Our last 6 month in New Zealand. I can’t quite recall when we finally decided to pull the plug and move on from New Zealand, but the circumstances around it all became clear that it was time to move on. We originally thought that we would sail on to Australia. We had a marina lined up, another Waldorf school ready to enroll Ellamae and Taj and Josie even had a solid interview with a children’s hospital in Newcastle. We were pretty certain that was the direction we were heading, but then the Delta version of Covid found its way into New Zealand and things starting getting really intense. It was looking to be the same for Australia and other potential islands to sail to as well. The idea of moving to a new country and thrown into level 4 lockdown didn’t sound enticing, nor did sailing off to distant islands and being denied access. Ellamae hadn’t seen her biological dad, Jason, since January 2020, we had nieces that we hadn’t met yet, and parents that were getting older and missing their grandkids. One really starts to miss family when you’re “stuck” on an island far south in the Pacific Ocean. That, in a nutshell, is what lead us to making the choice to put Shawnigan up for sale in New Zealand and find a new boat elsewhere to purchase and continue our adventures on.
May through October are cold months in Wellington. We continued with our same school and work routines and continued going on our school holiday adventures in “Sharkie” the camper.
May brought my (Josie’s) 40th birthday. We spent the day on an off-road adventure with our friends Steve, Trudy and their 2 girls in their 4×4 named “Paw Patrol”. After a long day of 4x4ing, we bar-b-que’d at the marina. Its never too cold for a bbq birthday steak!
Other May activities included fishing, vitamix demo with Ellamae, Zoom CrossFit Radiate WOD for my Mother’s birthday, Ellamae continued her CrossFit class, and days spent keeping warm with treats at the coffee houses and having friends over to the boat.
Winter camping trip in June to Kaitoke Regional Park, AKA Rivendell, with Ellamae, her friend Joy, and Taj. The girls set up their own tent as to have their own sleeping and hangout space away from Taj and I. On the way home we stopped at Blossom Valley Aston Norwood Gardens.
Looking back through the photos of our final 1/2 a year in New Zealand brought a new found appreciation for all the fun things we got to do and experience. Some were repeats because we enjoyed it so much.
Christian continued to practice his foiling hobby, whether it was wing, prone or tow foiling. He even got to compete in a competition in Gisborne!
Life in the Marina was status quo. Ellamae took the bus to Rafael House Waldorf school and Taj took the train up the Kapiti coast to Te Ra Waldorf school. Another visit to the Te Papa museum was not another too many, we loved that place. And as Taj got older he could appreciate the Larger Than Life wax art in the Gallipoli exhibit.
July 2021: Winter break at school offered a great opportunity to take the camper all the way up to the North end of the North Island of Aotearoa. Josie was able to take time off work for the whole 2 week break, so we loaded up our surf toys and warm clothes and headed to the very north tip as quick as possible and then made stops along the way back down.
Ellamae got a job at the Get Fixed Bicycle Cafe, helping at the coffee house side of things while Christian continue working as a bike mechanic on the bicycle side of things.
Sailing friends Deb and Phil off of SV Coastal Drifter came to visit and attend one of Ellamae’s school events.
Probably one of the hardest decisions we had to make wasn’t actually selling the boat, but having to re-home our dog, Tui. When were starting to talk about moving on from New Zealand, we also had to think about what was best for our dog, Tui. He was so much fun and such an awesome pet, but we were realizing that once we moved on from New Zealand it would become extremely difficult and expensive to keep him with us. We found a lovely family at Taj’s school that wanted to take him, so we went with that option. It still breaks our hearts to this day that we had to move on without him, but it left us comforted knowing he would be happy in his new place.
We had posted Shawnigan for sale “by owner”, but as time was coming to an end for life in New Zealand, we decided to have Christian sail her up to Whangarei to list with a broker there. That way we can leave her behind in New Zealand for sale and continue to move forward with buying our new boat back in the US. We actually looked all over for a boat we would want and ended up finding SV Malihini in Oregon. Christian’s dad was kind enough to go up and have an in person look around. With the eye of a shipwright and sail maker, we trusted his inspection. After having it surveyed, we decided to buy her sight unseen (except for Dad’s inspection). With things in motion, we found a few people, Jamie and Nick, that wanted to help Christian sail Shawnigan up to coast. Christian and crew definitely saw some decent wind out there: up to 70kt blows at times! Once past Mt. Tauranga, Christian sailed the rest of the way to Whanagrei solo.
While Christian was doing the delivery, I was left in charge of the camper, Sharkie and the kids and I stayed in it until it sold. Then we were offered a placed to stay in our friends camper nearby. That was a perfect way to wrap up our stay as I still had a few shifts to work and the kids were able to stay with those friends on those days.
On my days off while we waited to sell Sharkie and sell the car, we went and did a few last minute must do before leaving things.
There was the Weta Cave where all the Lord of the Rings films were created among many other films!
Nature walks around Paekakariki.
Staglands Wildlife Reserve made it onto the “must do before we leave” list as well. We went with our friends Steve and Trudy and their girls, Elli and Amelia.
We also fit in another visit to Nga Manu with Evie and Lucy where we had a very friendly Tui bird encounter.
Our friend Rob Suisted happened to be hosting a camp out on his property on the hillside. It was a great way to feel that connection that we worked to establish while we were there.
Also, right before leaving Christian and I had to get our Maori tattoos. Technically we received “Kirituhi” vs a traditional Ta Moko . Some still feel strongly that if you are Pakeha (of European descent) you can not receive a Ta Moko. Each of ours was done by a different artist, but both have our story illustrated within the design.
As soon as Shawnigan was set with the broker, Christian caught a flight to Auckland and then continued onto the US to go retrieve the new boat…
Nature walks out at Titahi Bay.
High Tea with the Ladies (Ellamae, Joy, Carina, Channa and Myself) @ Whitby’s in Wellington.
As soon as we sold Sharkie, we were able to go stay in one of the friends from school, Rhonda’s camper that was parked in their yard. What a blessing to have this offer. The kids were able to continue going to school, we no longer had the camper, the boat was prepped for being sold, and the car was still in our possession, but had a buyer lined up to picked it up on the day we flew out.
Our flight home: Wellington to Auckland, Auckland to LAX. All masked up and excited! Mom and dad drove down to pick us up from Los Angeles, with all of our stuff that we could pack. The rest was placed in a shipping container to be shipped along with our dinghy and other larger toys.
Near Astoria, Oregon, Christian boarded S/V Malihini and prepped her for a voyage down the Pacific Coast to meet us in San Francisco with our new home.
Click here to read more about the S/V Malihini!
Click here for what came next... more Lauducci shenanigans !
