I’ve spent the last week living on a sailboat. This has both positive and negative implications, but for the most part it was another unique and wonderful experience for me.
I met Anotnia and Peter Murphey on their sailboat, Sereia (http://www.svsereia.com) two weeks ago, and spent a few hours getting to know them in a sort of unofficial interview. They were looking for some help on their journey around New Zealand, and I was one of a few “applicants”. A few days later, when I was on my camping trip through Northland, I got a text message from Antonia saying that I got the job. A few days later, I was in the dinghy with my backpack, prepared to spend the next week or so sailing from Whangerei to Auckland.
Antonia and Peter are an American couple in their 30s, Peter from NYC and Antonia from San Francisco, and four years ago they set off under the Golden Gate bridge aboard Sereia, intending to spend a few years traveling the world by sailboat. They are part of a subculture of boaters known as cruisers, or voyagers as the Murphey’s prefer to call themselves.
They voyaged their way down the West Coast of the US into Mexico, and then down through Central America. When they reached Ecuador, they left the coast and began their journey through the open seas, stopping in the Galapagos, the Marquesas, and Tahiti among others.
In Tahiti, Antonia (who was pregnant at the time) flew to New Zealand, and Peter singlehandedly sailed Sereia to New Zealand…a 27-day solo ordeal through the South Pacific. That is nearly a month confined to a 32-foot vessel, with no one to talk to and absolutely nothing to see but flat, blue ocean and beautiful stars. This impresses me greatly.
They’ve spent the last year in Invercargill, on the South Island, raising their son Silas (now 20-months-old) and have become permanent residents in New Zealand. However, they wanted to get back on their boat, so the three of them decided to circumnavigate the country collecting research and anecdotes that Antonia plans to combine into a travel book.
They began their journey with a warm-up sail through Northland, visiting many of the places I saw from land last week. However, they soon discovered that manning a sailboat, writing a novel, and raising a toddler is an exceptional amount of work for just two people…so they decided to take advantage of the deluge of experience- and adventure-seeking backpackers in New Zealand by bringing on crew…this is where I come in.
The first few days were spent anchored in Whangerei Harbour as we made a few pre-trip preparations…minor repairs and provisioning mostly. I’ve learned that there is always something to be fixed or improved on a sailboat, and it is a constant struggle trying to maintain the boat’s seaworthiness, while continually putting it to the test while at sea.
I also found out very quickly that raising a toddler is a lot of work. In addition to helping with boat repairs, I spent a fair amount of time on Silas patrol. He is a friggin’ cute little kid! He is still experimenting with language by making constant nonsensical noises (his favorite is the motor boat noise) and we try to give him daily walking practice on land. Oh, and he likes to wake everyone up at 5:30AM with a less-than-pleasant whine… But other than that, he is a chill, pleasant little kid and I enjoyed getting to hang out with him.
We finally pulled up the anchor on the morning of Wednesday, 28 October and headed straight into a 25-knot Southerly wind. We made it to the mouth of the river, an area near the Whangerei Heads known as The Nook (or “Nuke” as some Germans called it). Whangerei Heads are a scenic set of three volcanic mountains that jut up out of the Pacific, and they look much more like Hawaii than anything I’ve seen in NZ so far…steep and quite green.
The next morning, the winds were so strong coming out of the south, that Peter decided to stay at anchor one more day. I spent the day wandering around the shores of The Nook, but was eager to get back on the water and hopefully do some true sailing.
On Friday, we left The Nook early in the morning to calm, sunny conditions. There is an ugly oil refinery that ruined an otherwise beautifully scenic Whangerei Harbor, with the Heads to the north and long curvy Bream Bay to the south. But once we passed it, the scenery was gorgeous. We kept a few miles off the coast, and were rewarded with views of the coastal mountains and cliffs as well as a number of offshore island, many of which are uninhabited, pristine nature preserves.
We were on the water for nearly eight hours, and for part of the time the winds cooperated enough for us to cut the motor and sail for a few hours. I only got a small taste of true sailing, but I loved it. The silence of motor-less motion, cutting through the seas at a decent six knots under the power of only the wind, was invigorating. I soaked up all the knowledge I could get from Peter, who was patient and thorough as he taught be the very basics of sailing. I won’t get into everything I learned, but I can tell you that I am now much more well-informed about knot-tying, sail area optimization, boat maintenance, and diesel engines. And my vocabulary has nearly doubled now that I know a plethora of sailing terms. It really is like mastering a new language.
We anchored at a very sheltered bay called North Cove on Kawau Island, just off the mainland coast about a 45-minute drive north of Auckland. We were planning on continuing on to Auckland the next day and finishing the trip, but Peter noticed a boat in the harbor that looked strangely familiar to him. Turns out, we found the the anchorage of Lynn and Larry Pardey, an American couple who helped voice the now dying generation of low-technology cruisers that people like Antonia and Peter idolize. The Pardeys are authors of a number of influential books to the voyaging culture, and their philosophies of sailing are kind of like the Simon and Garfunkel of the boating world. They’ve spent decades exploring the world’s seas, all before the modern era of GPS and auto-helm…the Pardey’s don’t even have an engine in their boat…they go everywhere by the power of the wind. They are somewhat the voice of a lost generation, but Peter and Antonia were excited at the possibility of meeting two of their sailing idols.
This is where the story gets interesting. In an effort to introduce himself, Peter rowed the dinghy over to the Pardey’s boat. They weren’t there, but the owner of another yacht nearby started to talking to Peter, and informed him that the Pardey’s were having a 70th Birthday/Halloween Party that evening. Ecstatic, Peter came back to Sereia and told us that the four of us would be crashing the party.
I spent the day exploring Kawau Island, tramping through bush, birdwatching, and swimming in the bay, and around 7:00PM, we all jumped in the dinghy and went over to the Pardey’s dock to crash a party. Almost immediately, Peter and Antonia recognized Lynn and Larry and introduced themselves, Silas and myself, and when the Pardey’s found out we were crashing, they invited us right in. We were going to a Pardey party.
I spent the next few hours walking around idly and mingling with a few people who were all a few generations older than me and highly passionate about a subject that I’ve only spent the last few days familiarizing myself with. But it was a good experience. Toddlers are good conversation starters too. I ended up chatting for awhile with a Cougar Kiwi named Kim, a wealthy JAFA (NZ acronym for “Just Another F-ing Aucklander”) who lived in the bay across from the Pardeys. And I met a Canadian woman who was also babysitting a toddler. But for the most part, it wasn’t my scene at all, and I was happy to leave after a few hours. I also failed to find the beer that everyone seemed to be walking around with…Peter and I concluded that it must have been BYO, and he dinghy-ed us back to Sereia…sober, but happy to have gotten the chance to meet two of his idols. When we got back, I noticed that Antonia and Peter had two or three of their books in the library on the boat…I read a few of the pages, and could see how they were influential. Their philosophy was to accomplish a lot by only using a little.
I ended up sleeping out on the deck because it was so nice out…cold, but very clear, and laying out under a crescent moon in a sheltered bay on a sailboat, the sounds of a live band playing Brown Eyed Girl in the background, I fell asleep quickly and contently.
On Sunday, we awoke early as usual, had our coffee, and were on our way to Auckland by 8:00AM. The wind was only about 15 knots, but it was straight out of the south, the exact direction we were headed, so we had to take down the sails and motor our way into the harbor.
The trip was only a few hours, but it was nice to approach the city from the sea. This was my fourth time coming to Auckland in just one month in the country, but I was still impressed by the beautiful skyline as we navigated around the islands of the Hauraki Gulf and into the highly-trafficked waters of the downtown harbor.
Auckland is known as the City of Sails, but disappointingly, there are no free anchorages to be found anywhere. There are a number of marinas, but they can be fairly pricey, and by charging for use of their waters, they go against one of the foundations of voyaging culture. So Peter was determined to find a sheltered place to anchor Sereia, and surprisingly we found one. We sailed under the Auckland Harbour Bridge, avoiding the bungy-jumping tourists that dangled from its rafters, and laid out the anchor in a choppy, but fairly calm bay near the posh Ponsonby neighborhood.
Once we arrived, I spent an extra day on the boat helping run a few errands, but informed Peter and Antonia that I would regretfully have to deny the invitation to continue sailing with them. I loved my time on the boat, and part of me really wanted to continue with the adventure, but I was already a few weeks behind when I wanted to get to the South Island and I badly need a job.
So yesterday, I said goodbye to the Murpheys and caught the ferry to North Shore City to pick up my car and begin my long journey south. I hope that in a few months, I can join back up with them and do some more legs of their trip around the country. And I’m really, really hoping to be able to join them for the Stewart Island / Fiordland legs in January and February…but that is a long way away and I have many other adventures to undertake before then.
