me to make it easier on myself, but felt my need to use muscles take over… as I pulled on the furling line with what I thought was good form, that’s when it happened, I felt the “pop” in my back.

Although I didn’t feel pain immediately, I could tell I was done for. I finished what I needed to very carefully and pretty much was immobile for the next 3 days as the pain set in minutes after the initial event and held on without relief. Thankfully the sails didn’t need much in the way of changing. There was one or two times that I had to go up and raise and lower the whisker pole (the pole that holds the jib out for shape with a down-wind direction). I’ve now experienced those moments where the pain seems to subside when there is something that must be done, and then the pain returns as soon as your done. What a strange phenomenon. As I was laid up in the cockpit for 3 days, I tried to move as little as possible with the one time below per day to cook dinner. Nina helped with breakfast and lunches, thankfully. And she continued her 8pm-11pm watches. The only difference was that on her watch, I was the one out helping instead of Christian, who normally helps her during her watches. Again, not much needed to be done on this passage, so that was good. During those days, I realised how much core muscle you actually use when you’re sailing. Every jerk and jolt of the boat, my core would activate and my back would spasm. It took everything possible to relax through the normal movements of the boat.

On the bright side… we did catch two Yellowfin Tuna! Christian has his moment of putting the pain aside, keeping his foot elevated while hand reeling in the fish… I wasn’t about to.

There was lots of reading going on.

Chatting with Ellamae on the Satellite phone. And S/V La Cigale on the radio.

Making a flag for Tonga.

Playing with toys.

By the time the weather got a little bit rougher, around middle day 4, I was able to move more and do all the things needed. We had a great 3.5 days downwind and another 2 that were upwind, but not too bad. On day 6 (5 and 3/4) , August 24th, 2018, arriving into Tonga’s, Neiafu came with so much relief. Christian was still pretty immobile… but he could help us dock to the, worst yet, port captains/immigration dock, hobble to the port captain’s office and back, and help us get onto the mooring ball later on. I was moving like an old lady, but much better. During the check in process, I grabbed some Tongan money (called Pa’anga) from an ATM and loaded us up with fresh produce from the farmers market. A good way to start our time in Tonga.