Those little points on the top of the dune, that's us...
View south
There's a little dot in the river, that's Alita
View towards the entrance / exit of the river bay (to the right)
Marcus and Michaela sailing the world's oceans on their most beautiful boat Alita. Join the adventure!
02.01.2017
Charly Fotos
Just to cheer us up, here some pix I took out of the Videos of Alita that I made flying Charly.
Leaving Parengarenga
Sailing with our Parasailor just past Cape Reinga (when we had wind for an hour)
Happy New Year
First of all: Happy New Year to all my blog followers, family and friends out there! Hope you had a good start - better than ours.
Let me start by saying we're safe and tied up to a mooring. Just not in Nelson, but in New Plymouth. With a broken toilet (already repaired today), a broken motor (saltwater in the motor!) and some damage on Alita. I won't write too much, because I am still exhausted and have a headache, so just some information:
After midnight New Year's the wind picked up, we put the sails out and stopped the engine. The waves got worse and worse, causing two of us to get seasick (including me of course - I prevented the worst with a pill just in time). As predicted about 16 hrs later the wind died and in my shift I wanted to start the engine - dead. We decided to continue sailing over Cook Street to Nelson because the facilities s are better there - and did that for a while against the wind which got stronger and stronger (more than predicted) and then decided to turn around and get into Port Taranaki (New Plymouth) which however took us another many hours( til midnight) because under land the wind had died. We tried to motor Alita with the Dinghy but that would have taken us too long. After a while some wind came back and with a couple of tacks we managed to sail into the harbor where we wanted to anchor. However the harbor is full of moorings and boats tied up to them. Impossible to anchor. With the Dinghy Marcus pushed Alit from the side while I tried to steer and lookout in the darkness. In the end we had to go back out a bit more and take the next available buoy, but we could not tie up the way we need to because Marcus could not get the mooring chain up. It was ok for the night but we knew we had to change position in the morning.
Marcus and I got up at 9 (we needed a rest) and tried to find someone responsible for the moorings without success. Finally via phone someone told us to find the Pilot boat's mooring T2 which was nowhere to find. in the meantime the wind picked up and we had to move. We prepared another mooring and wanted to push Alita the way we did the night before but it did not work as wanted. We started to drift, there was nothing I could do, not even time to let the anchor down. A french couple on their boat saw that. He prepared the Dinghy, put the motor on it and came over to help, but we still ended up on a fisherbooat and caught its mooring chain with our rudder. Peter, Sibylle and I tried to keep the fisherboat away from us as much as we could, but with the wave rockingg us like crazy it was impossible, to we encountered some damage. Not only on the top (newly painted deck) but also big scratches on the side and harm to the Anti-fouling. In my despair I called the Pilot / harbor master via radio for help and after a while a Pilot boat came. By that time and with the long line of the french guy that we had tied to a mooring and pulled in with our electric winch we had already freed Alita from the mooring of the fisherboat - but still needed to move to that Pilot's mooring PT2. The pilot boat came and took us alongside (in the still rocking waves) and pulled us over to that mooring that we tied up to. This whole time it had been pouring rain.
As I am writing this the wind is gone, the pouring rain stopped and it is getting lighter outside. We're all tired and tight, our nerves need rest while Marcus keeps himself busy with repairing to not think about what happened. He just found out that the motor is full with salt water, we have no clue where it came from. So, we need a long and expensive motor repair (or replacement?) and Alita needs to get out on the hard again to redo the Antifouling and repair all the other damage to the paint that has occurred. If you ask me, that's going to be another couple of weeks. However we can't do it here. We have to sail to Nelson for that - and in order to be able to do so, we need to wait for good weather that will safely carry us down there - with no storm and no times without wind as we can't motor our way down.
To top it all up we found out that the Genua needs repair (I just fixed the big cuts) although it has just been with a sailmaker whom we paid to check her….You can't rely on anything or anyone anymore.
So, my mood could be better. Sibylle and Peter's vacation is ruined for now as well. We'll see how we continue. I feel sorry for them. It is not our fault that the weather did not permit us to drive down to Nelson, but it is sad. Now we have to wait a long time for the weather to change.
The good news is we're all ok, Alita is floating and not taking on water - and we can still sail.
And we had all day yesterday to see mount Egmont (mount Taranaki) in its whole beauty. It is usually in clouds and when we drover there 2 years ago to see it we didn't see a thing.
So long, Michaela
Here are some pictures:
White sand at Parengarenga
The „Mondfisch" (sunfish?)
Little bird hopping on the water
Cape Reinga
Mount Egmont / Taranki
31.12.2016
Last hours of the year 2016
Those past two days, yesterday and today, have been exciting and wonderful. I am writing this as we're motoring into this year's last sunset in this area here.
Yesterday we sailed to Parengarenga Bay, where this is a gorgeous white sand spit - white sandy beach for miles and on that sand spit there are dunes and some bush. You have to be very lucky to be able to drive your sailboat into the river behind the sand spit and this area around it because the entrance to our belated white christmas event area is blocked by a sand bar, which on its deepest position has a depth of only 2,1m. Which seems to be no problem in a calm water river or Bay but it puts an end to almost every sailor's wish to go there. As soon as there is a small wave already it is impossible to enter, especially when you have a kiel and draw over 1,5m. You have to wait for almost no wave (which means westerly winds) and an incoming current. If you have outgoing current you have wave against current and that's not good.
So, we were lucky (again) and were able to enter (we draw only 1,2m). We anchored in the river behind the sand spit, dropped the Dinghy and went ashore, walking to one of the sand dunes. Of course we went up the dune for the view and then Charly got into action. We did get some really nice videos from there. the sand is so white and so fin we had the feeling of walking in fresh powder snow - hence belated white christmas. you'll see on the pictures. It seriously looked like winter wonderland with some bushes inbetween and the blue ocean in the background.
Because of the wind situation and a low pressure system coming up from the south of the south island we had to leave for the South Island today. With an early start we headed out to flat calm waters with just some swell turning into little waves at the bar while videoing this with Charly. Let me tell you, it is no problem to start or fly Charly, but landing on a moving boat is difficult! This morning we were able to slow down, that was easier, this afternoon I had to land him while sailing under Spinnaker at about 6 knots, I almost crashed him at the first attempt.
As soon as we were out action started. We saw fins which we thought belong to sharks, hammer -sharks. As it turned out a bit later it were those really rare fish: we call them "moonfish" in German, we believe it's "sunfish" in English? I was able to get some decent shots. What else happened today? Took more awesome pictures of flying fish and birds, caught 3 fish, rounded North Cape and Cape Reinga, had fish tacos for lunch and fish&rice for dinner, set the spinnaker (parasailor)- filmed it with Charly - and took it back down an hour later, set sails and took them in to find us now motoring into a beautiful sunset out at sea - my last one for this year.
I forgot: just as we wanted to enter the bar yesterday the starter went on strike and stopped his service! Marcus jumped downstairs to replace it with a spare (thank god we had one!) while the crew and I set the sails again and headed out to the sea as far as we could to be away from the bar. Half an hour later thank god Marcus had replaced the starter and we managed to stat the engine! One of these moments where you take a deep breath and start solving the problem without a word...
We won't see fireworks tonight, we won't celebrate a big party, we can't drink alcohol but we sure will have a special New Years eve sitting in T-Shirts, watching the sunset and enjoying time amoungst friends and looking forward to a happy and exciting New Year where we will wake up at see with no sight of land.
Happy New Year everyone from the ALITA boss Marcus, and crew Michaela, Sibylle and Peter - and of course from ALITA herself, little Alita (the dinghy), Wickie (the kajak), Bruno (the autopilto) and Charly (the drone)
We expect to be at the heigt of New Plymouth on January 2nd, in the morning and will then decide, according to the weather, if we have to stop (we hope not) or continue to the South Island Golden Bay. I might not write until January 2nd, we'll see.
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Yesterday we sailed to Parengarenga Bay, where this is a gorgeous white sand spit - white sandy beach for miles and on that sand spit there are dunes and some bush. You have to be very lucky to be able to drive your sailboat into the river behind the sand spit and this area around it because the entrance to our belated white christmas event area is blocked by a sand bar, which on its deepest position has a depth of only 2,1m. Which seems to be no problem in a calm water river or Bay but it puts an end to almost every sailor's wish to go there. As soon as there is a small wave already it is impossible to enter, especially when you have a kiel and draw over 1,5m. You have to wait for almost no wave (which means westerly winds) and an incoming current. If you have outgoing current you have wave against current and that's not good.
So, we were lucky (again) and were able to enter (we draw only 1,2m). We anchored in the river behind the sand spit, dropped the Dinghy and went ashore, walking to one of the sand dunes. Of course we went up the dune for the view and then Charly got into action. We did get some really nice videos from there. the sand is so white and so fin we had the feeling of walking in fresh powder snow - hence belated white christmas. you'll see on the pictures. It seriously looked like winter wonderland with some bushes inbetween and the blue ocean in the background.
Because of the wind situation and a low pressure system coming up from the south of the south island we had to leave for the South Island today. With an early start we headed out to flat calm waters with just some swell turning into little waves at the bar while videoing this with Charly. Let me tell you, it is no problem to start or fly Charly, but landing on a moving boat is difficult! This morning we were able to slow down, that was easier, this afternoon I had to land him while sailing under Spinnaker at about 6 knots, I almost crashed him at the first attempt.
As soon as we were out action started. We saw fins which we thought belong to sharks, hammer -sharks. As it turned out a bit later it were those really rare fish: we call them "moonfish" in German, we believe it's "sunfish" in English? I was able to get some decent shots. What else happened today? Took more awesome pictures of flying fish and birds, caught 3 fish, rounded North Cape and Cape Reinga, had fish tacos for lunch and fish&rice for dinner, set the spinnaker (parasailor)- filmed it with Charly - and took it back down an hour later, set sails and took them in to find us now motoring into a beautiful sunset out at sea - my last one for this year.
I forgot: just as we wanted to enter the bar yesterday the starter went on strike and stopped his service! Marcus jumped downstairs to replace it with a spare (thank god we had one!) while the crew and I set the sails again and headed out to the sea as far as we could to be away from the bar. Half an hour later thank god Marcus had replaced the starter and we managed to stat the engine! One of these moments where you take a deep breath and start solving the problem without a word...
We won't see fireworks tonight, we won't celebrate a big party, we can't drink alcohol but we sure will have a special New Years eve sitting in T-Shirts, watching the sunset and enjoying time amoungst friends and looking forward to a happy and exciting New Year where we will wake up at see with no sight of land.
Happy New Year everyone from the ALITA boss Marcus, and crew Michaela, Sibylle and Peter - and of course from ALITA herself, little Alita (the dinghy), Wickie (the kajak), Bruno (the autopilto) and Charly (the drone)
We expect to be at the heigt of New Plymouth on January 2nd, in the morning and will then decide, according to the weather, if we have to stop (we hope not) or continue to the South Island Golden Bay. I might not write until January 2nd, we'll see.
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29.12.2016
Tough life
So, you find a beautiful bay, you take a walk in the sand and enjoy beach life. After a wonderful dinner you go to bed early happy like a little baby because your bed is a little rocking - rocking you to sleep.
Then you wake up early in the morning, looking into a new day. What are you thinking about? Correct, you have to get the Genua sail down and sew it (before the rain comes) on deck because yesterday you saw a tear in it that the sailmaker, who just had the sail for repair and a check up (!) should have seen and repaired. Oh well. That's why we have a Singer heavy Duty sewing machine on board. This machine is worth gold. Beautiful and strong. She has already done lots of good work for Alita. Let me tell you, I have had more comfortable positions while sewing this morning, but never a more spectacular view at the same time. I am glad for all my dancing and thus flexibility. Enjoy!
28.12.2016
Horseshoe Bay
I couldn't resist but had to post this picture of this beautiful paradise island and the prove the we went swimming
New Alita
I finally downloaded the photos of our new Alita top and bottom. Her you can see the body work of the two weeks work on the hard in December before we left sailing:
Abonnieren
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