Tuesday 30 December 2008

Happy New Year

Helen: 2009 is just around the corner and we wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year. 2008 has been a bit crazy for us - not really sure what next year has in store - I hope you all get everything you wish for. As I type I'm waiting for the computer to load up train timetables for Bejing to Mongolia to Uzbekistan and Moscow...

C uploaded a whole bunch of photos this morning at www.flickr.com/charlieandhelen - I'll get round to naming them all at some point, but right now I'm going to get changed and go out to celebrate!

Lots of love
H&Cxx

Thursday 25 December 2008

Happy Christmas!

Helen: This time last year we were about as miserable as it was possible to be - on Santana with an incompetent captain, big seas and a sea sick cat. What a difference 12 months makes! This year we had yummy food, great company and sunshine. Trifle, chocolate and cream cake, a huge ham (Eva had to beg for it at the butchers a couple of days ago - she hadn't ordered it and they didn't have any to sell...but they gave her their 'emergency ham' when she looked on the verge of tears, clutching a small baby with a toddler in tow!), asparagus, C's pizzas and my fairy cakes (the family we're house sitting for have 2 small children so their pantry was full of baking goodies - sprinkles, cocoa and lots of food dye - cue green, yellow and pink icing - I drew the line at blue).

Lots of Eva's friends came round to say hello throughout the day - a lively bunch (including a very lively 78 year old who wore his silk pyjamas all day and sang 'O come all ye faithful' several times clutching a champagne bottle). We had beer, wine, bubbles, ginger ale, apple whiskey and juice - all with the right glasses - Eva has more glasses than John Lewis!

After we stuffed ourselves silly we went for a walk along the coast and now we're watching a film on telly. Perfick. (Still doesn't feel very Christmassy though - no Slade or Bob Geldof on the radio and I didn't get woken up by C letting off one of those balloons that makes a horrid whiny noise and whizzes round the room (a regular occurance when we stay at his parents house for Xmas as he always gets one in his stocking)). This year Father C brought me a lovely brown merino top and C got a hand stitched advent calendar full of sweeties.

I should back up a few days though and tell you about our walk on Monday - after waiting for nearly a week we finally managed to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. The clouds lifted in the morning and we could see the 3 volcanoes perfectly all day - Ruapehu in particular is a spectacular lump with snow on the top. The only problem was EVERYONE ELSE who wanted to do the walk that day too - we reckon there must have been about 300 people on the trail (they get 60,000 annually as it's the most accessible, and scenic, one day tramp in NZ). The walk has become a victim of it's own success - by the end of the day we were stuck in a conveyor belt of slow moving single file ants. It felt more like a 'wilderness themepark' than a real wilderness. All the paths are heavily reinforced with mesh and wooden sides to prevent errosion and we saw a helicopter emptying the toilet tanks (toilets in the wilderness - what's that about anyway?!)

But...at the same time I think it's great that all these people want to go walking - we met lots of people who were hiking for the first time - C and I looked mildly out of place with our thermals and our walking boots and our big bag among all those sandals and strappy t-shirts! The new kids were nervous about it and really pleased with themselves for having done it. I wouldn't want to put them off - but maybe the DoC could promote another walk nearby to take the pressure off the Alpine Crossing? It's a tough call...

The coolest thing we saw on the whole walk was the mountain Taranaki in the distance. It's a perfect triangle with snow on the top - we recognised it immediately...because C has it tattooed on his arm! Remember I said that Rangi, C's tattooist, was from Taranaki and that that was how Maori introduced themselves? Well...he must've put HIS mountain on C's arm as a 'signature'. Cool huh?

OK, enough for now. The rubbish film on telly (Conspiracy Theory) is nearly over and it's time for bed. Leftovers tomorrow :). Hope Santa is kind to you all

H&Cxxx

Saturday 20 December 2008

Rain rain go away

Helen: Just had breakfast – always an interesting meal in a hostel – C and I play a game trying to guess where people are from – the Brits are easy to spot with their jars of Marmite and the Germans are a dead give away as they always have salami and cheese and bread – C is worried about what they then have for lunch... We haven't seen a Tongan at breakfast yet, but we spotted one at our last hostel – he was in bed, fully clothed, at 4 in the afternoon – typical!

Since I last wrote we have been up to Ohope on the north east coast of the North Island, near Whakatane – C got his right arm finished – it took the guy about 6 hours to draw and then tattoo, and then another half an hour to tell us what it all meant – lots of stuff about the sea and mountains, which are important for Maori people to be able to 'place' themselves – a Maori will introduce himself to other Maori, not using his name, but by saying where his mountain is. If you can see mountains you can recognise in the distance you can use them as reference points – geographically and emotionally.

Rangi (the moko artist) drew many vertical 'hake' (ribs) which are a connection between the living and their ancestors. Ancestral Maori houses are designed to represent a body with the central beam along the roof as the backbone, a face at the apex at the front, the sloping beams as the body, with hands at the end at the front. The ribs (also called hake) that the roof rests on represent the living, connecting the earth with the ancestors. Each shape is filled with loads of horizontal lines or layers which represent 'whakapapa' (genealogy) also represented in the ancestral house by the sloping roof beams and the horizontal slats that go between the sloping beams. Hope all that makes sense!

It was hard listening to him as some of the Maori ideas are very different from Western ideas – it helped having been in Polynesia for a year, but still Maori culture is based on very different cultural assumptions. For example, Rangi explained that when Maori talk about going forward into the future they do it facing backwards, so they can see the past, rather than facing forwards with your back on the past, which is how I always imagined it. He also told us how Maori tribes used to be divided up into 'upper jaw' and 'lower jaw' people – the 'upper jaw' lot learnt all the knowledge to do with ritual and the sacred and the 'lower jaw' people learnt all about fishing and farming etc...

When I called this 'practical' knowledge Rangi said he didn't see it that way as all the ritual/sacred stuff was practical too and he didn't want to make a value judgement about it. Fair enough. It was hard talking to him sometimes though as we both got the feeling that he was very defensive – for example, C said he thought it was amazing how the early Maori explorers set off into the big blue ocean not knowing where they were going. Rangi immediately said that was a very Eurocentric view that assumed their vessels were less seaworthy than ours are now. That's not at all what C meant though – all he meant was that, after months of experience of being at sea and knowing how scary it can be not to see land for a long time, he could imagine how brave the early explorers had been. But sometimes it's impossible to explain yourself properly when someone doens't want to see it your way!

But anyway...we're now back in National Park (what an awful name for a village) and are still waiting for the weather to change so that we can go walking. I think everyone in the hostel is waiting for the same thing! But there really is no point in going for a 9 hour hike to see the stunning scenery when the scenery is hidden underneath thick cloud and you are more than likely to get drenched and cold and blown off the top of a mountain by gale force winds. There really isn't.

So to pass the time I'm sewing (nearly finished C's advent calendar – yes, I know it's almost too late – it would have been finished by now if it didn't need so many small pockets – I guess I should just be grateful that Advent doesn't start when the commercial countdown to Xmas starts or I'd have to have pockets all the way from Oct 1st!) and C is playing the 'iPod downloading blues' on his harmonica – it's taking forever and a day to backup all our music and he's (predictably) grumpy about it. Maybe he'll perk up in a bit and we'll go (indoor) climbing.

Hx

Wednesday 17 December 2008

Cold Mountain

Helen: 2 hours ago, this would have been a very different post. 2 hours ago it was wet, windy, cloudy and miserable. Now the sun is shining and 3 majestic mountains have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. One of them (Mt Ngarahoe) was used as Mt Doom in LoTR. Looks spectacular – conical with some snow at the top. Hopefully we'll get to go walking right past the mountains later in the week...but we need to 'pop' up to Whakatane first to get C's right arm finished by a highly regarded Maori sculptor/ta moko artist. By then I'm sure the clouds will be back and the mountains will be hiding again. Actually, they're volcanoes, not just any old mountains. The hotel is full of signs of what to do in case of an emergency – thankfully, we're at NZ's highest hotel, so if there is a sudden rush of molten lava, or, apparently more likely, lots of mud, we should be safe!

Don't worry, we haven't gone all up market – we just found some vouchers on the back of a supermarket receipt and so could afford to stay in a hotel for the night. We got here at 10am (the last hostel we were staying in was miserably cold and unfriendly – C was meant to book somewhere else, but phoned the wrong people, as we discovered at 11pm the night before when we turned up where we thought we were staying only to find no room at the inn – oh well, 15 minutes before that I'd sent us to totally the wrong village in search of our accommodation – needless to say we were both tired and grumpy when we finally got to the right place in the dead of night in the middle of a rain storm!) Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, we got here (the hotel) at 10am and they let us have our room early, so we sat here, practically on top of their heater, using the hairdryer, watching the telly, bouncing on the comfy bed and drinking hot chocolate. Doesn't take much to keep us happy :)

But I've skipped a bit – need to tell you about Napier and Hastings – Napier was a bit of a disappointment to be honest – we had been expecting amazing Art Deco everywhere...but it wasn't even as grand as Glasgow. We did see kiwis at the National Aquarium though (wonderfully cute fluffy looking nocturnal birds that look more like rabbits with long legs and a beak than birds), Hastings was much the same, dreary town centre that sprawls out rather than up – totally lacking in character. Good baked potatoes though, and a really friendly tattooist (pink hair, fairy skirt, army boots) who did a bit on C's arm (she copied a linear design he'd photographed in the Auckland Museum from a Fijian artifact – a head rest that chiefs could lie on at night and not mess up their hair dos).

We spent our time in Napier staying with old friends from London (thank you loads Sasha and Roger) and their young daughter Arabella who's 4. Our week with them was another eye opening window on family life – ballet shows, gym shows, birthday parties with small girls in pink fairy outfits, demands for ice cream for breakfast, chocolate treats for tea and Arabella's favourite dummy at all hours. Exhausting! We thought we'd spend lots of time recovering in front of Sasha and Roger's TV – having not had one for so long we thought it would be a welcome luxury. Not so! NZ TV is worse than we remember British TV – every morning they have an hour and a half of 'infomercials' – dreadful programmes sponsored by some company or other trying to sell you their wears – everything from acne cream to pants that keep your tummy and bottom in to super-dooper-makes-the-supper-for-you kitchen whizzers. I could feel the life leaving me as I watched them – but it still took a surprising amount of will power to turn the idiot box off!

Anyway, surburbia is behind us and we are now in the mountains – all good. Will write again soon

H&Cxx

Friday 5 December 2008

Bath time

Helen: Ok, the last post was pretty dull. I admit it. C was standing behind me looking aggitated and hurumphing every 20 seconds or so while tapping at his watch and rolling his eyes. We were behind schedule and supposed to be on the road already. But now...now, I am sitting at my friend Sasha's laptop, in her living room, the cleanest and most relaxed I have been in a whole year as I've just had a BATH and I can spend as long as I like rabbiting on to you lot. C is on the sofa messing about with our new guitar (courtesy of Walt and Tigs on Marnie - it's a cute 'backpackers' version with steel strings which means it even sounds soulful when I accidently knock it - makes me sound like I know what I'm doing - great!) and we have the TV on in the background. How civilised does that sound?

Certainly a million miles away from last night...in a tent by the edge of Lake Waikaremoana, wearing socks and hats in our sleeping bags to keep warm. In the end we decided that the Chicken Tikka Massala was the best of the dehydrated food - but that you should stay away from the Mexican Chicken (although 'small white chunks' might be a more appropriate description than 'chicken' for the contents of either dish). The hike round the lake was wonderfully peaceful, but it made us miss home as it looked like Scotland - the scenery kept changing - rain forest one minute, then pines, up hill (a lot), then down, creeks and shore lines.

So, not much to write about the last 4 days (scenery, walking, sore feet, feeling chuffed that we were fully self sufficient the whole time, camping). Instead I thought I'd make up for the last post being rather boring. What I should have written was this:

- we had oysters with Tigs and Walter. On crackers with chili sauce. On their boat looking out over the Auckland skyline at sunset. It's not often that pre-dinner snacks are special enough to tell people about. These ones were.

- Rotorua was wierd. On the one hand it was full of backpackers who wanted to get drunk and see gysers. On the other it was this old fashioned, very English looking town. The museum was in this mock-Tudor building with a croquet lawn and a rose garden out the front. It reminded me of the Japanese who take English pubs and transport them brick by brick to Japan. So perfect it felt fake. The museum was pretty good (full of the obligatory 'god, I'm so bored' school groups) but all the information was so difficult to read as all the names are in Maori. I felt the same trying to read the book on Al Queda on Nomad - I couldn't pronounce all the Arabic names and it was hard to concentrate on the thread of a sentence. The locals don't ever seem to have a problem with Maori pronounciation though - they must get taught it in school or something! One of the most interesting things in the museum was a bit written by the local Maori iwi (tribe) about the Treaty of Whatangi (treaty that ceded NZ to the settlers). The iwi said (in so many words) that even if they didn't agree with it, their ancestors had signed it and they would honour it today. Not the usual 'we hate white people' rant I was expecting.

- we forgot to turn up to our US Embassy interview (for visas, not cos we'd done anything bad, honest). Oops. (In our defense it was almost impossible for us to call them - you can't do it from a mobile or a payphone and we don't own a private landline). Hope they don't try to arrest us when we go to America the next time...

- the area near Rotorua looks like The Shire! (Well, it would - this is near where it was filmed. We're going to Mount Doom next - will try to take a cheap ring to dispose of in the crater...)

- and finally, thought you'd think this was funny - quarentine here is very strict - you're not allowed to bring in any seeds. Not even popcorn or lentils. But, the Department of Conservation sells 'native NZ seeds' in it's shops that it encourages you to take back to your country of origin. Hypocrites!!!

OK, I'm all out of steam now! Time for the trashy 8.30 movie.
Love to you all
H&C (currently singing the 'campsite blues' on his harmonica) xx

Monday 1 December 2008

Rotten eggs

Helen: We finally made it out of Auckland!!!!!!!!!! We thought it would be easier to move around once we had our own transport and weren't relying on other people to move their boats...but we seem to have managed to get stuck in the big city for longer than we wanted. Having said that, though, we did manage to do pretty much everything we needed to do in two weeks, which can't be sniffed at.

Now we're in Rotorua - not much to recommend it - lots of tourists and smells of rotten eggs on account of the sulphurous gysers all around. Just been to the museum where they had a v interesting exhibition about the old bath houses that used to be here - people used to come and get 'treated' with hot water, hot air and mud, as well as electrotherapy, until the 1940s (when they really ought to have known better) for just about every imaginable ailment - eczma, obesity, irritability, arthritis. Bonkers. (But, as C pointed out, maybe not that much more bonkers than all those folks out there who believe in homeopathy today...)

We've got our camping gear and our dehydrated food and we're off for a 4 day 'tramp' as the locals call it this afternoon. Wish us luck!

Lots of love
H&C

Saturday 29 November 2008

Pomp and Circumstance

Helen: Visiting our friends on Marnie at the moment (the one's who rescued us when we were having a horrible time in Tahiti and made me a 30th birthday cake) - had pancakes and strawberries for breakfast, and pizza and smoothies yesterday so feeling totally pampered. Walt got out his guitar and harmonicas last night and he and C played and Tigs and I sang and it was all very silly, probably not all together tuneful, but wonderful fun :)

Went for a wee stroll after lunch to the suburb of Devonport where there's a hill (a volcano, Auckland is full of them - apparently there's 53 cones in the city - makes us feel right at home after living next to Arthur's Seat for so long) - and the hill had bunkers and gun implacements on the top. Daddy would have been in his element. Apparently the guns were for keeping the Ruskys out last century, but were only fired once and then decommissioned (because the locals complained about the noise and the vibrations cracked several windows!)

Still haven't managed to find any lamb (other than chops and legs) - I guess they must export it all! (Actually, we haven't seen all that many sheep so far - I was expecting sheep as far as the eye could see...) And today we're using the free internet in the marina to upload all our photos, so check out www.flickr.com/charlieandhelen to see what we look like now...

We found an ipod in the middle of the road the other day - we tried to return it (phone numbers through letter boxes) but to no avail - so it looks like we've inherited it. We were trying to work out the owner's nationality based on the music choices - some are the same as ours...some are very strange! One of the albums is the sound track to A Clockwork Orange which has lots of Rossini and Elgar - we were blaring out March 1 of Pomp and Circumstance (Land of Hope and Glory) whilst sitting at the traffic lights (makes a change from gansta rap) and the car next to us rolled down his window to approve - he said he was an Englishman and it was very patriotic. He didn't have a big bushy moustache, unfortunately, but C has said that we can try to get some for us for the next time that we play that particular track.

OK, had enough of internetting now - been in here for an age
Lots of love - don't forget your advent calendars tomorrow
Hxx

PS C says I have to tell you about our hostel experiences of the last week - we were very pleased with ourselves for having chosen a lovely hostel in the suburbs - cheaper and much more civilised than the city centre venues for drunken 18 year olds. But then the police got called out twice in two days! First time was for an intruder who stayed without paying (and who C caught stark naked shaving his nether regions in the middle of the boys loos at 2am); second time was for a lady who was very very drunk and screaming the house down. Takes all sorts!

Wednesday 26 November 2008

Bond, James Bond

Helen: It's official. Daniel Craig is a god. He is the best Bond in a billion years. Make that a gazillion. Just seen Quantum of Solace (can you tell) and it was bloody marvellous. Ok, so not as good as Casino Royale (not sure if that would actually be possible) but still pretty darn good. My head is spinning with all the twists and turns and action (what a horrible thing to do to an Aston) but definitely a great way to spend an afternoon. If you go see it (go, go, go) stay to see the credits otherwise you won't find out what Ms Fields first name is... Try not to laugh at the state of the Bolivian roads though - nowhere in our travels in Bolivia did C and I see a road in the desert even closely resembling the smooth dark black snake in the film. Most of the time there isn't even a road, just ruts in the dirt. But I guess the Aston wouldn't go so well in those conditions...

Speaking of roads, we went on a road trip in our new car yesterday (new to us that is, not new - it's done nigh on 180,000 k's so it's definitely no spring chicken) - up the coast about 120 k's to walk along a lovely beach and the cliffs. Gorgeous. But it did take us 2 hours to go about 80 miles because even the main highways here are like A roads at home. Patience is the name of the game.

Day before that we even managed to go climbing! Wooo hooo! Have been trying to go climbing ever since we left the UK, and, while it wasn't a patch on our favourite climbing wall in Edinburgh, it was a good way to while away a few hours. C even enjoyed it once he'd stopped being frustrated at being so puny.

Still haven't got our DHL package - the saga continues (now they want nearly $200 for putting the package through customs. Can you believe it? They actually want us to pay for them delaying our package by 2 months. Imbeciles.) On a brighter note, C went for a harmonica lesson this morning and came back playing something resembling 12 bar blues. And we're even going to try going dancing tonight. Not sure if it's going to work so well in flip flops, but we're going to give it a go.

That's all for now
Hxx

Friday 21 November 2008

Wheels

Helen: We have wheels! C & I are now the proud owners of a Mitsubishi 'station wagon' - can't tell you anything technical about it (it's blue if that helps) - all the oily, greasy messing about is most definitely C's department (he's in his element now what with a laptop and a car to tinker with). So...hopefully we should be hitting the road fairly soon...

Went to the Auckland Museum yesterday - we learned more about Pacific island culture in 2 hours there than we have in a whole year actually travelling in the islands! Interestingly, the display they had for Niue was very Polynesian - lots of tapa barkcloth, woven mats and tikis - but we didn't see any evidence of this at all in our visit there. Peculiar. More than any other island Niue seems to have lost its Polynesian heritage and become European (as an aside, we found out yesterday that in the middle of the 19th century The Auckland Acclimitisation Society planted lots of European plants and trees in the city to make it more like home! You can still see the legacy of this policy all over the place - I finally recognise lots of the plants from the UK after months of tropical curiosities). C took lots of photos of all the Maori carving in the museum so he has lots of ideas to take to see the tattooist...

Still totally overwhelmed by how nice everyone here is. Going to the maritime museum this afternoon if I can ever tear C away from the internet cafe.

Hx

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Living it up downtown

Helen: So we left the UK to 'get away from it all' and leave the hustle and bustle of city life behind. Well, there's nothing like a year in the middle of nowhere to make you appreciate all that hustling and bustling. Boy are we glad to be back. We have achieved more of what C calls 'life administration' in the last 2 days than we have in months and months of living and travelling in Polynesia. There the islands are dependent on irregular supply ships and if it's not on the supply ship you can't have it. Simple as that. I think that even a tiny wee remote community like the Isles of Scilly in Cornwall is more connected to the outside world and better supplied than even the biggest city in Tonga or Fiji. But here, it's business as usual. You want a new pair of shoes, no worries. You need to get your Leatherman fixed, easy. You want a haircut, a new laptop, a second hand car, to go to the theatre, the cinema - all totally and utterly possible. Only downside is that we have also spent more in the last 2 days than we probably have in the whole of the last year put together! Oh well, it's worth it...

So now I have fancy new hair - it's all straight and I keep catching myself in the mirror and wondering who that glamourous lady is - don't worry though, won't last for long - it'll be back to its wayward former habits soon enough (quick aside, using that word, 'wayward' has reminded me that our guidebook describes our (very good) hostel as a 'former home for wayward women' - the mind boggles...) Can't tell you if it's a good haircut or not as C will only say that he likes it - but then, in the same breath confesses that he wouldn't tell me if he didn't like it. He's not daft.

We met up with Marco yesterday evening - haven't seen him since Grenada. Was lovely to see him and hear all his stories. He's going to cook for us this evening which will be great - pasta cooked by a bona fide Italian - the last few boats we've been on with English people they've all complained when I've served pasta 'al dente' and asked me if I could cook it for longer til it resembles a sticky sludge. Yuk.

C went to see a tattooist yesterday about finishing his arm. They were recommended to us...but when we got there all they had on the walls was very colourful hearts, daggers, monsters, dragons and generally evil motifs. All very well done...but not really C's bag! But, very kindly they directed us to another guy who is a 5th generation Maori tattooist who's nationally aclaimed...and also booked til March! Oh well, the search goes on.

Still haven't got our bike gear yet - the wrangling with DHL continues - but think we might want to buy a car instead now. So contrary. Hopefully will be finished with all our chores today and can go and explore some more cultural stuff tomorrow - might even go and see Kafka's 'The Trial' at the theatre - if you're not going to see any theatre for a year, when you do see it it might as well be something serious! Actually, shopping here has not been too much of a chore - the staff in the shops are all friendly and know what they're talking about. So very different from the usual spotty oikes who don't know nuffink at home.

Right, more later
Lots of love
Hxx

PS Feel awful that I never mentioned Armastice Day - we were at sea and it totally passed me by - I only realised on the 12th what day it was. I've never forgotten before, and never not bought a poppy (usually I have to buy at least 3 because I lose them). It really upset me that I forgot as I think it's more important than I can possibly put into words that we don't forget. It upset me more though, that when I expressed my concern at having missed the minute's silence the lady we were sailing with asked why and what Armastice Day was all about. How could she have lived in the UK for so long and not known. Everyone should know. (ok, ok, I'm ranting. I'll stop now...)
PPS And the other thing that passed us by when we were at sea was the US election. OHMYGOD. Wow. Wow. Still can't believe it. (Actually, it didn't quite pass us by, we did manage to catch about 5 mins of an Australian news show on our long distance SSB radio - there was much celebrating when we heard the wonderful words 'Senator McCain's speech to conceed the election'. Why didn't they just vote that way 4 years ago? Who knows (ok, on verge of another rant now - time for a nice cup of tea and a cake...) Hxx

Sunday 16 November 2008

First anniversary

Helen: Wow, believe it or not, we've been gone exactly a year today. Not sure if it feels like a year or longer or shorter. Home doesn't feel so far away today as it's been raining and grey all day - just like a November should be. Don't know what all this talk of Summer is all about.

We left Yamana this morning which was kinda strange as we've been with them so long (nearly 3 months). But, it was good to leave - NZ was the end of the road for them and they were busy trying to sort out cars and schools and houses and all that normal stuff. Strangely there wasn't a lot of crying and wailing and shouting and getting very drunk when we arrived a couple of days ago. We all thought there would be...but it was a bit of an anticlimax - everyone felt a bit deflated as it had been our goal to get to NZ for so long...and then we were here...

C and I are having all sorts of discussions at the moment about what to do from now - ranging from the short term (which hostel do we stay in in Auckland tomorrow?) to the long term (do we want to go home on motorbikes or bite the bullet and buy a boat?) to the real biggies (maybe we should go home and have kids and a dog and a garden). Yup, decision time. Like I said the other day, yikes. Will be sure to keep you all posted.

At the moment I don't have any great cultural insights to offer about NZ - we are in the Bay of Islands just now, where the thing to do is whale watching/swimming with dolphins/sailing in the bay/beaches/hiking, all of which we are totally maxed out on just now. We have absolutely no inclination to do any of that at all at the moment. In fact, today we were just regular normal people in town - we got a mobile phone card, went to the supermarket and watched TV (we were delighted to find that they had the rest of the new series of Spooks on DVD at our hostel - we got hooked on Rahula in the Caribbean and have wanted to see how it all ended for months)

You won't be surprised to learn that on our first day of 'Helen and Charlie' time in weeks and weeks Mr P has spent most of the day in a humpf. We have done all manner of travelling to tin pot places in the back of beyond in our time, and have always turned up with nothing more than our plastic cards to get money out of the wall. No worries. Now we are in NZ - the most civilised place we've been in ages, and our debit cards don't work! C is incensed about this and has already written a stroppy email or three to our bank. He's also grumpy that NZ customs appear to have impounded all our bike gear that was sent from the UK a couple of months ago and that they are being pretty unhelpful in getting it back (you know the routine - you get passed from one numpty to another and have to explain yourself anew each time and no one has the authority to access the right records....Oh well, we'll be there in person by tomorrow so can harass them face to face instead)

Anything else to tell you? We both have cold feet. C has even taken to wearing socks with his sandals he's so cold! I try not to look like I know him when he does this. We must look like such wierdos though - dressed in our ramshackle boat clothes that are not in the slightest suited to this climate and topped off with huge fluourescent waterproof sailing jackets. You might like to know about our experience with NZ quarantine when we arrived? Everyone was a bit worried about exactly what they'd take - in the end they took all our beans/popcorn/garlic/onions etc... basically anything that had the potential to grow (they didn't mind our split peas though as they were already damaged and therefore couldn't germinate). Apparently this is to protect NZ from GM crops - they are GM free at the moment. They also took all our meat, dairy and honey products and asked about our insect infestations. According to the quarantine officers they don't have any fruit flies here so the fruit growers don't have to use many pesticides which gives them a distinct advantage over other countries.

OK, think that's all for now - off to the big smoke tomorrow
Lots of love
H&Cxx

PS we got a guide book today - first time ever we didn't get the Lonely Planet - nearly did, then decided that everyone in the world uses LP and we fancied trying something a wee bit different so we went for the Rough Guide - really enjoying it so far and have a stack of galleries and museums lined up for Mr P (although I think I'll have a job dragging him away from car/bike auctions and computer shops!)

Saturday 15 November 2008

We made it!!

Helen: Right, this is going to be the quickest post ever - I have exactly 4mins and 4secs according to the COIN operated machine that is in charge of this computer terminal.
Thought you'd like to know that we got here ok, without any dramas whatsoever. All the panicking and preparing paid off and we had a breeze of a passage. Flat seas and bearly any wind. Now we're here and clean and have clean clothes. All good. Leaving Yamana tomorrow to head off on the start of our own NZ adventure. Have a lot of decisions to make about where to go from here. Yikes.
Lots of love and more news soon, promise
H&Cxxx

Thursday 6 November 2008

On the way to New Zealand

Thursday 6 November
This is Charlie's Mum, under instruction from Charlie whom I spoke to on the phone last night. He asked me to post a blog to let the fans know that Charlie and Helen were setting sail for New Zealand at 12 o'clock midday Fiji time - that's midnight yesterday here in the UK . So I assume they are now on their way on Yamana and expecting to arrive in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, in ten days' time. They waited for some good weather and are hoping that they'll have an easy sail.

Tuesday 28 October 2008

Hello again from the Sugar City

Helen: Yesterday was Diwali. In Edinburgh, where it's almost conversation-worthy when you see someone who's not white they're so few and far between, Diwali is an excuse for a big outdoor party - they build a huge bonfire and burn two enormous effigies of Hindu gods. There's lots of loud Bhangra music and dancing and curry flows all night. At the medical school my mother teaches at in London, the Hindu students prepare an all-singing-all-dancing extravaganza for months before the big day. So, I think we should be forgiven for thinking that, in a city of 45,000 people, half of whom (at least) are Indian, Diwali should have been a big deal. It wasn't. It really wasn't!! Apparently people decorate their homes with lights (and there is a competition to out do your neighbours like there is in the UK with Xmas lights) but that's in the residential areas. In town, shopkeepers had put nightlights outside their doors, with orange flower blumes, and they had chalked drawings/stencilled patterns in coloured flour on the pavements (presumably for good luck). But that was it. So, C and I sat in the cockpit of Yamana with our beer, listening to Bhangra watching the fireworks erupt around the city (reminded us of watching the fireworks from Calton Hill on Nov 5). I think it's interesting that people seem to make the biggest fuss about their cultural identity when they are the minority (Edinburgh and London) and not when their the majority as they are here (it's the same in the Borders in the UK - they sound much more Scottish in the Borders than they do in Inverness - probably because they are closer to the English and want to emphasise their differences?) People are strange.

Other things to tell you (you'll have to endure bullet format I'm afraid as everyone else is champing at the bit to get to lunch):

- we went to the cinema on Monday after all - we plumped for a spoof called Disaster Movie instead of the horror flick (I just can't cope - they give me nightmares for months) or the Bollywood film (C just downright refused). Don't go and see it. For the love of God, don't go and see it. It was so unimaginably bad that we actually left half way through. We have never left the cinema before the end of a film before, despite talking about it often. This time we did and it felt good :). We've taken two long bus journeys recently too (back and forth from Suva/Lautoka) and been treated to in-bus 'entertainment' both times - where do all these awful films come from? I just didn't realise they were out there. I thought it cost millions and millions to make a film. How can there be so many bad ones out there? Who pays for them? Who buys them? C also thinks the same about the music here - it is drivel - it really is - it's all soft R&B rubbish. But then, I pointed out to him that if you spent a few months in the UK and only hung out in places where they played popular radio (shops, hotels etc...) you might think that all British people liked Will Young and Britney Spears...

- we went to the dodgiest tattooist ever in Suva - it was dark, creepy. Oooohhhh horrid. God knows what we would have ended up with if we had got a tattoo! Probably some nasty disease... (Interestingly, tattooing doesn't seem to be a very big thing here - it's huge in French Polynesia and Samoa, but not really here - girls used to get their upper thighs tattooed as a rite of passage to woman hood, but, you guessed it, this got banned when the missionaries arrived and it never really got reintroduced like it did in Polynesia)

- we finally managed to find (after much effort) a copy of Time magazine in Suva - so now we're all up to date with Obama vs McCain... Fingers crossed. Also found an old copy of American Scientific which C thought would be interesting, but after a couple of hours reading it he was seething that it was all 'soft science' and worse than none at all!! There's no pleasing some people...

OK that's all. Did a massive shop today (at the spectacular market) and now all stocked up with tins and fresh veggies for the big passage. Apparently the weather looks good for leaving tomorrow, so if you don't hear from us for a while we're probably out there sailing!

Bye for now
Lots of love
H&Cxxx

PS. I realised yesterday that it's just over a year since I left work (Oct 26th). Can't decide if that seems like a short time or a long time away....
PPS Lautoka is the Sugar City - they are famous for their sugar cane here - its piled high by the side of the road, and gets shipped into town on a minature railway. V cute.

Sunday 26 October 2008

Suva

Helen: Here we are in the Big Smoke - well, everything is relative - this is the biggest city in the Pacific...and it's not even as big as Edinburgh! Still, have managed to get new glasses (woohoo, can actually see clearly for the first time in several months) and been out to dinner. Thinking about going to the cinema too...but can't decide between average Hollywood horror flick or Bollywood film - think when in Rome we ought to do what the Romans, or in our case, Indians, do...but having a hard time convincing Mr P who thinks (probably rightly) that it will be full of dancing and singing. Never been his strong point!

Thought we'd get to do some shopping too...but have discovered cameras and laptops are fiendishly expensive here compared to the internet so will wait. Oh well. Oh, and we went to the Fiji museum too - C predictably made a beeline for the exhibits on canabalism. Strangely, even though the museum was a history of Fiji, there was no mention anywhere of the huge Indian influx which happened 150 years ago.

Not much more to tell - heading back to Yamana in Lautoka tomorrow.

Hxx

PS bus journeys here are most amusing - great big Fijian ladies next to tiny wee Indian ladies - makes me think of Fattypuffs and Thinnifers :)

Friday 24 October 2008

Lautoka

Helen: Short post today - not feeling particularly inspired - but thought I ought to write to let you know that we're not in Suva after all. No, we did what cruisers are wont to do - we listened to gossip on the cruisers' grapevine that said Suva was a big, stinky, rainy waste of time, so at the last minute we went north instead of south from Ovalau, dodged numerous reefs (God knows how people survived here without GPS) and ended up in Lautoka on the west coast. It's a big, bustling Indian city full of palm trees, colourful saris and yummy curry smells. Not much to do here, but people watching is fun and it should be a good place to spend Diwali - the Hindu festival of Light which is on Tuesday. We might even set off a few out of date flares to join in with the merriment.

C and I might embark on our own overland trip to Suva for a couple of days (not sensing much enthusiasm from Mr P though - he is 100% focused on getting to NZ at the moment and anything not furthering that cause is surplus to requirements) and then it's off for a few days swimming at Musket Cove (near the island where Tom Hanks filmed Castaway apparently) before we finally set sail for NZ (Horribly aware that I've said that several times now - hope we're not still here for Xmas!)

OK, said it would be short
Lots of love
Hx

Tuesday 21 October 2008

Fish and moldy cheddar

Helen: It's been a while since the last post because we've been out and about exploring remote Fijian islands - some of them are so removed from civilisation that the settlements don't even have electricity let alone internet access. One place we stopped (Kioa island) had a generator that ran on coconut oil, and they only had electricity from 6-11pm. This didn't stop them offering to turn the generator on as an exception for us so that our American friends could watch the Presidential debate betweeen McCain and Obama on TV! (Alice, the skipper's wife, keeps calling Obama 'Osama' - bit of an unfortunate slip of the tongue!) A bit further up the coast we stopped at Albert Cove which was even more remote - only a handful of thatched 'bure' (houses) and no power at all. But, the women were still enormous. Like huge beached walruses. How they manage to get, and stay, so fat is beyond me, when it seems that all they have to eat is fish, papaya, taro and banana. I guess they just don't do any exercise at all as there is nothing to do?

Now we're in Levuka, on the island of Ovalau, about 80 miles from the capital Suva. We were all excited about arriving as the guidebook waxed lyrical about historic buildings (this town used to be the capital of Fiji) and things to do. (One of the historic buildings, The Masonic Lodge, was burned to a crisp in the 2000 coup becasue the Methodist church told the locals to revolt as the Masons were in league with the devil and had tunnels from the Lodge in Levuka, through the centre of the earth to Masonic HQ in Scotland. Surprisingly, the guidebook says, these rumours turned out not to be true! (As another aside, when we were in Savu savu we heard that the only people allowed to hunt and eat turtles were Methodists so some enterprising bod had printed a load of t-shirts that said 'Save a turtle - eat a Methodist'. Unsurprisingly, these t-shirts were promptly banned)). So, where was I? Oh yes, full of excitement for arriving in Levuka... What the guidebook didn't tell us was that the whole town smelled of fish!! There is a big fish processing plant upwind of us, and, in the same way that Edinburgh smelled of hops/marmite/baked potatoes from the brewing, this place smells of fish. Reminds me of Unhygenix from Asterix...

C is causing quite a stir here with his dreads and tattoos - but everyone is v friendly. It's much more Fijian here than Indian. C said yesterday that Fijian faces are much more African looking than Polynesian - sure there's some interesting history there.

OK, that's probably enough for now. Heading out to explore Ovalau today and then setting off for Suva tomorrow night (we think). Then it's provisioning and getting ready for The Big One - we'll be watching the weather closely and could leave for NZ any time in the next couple of weeks. Exciting...and scary...

Lots of love
H&Cxx

PS. Meant to say earlier - being on Yamana is a bit like being on a Vogon spaceship at times :)

PPS. C just reminded me of something else I have to tell you about - when I first came to stay with the Panks all those years ago I never used to get the hundreds of in jokes (inspired by Blackadder, Reggie Perrin, Monty Python etc...). Well, I didn't get where I am today without making up a few of my own - Yamana is now well and truely Pankified and probably a complete mystery to the uninitiated. When we first got on Ruben had designed a 'ranking system' based on cheeses - from 'Moldy Cheddar' through 'Camel-Bear' and 'Rock-Fall' all the way to the heady heights of 'Wensildale'. After a week of promotions and demotions on this system at his whim, C created his own based on cars, with Ferrari F50 at the top and Trabantz at the bottom. A month on and we have 5 different ranking systems (for 6 people!): Cheese, Cars, Supermarket chains, Flowers and Fruit. The latest area of interest causing promotions and demotions is ability to cut slices of bread - within specifications (eg. 5mm) and with as little variation as possible. Pete is today searching for the vernier calipers so that he can adjudicate more accurately than the ruler allows.

Sunday 12 October 2008

Treasure hunting and other thoughts

Helen: Still not feeling 100% and now C has joined in too. In fact the whole boat is awash with snotty tissues - we arrived back to find the rest of the crew had got ill too. Yuk. What I really need now is my Virgin Atlantic pyjamas (for lounging about in when I'm sick) and my Asterix tapes (yup, TAPES - remember them?). Ever since I was a little girl whenever I felt ill my mummy used to put on tapes of Willie Rushton reading Asterix adventures. Wonderful stuff - Asterix rescuing Getafix from the Circus in Rome or Julius Cesar beating the Brits because they refused to fight after 5pm or at the weekends, and kept stopping for 'hot water' breaks as they hadn't discovered tea yet.... Only problem was, I usually fell asleep before the end of a side, so I only know the first parts of each tape - never the endings!

But, never ones for sitting still we've still been out exploring. There's a great web site called www.geocaching.com where you can look up hidden treasure. People hide treasure and then enter the 7 figure GPS coordinates so you can go and find it. You take something along and swap it for some of the hidden goodies. Did it with the kids yesterday - ended up in a lady's garden digging with her, her son, her sister and, finally the gardener (who had found the treasure and moved it!!) Lots of fun - very Indiana Jones :)

Two other noteworthy things have happened - I dragged C along to 'Bollywood Night' at the yacht club - I thought it would be lots of Indian music, food and dance, with lots of locals and cruisers. Oh no. Got there (wearing my fantastic new trousers, that C says make me look like a genie) and didn't recognise a single person. Felt a bit like being back at work and turning up at a conference. Took a couple of deep breaths and then just launched myself into a few conversations. What a wierd bunch of people! It turns out they are all the ex pats who own all the resorts on the island. You never see them in town, but they have their own seperate community. None of them are sailors, but they seem to congregate around the Yacht Club. None of them were very friendly either so we didn't stay long - but it was interesting to see this whole other culture that we didn't know existed here. Made us wonder if we could ever really live anywhere other than the UK (or somewhere similar in culture) - if we did would we end up gravitating towards the same ex pat community? Hope not...

The other thing that happened was that we met a man who really challenged my thoughts about him. He is a white South African, and has seen some horrific things in his life - rape, torture, war, family members murdered, that sort of thing. In the course of talking to him about these things he uttered the words 'I hate all Blacks. The only good Black is a dead one'. I didn't really know what to say or do after that. My middle class upbringing didn't really have an answer. C challenged him on it by saying he didn't like to be judged by the colour of his skin and so didn't like doing that to others, but we soon steered the conversation onto less controversial topics. But it made me think. In other respects the man was pleasant enough. I could have spent an evening chatting to him. But, knowing what I know now about his unrepentent attitudes, I'm not sure I could just gloss over that part of his character and carry on as normal. C and the rest of the Yamana crew said 'oh, well, it's understandable after what's happened to him' - maybe it is. And maybe I'd've turned out the same way if that had happened to me. But, surely, that doesn't excuse his attitudes? Hope I'm making myself clear - it's really got me thinking....

Right, time to go. We're off to a few little anchorages and should be in Suva by the end of the month in time for Diwali (when we're going to set off some of our out of date flares - hope they won't be noticed among the other fireworks for the Festival of Light!)

Bye for now

Hxx

Sunday 5 October 2008

Feeling snotty in Taveuni :(

Helen: Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I haven't been sick for at least a year and now, one measly week after the kids on our boat went to school with OTHER PEOPLE and came home all snotty, I have a horrid, stinking cold. My head hurts, my nose is running and I have a sore throat. Not a happy camper today :( But a camper nonetheless - we are having a week off from the boat (yes, that would be a 'holiday from a holiday') and have made it to the island of Taveuni. We're camping about 6 feet from the high tide water mark on a beautiful white sandy beach with a reef and clear blue sea. Only problem is it rains. It rained all last night and most of today. It's not like this on the main island. Just here. Think it's because of the big mountain here... We couldn't go hiking today as the roads were all slippery from the rain, but we did get taken to see the 180 meridian. Not the world's most exciting tourist destination...but we had our picture taken by the sign (and then C got his handheld GPS out and found out where the 'real' 180 degree line is - about 20 feet to the right (but then, this is the same handheld GPS that told us we were 12 metres above sea level one time when we were sitting on the beach with our toes in the water...)

It's lovely to have some time off the boat. The people we're with are great...but there's only so much time you can spend together without going mad. C has been alright this last week as he's been fixing the rudder with Pete. They get on really well and also have a job to do - I don't have any focus though, and not much in common with Alice, I reckon she feels my offering to help clean or sew or whatever is my way of saying the boat is dirty or needs repairing. It's not like that at all, I just want to help, but maybe she just feels that I'm trying to take over her home. Anyway, for whatever reason, I've been bored silly the last week (there's only so much sewing one woman can do) so it's good to have a project again. It has made me think about what I want to do when I get home too - made me realise that not having anything to do is not fun. At all. Neither is working all the hours that God sends. But doing nothing sucks - which is not an intuitive thing to say and an important lesson to have learned. So, as is so often the way, compromise is the way forward.

Actually, we're learning things about ourselves all the time. For example - Mr P needs to be less negative. We got the bus and a ferry here, and all C could say about the journey was that the bus was late and overfull and dusty and uncomfortable. It wasn't until other people started being seasick that he started to perk up (when I pointed this out to him though he said 'well, I'm not nice, am I - you knew that') I, on the other hand, tried to enjoy the different smells, sensations, views and ways of life. For instance - to you and me, a packed lunch is a sandwich, an apple and a packet of crisps or something similar. Out here, even on a dusty busy bus, lunch is a full on curry with roti, served out of several containers onto plates with knives and forks. Fried fish at 8.30 in the morning anyone?!

OK, probably better go. Sounds like it's stopped raining.

Lots of love
H&Cxx

PS did I mention that I'm writing this at a computer in a supermarket? Wierd.

Sunday 28 September 2008

Bula!!

Helen: Oh my eyes. Think I must've been at this typing lark for nigh on 3 hours. Which makes me very sad. I know. But I think I needed some down time to recover from my yummy, but v filling, curry at lunch. Superb. It's been awful the last few days smelling the scrumptious Indian smells wafting out to the boat but not being allowed any as we caught too many fish on the way here (3 in an hour and a half) and our fridge was full - skipper said (quite rightly) we had to eat it before we could go out for grub.

We did have brekkie out the other day though - there are hot springs just up the road that the locals use for cooking - they are literally boiling - so we took eggs up there and had boiled eggs and soliders. Yum.

In between these gastronomic feats, C has been exerting his manliness and has been fixing the rudder. Which I secretly think he loves as it gives him an excuse not to go sightseeing or shopping. I insisted he went shopping today though as he needed a new pair of shorts. To be fair he's needed a new pair of shorts for about 2 months, but I've been patching them and turning a blind eye to the stains. Now the patches have holes though, so there was no escaping a trip to the shops.

Not much more to report - still loving it here - going to visit the anti meridan next week - 180 degrees - about as far from home as it's possible to be. We have a picture of C and me standing one leg either side of the meridian in Greenwich so it'll be fun to get a photo of the same on the other side of the world!

okey dokey, toodle pip

Hxx

Thursday 25 September 2008

Fiji

Helen: thought you'd like to know that we got here ok. Getting off the 300ft tow rope onto a mooring was 'interesting' but we managed it and the boys are now trying to get the rudder off the boat for mending (lots of welding, axle grinding and epoxying apparently - they have a 'hooker' to use to do the underwater stuff - basically like diving without tanks - you use a pipe instead, connected to a compressor - there are 3 pipes so there can be two guys doing the work and one person with his hands on his hips shaking his head. Very important role in maintenance tasks, that is)

First impressions of Fiji are great. People are friendly, town has a great vibe - lots of music and good smells in the streets - there is a vibrant Indian culture here - they are descendants of indentured labourers brought here to work the plantations 150 years ago. So there are lots of places to get cheap curry and tailoring and beautiful saris. Apparently it's not all happy families all of the time though and there is some ethnic tension. For example, on the immigration cards, Indian Fijians have to call themselves 'Indian' rather than 'Fijian' even if they've been born and bred here for several generations...

Right - have to go - just bought fresh bread for lunch and the smell is driving me mad!

Lots of love
Hxx

PS meant to add a little story to my rant about churches last time - at the end of the service we went to there was a collection - but not like the anonymous ones I've seen in the UK. Oh no. People were called to the front by name, their donations were written down in a book and then read out at the end. Unbelievable!
PPS My mother's asked for the answers to the pub quiz questions - can't remember what they were now, but the sugarbowl question is Cuba, and the largest stadium is Prague.

Wednesday 24 September 2008

The Jinx Twins are back in action and on their way to Fiji

24 September 2008
Approaching Savu Savu/Lau Group

Helen: Hurrah! Back on a boat. Both feel much more settled and at home now we´re back on Yamana. Spent a few days messing about in Tonga, and, while it´s still not our number 1 holiday destination, we both warmed to the place a lot. We saw whales (proper David Attenborough style, mother and calf jumping (technical term is apparently ´breeching´) out of the water and twisting in mid air to show us their silvery tummies, for about an hour. Amazing :) ), hung out on our own deserted beaches (whilst trying to avoid the advances of an agressive and over protective billy goat), and went to church in the most remote feeling village I´ve ever visited (even C, can you believe it! To be fair, he only went because I asked him to, and he left half way through, but still, he put his shirt on and came along - apparently it´s one of the ´must do´things in Tonga. The singing certainly was pretty good but it´s weird - this village is so out of the way that their main street is mud, they share one telephone between 350 people at the village hall, and they rely on solar panels, kerosene and candles - and yet they have 5 churches!! One school (run by a Peace Corps volunteer), a clinic with no nurses and 5 churches. Bonkers. Every one dresses up in their Sunday best, complete with hats, and then has to go into church bare foot as they have clods of mud on their sandals!

Actually, the whole thing reminded me and Mr P of Monty Python - ´Who are you? The PFJ?´, ´God no, we hate the PLJ, fucking splitters, we´re the JPF´. We went to the Free Church of Tonga, and just across the road, having a (quarter full) service at the exact same time was the Tonga Free Church or something similar. Crazy, crazy.

Anyway, we´ve now left Tonga behind us and are sailing on our way to Fiji. We´re just coming into the Lau group as I type and should be in Savu Savu by tomorrow evening...as long as we don´t break our tow ropes. Yes, that´s right folks, the jinx twins strike again. At 0730 yesterday morning on my watch (just as I was feeling pleased with myself for having an uneventful watch that was nearly over) the skipper came up into the cockpit...just as the autopilot failed...but then it turned out to be more serious than that. It wasn´t that Bob (the autopilot, of course - living with two kids, everything has a name, Rosie the radar, Zippy the dinghy, Herman the pet beetle I found in my bed and was kept in a jam jar until he was killed with kindness - squashed by his lunch - a chickpea) was having an off day - no, the rudder stock had come away from the rudder, and, when Pete valiantly jumped in the water to check, it was just flapping around aimlessly. Bugger. So anyway, 4 of our friends who were also crossing with us came to the rescue and we´re now being towed to Fiji - apparently some of the most difficult to navigate waters in the world!

Right, that´s enough rambling, will write again soon
H&Cxx

Sunday 14 September 2008

We are the (pub quiz) champions

Helen: Awww you guys are great. So you do read the blog after all. I now have a big smile on my face. Did I tell you we won the pub quiz the other day? First pub quiz I have ever won in my life. Ever. Embarassed to say that most of the reason we won is that I had a blinding round of pop trivia. No, I didn't know 'Which country is the sugarbowl of the world?' or 'Where the biggest stadium in the world is' or even 'What did Chinese people eat a pound of to commit suicide'. But, I DID know who wrote the music to the Lion King and who sang Living the Vida Loca. So there.

Didn't go out last night though as Mr P needed an early night. And then he couldn't get to sleep from about 2am onwards. Thinks he can't sleep on land now cause it doesn't move about like a boat!!

Went yacht racing yesterday too - came last though as our genoa broke - if it hadn't, obviously, we would've had them all.

Not much else to tell you about I'm afraid - lots of reading, sewing and drinking. Looking forward to heading out to Fiji...

Lots of love
H&Cxxxxxxx

Wednesday 10 September 2008

People are strange

Helen: I wanted to write this before I forget - actually, I've been meaning to for ages but have been struggling with the words to express what I mean... It's so frustrating traveling. It really is. The concept of 'customer service' just doesn't seem to exist outside of, for want of better words 'Western culture' (an Australian described themselves as 'European' the other day to make the distinction from being polynesian - wierd). The only places we've been since we left home where we've had really good service have been owned by expats. And that makes a huge huge difference to how we feel - if people are friendly and helpful and provide good, clean, efficient services it makes you feel good - and the converse is true - the times we've been miserable on this trip, it's guaranteed that we've been in dingy accommodation with poor food trying to deal with grumpy people. But it's not like the locals aren't capable of good customer service - it just seems that it's not part of their culture. Someone suggested that that's because of the climate here - in more temperate climates people have to work hard all summer to feed themselves all year - here food just grows without much effort and it's warm all year so shelter isn't so much of a problem either. This means people literally don't have to work that hard...so they don't! Which is surely the state that most people in The West want to achieve? A life of leisure. And yet, when I see people doing it, it drives me mad and I want to shout at them 'why don't you DO something and work harder'. Crazy! And it's a particular problem in Tonga - every man gets 8 acres from the King automatically, and foreigners can't buy land, only lease it. So all the locals lease part of their land, and live off the money with no need to work for money.

Right, sociology lecture over. Only one other thing to say - saw this great saying in the loo of our favourite bar here: People who say something can't be done should stay out of the way of the people doing it!

OK, off for tea with our friends, and then to use a dremel tool to make buttons out of an oyster shell for the shirt I'm making C. Pictures to follow soon - the collar went ok, but I'm not looking forward to the button holes...

H&Cxxxxxxxx

PS ought to mention, briefly, our scooter expedition - I fell off...twice. Grazed my knee and elbow (and ego) but otherwise ok. Dented the scooter...and our plan of riding home on two motorbikes. Time for plan B....

Monday 8 September 2008

Racing, getting lost, unkingly behaviour, pigs and stolen kisses

Helen: (don't know why I bother to write that - Mr P never writes the blog! Actually, I'm beginning to think no-one even reads it - no comments for weeks and weeks and weeks :( is there anyone out there?)

Still in Tonga - but things have taken a turn for the better. We were disheartened by staying in a not-very-nice hostel (soft bed = back ache, lots of clutter, greasy breakfast & overbearing host) and having not very much to do (there's only so much reading/sewing/watching bad movies that a person can stand) - basically it sucked being somewhere where the main attraction is sailing to remote anchorages when you don't have a boat. But...we met a friendly American chap over coffee a few days ago and he took us sailing to a small island with him for a few days. Great fun (apart from getting hopelessly lost - all the small, green islands begin to look the same after a while and the electronic chart is no use - it usually has us sailing over the land...)

Actually, both C and I breathed a sigh of relief when we stepped back on a boat - it felt so much more homely than the hostel - maybe we have turned into salty sea dogs after all! We even went racing with Wayne on Friday - he has a racing boat and is rather competitive (we had been warned by other cruisers about this...) so we were a little nervous - he is, after all, a single hander, so not used to having 15 people on his boat - but, all worries were unnecessary - we had a wonderful sail and a photo finish - we were pipped to the post at the final whistle (but would have won on handicap...) Turns out yacht racing is pretty much the same deal as dinghy racing - lots of shouting at other boats, constant except there are a lot more people involved, including several who are 'rail meat' (in other words, balast)

And the other good thing that's happened in the last couple of days is that we're going to Fiji after all. Didn't think we were going to make it, but our skipper changed his mind - turns out he's had enough of Tonga too. This place is actually pretty depressing. Can't remember if I told you or not, but they crowned a new king a couple of months ago (can still see all the bunting and signs on the streets) - they nearly bankrupted the county with the celebrations...but he lives in London and doesn't really like coming back here. Apparently, when he turned up at the more northern (remote and poor) island group, the islanders put on a huge show for him...and he sent a representative instead because he couldn't be bothered to go. And when he did show up he was in a tracksuit instead of his ceremonial robes. Hmmmm.

We do like the pigs though - they are everywhere and very very cute, especially the really small ones. There aren't too many feral cats and dogs though, not like other places we've been - one of the other yachties we met this week is a vet and she's travelled through the Pacific treating people's animals - mostly neutering/spaying cats and dogs and treating for toxicity and worms. Very necessary job and it means she gets to meet the locals.

Right, time to go - have hired scooters - I've already fallen off once and stubbed my toe and we only drove round the corner (that was the problem in fact - straight lines are ok - corners are more tricky!)

Looking forward to getting to Fiji
H&Cxx

PS Forgot to tell you about the crazy social rules here - Tonga is v religious (surprise surprise - the Missionaries have a lot to answer for!) so people wear long shorts/skirts and tops that cover their shoulders (I only have 3 of those!) and you're not even supposed to hold hands in the street. C and I steal a quick kiss when we think no-ones looking!!

Tuesday 2 September 2008

RAIN

Helen: Well, I'm glad we didn't come here from NZ for some winter sun, like some poor people we met yesterday. Cos it's RAINING. Proper tropical doesn't stop raining for hours and you get soaked to the skin if you so much as stick a toe outside rain. So we're hiding out in an internet cafe writing to you lot, drinking espresso (so good they apparently export it to Italy) and eating banana muffins. Certainly not going for a scooter trip around the island today.

Forgot to tell you that on our way to Tonga, even though we're not yet at 180 degrees, we did in fact, pass over the international date line. Little bump, and there we were, smack bang in the middle of Sunday when minutes before we'd been enjoying Saturday. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun! Well, we've spent the last 5 months or so gaining an extra day hour by hour, so it was going to have to disappear at some point. We're now 13 hours ahead of GMT rather than 11 hours behind - which means we're actually quite contactable for a change - and we have a local sim card as we'll be in Tonga for a while. So, if you want to talk to us, email us for the number and get dialing :)

Right, C needs the computer now - round 3 in the saga of Charlie vs First Direct. Honestly - no matter how many times we tell them that we're travelling round the world and to expect transactions in far flung corners of the globe, they are always blocking our cards and asking us to phone them. PHONE them. As if that was a reasonable thing to ask someone to do. Hmmmm.

Hope all is well at home in Blighty - from messages we've been getting though it's as wet with you as it is here :(

H&Cxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Monday 1 September 2008

Tonga

Helen: So we made it to Tonga. Or, more properly, the Kingdom of Tonga. There are pictures of the King in the streets, so I think they take it quite seriously. They just had a coronation in July - King George V.

Oh, it's such a relief to be in Tonga. We're nearly there! Have to say, first impressions of Tonga aren't amazing - looks pretty much like most other tropical islands we've been to so far, except there aren't any mountains :( Apparently most of what there is to see is uninhabited islands and whales. Both of which you need a boat for. And now we're land bound for 6 weeks til we hook up with Yamana again for the trip to NZ. Bugger! Oh well - we met some yachties this morning at the internet cafe (where else? Internet cafes, laundries and happy hours are, indeed, the spiritual homes of most boat people) and one offered to take us whale watching on Thursday - apparently there are hundreds of Humpback whales here - they come every year from the Arctic to have their babies. Should be amazing to see them...but also a bit scary - we'll be on a 47 foot boat and the whales are often 80 foot long!

We're staying in a funny little lodge - bit like staying in someone's front room - the lady's a little eccentric, but very friendly. She wears normal clothes...but there are lots of people here who wear traditional 'lava lavas' (sarongs) with a kind of woven mat over the top - hard to describe - I'll try to get a photo so you understand!

That's all for now
Lots of love
H&Cxx

Thursday 28 August 2008

Yamana tours the Tumbleweed island

Helen: We had such a cool day yesterday - we hired a 15 seater mini van and Yamana tours went on the road with 5 adults and 4 children. Yes we survived the day with 4 9-11 year olds - they were actually really good and only started to get a bit wearisome on the final stretch when they were all knackered and tanked up on crisps and icecream! But, minivan and children aside, yesterday was cool becuase this place is made of limestone...which means there are cracks, crevices, gullies, arches, caverns and all other such formations all over the place. We trekked through some crazy lunar landscapes - all spiky pillars and pointy bits (reminded me of Return to Oz - kept turning round quickly expecting to see some of the rocks morphing into faces - the sentinels of the Gnome King - if you haven't seen Return to Oz get it out and see it - it's awesome - saw another great film the other day - Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp - C liked it even though it was a musical - not sure all the throat slitting was quite approriate for a 9 yr old though!)
Where was I? Oh yes, crevices and gullies - we found a hidden chasm that had sand and palm trees inside steep sided limestone cliff walls - was totally hidden from above - looked like the set to The Lost World - it was so hidden you could imagine dinosaurs still lived there (but they'd have to be v wee dinasours - the whole island is so tiny!) C was in heaven as he took his climbing shoes with him and spent all day bouldering... So much more fun than the day before when we tried cylcing round the island in the midday heat with no shade and worse, no lunch. There are so few tourists here that there aren't many restaurants and shops - the only 'shop' we found outside of the main town was essentially a house just the same as all the others. No sign outside - not even a Coca Cola sign... The only reason we discovered it at all was because I resorted to the time honoured tradition of sitting down with a map - it's an international signal for 'help me, I'm a tourist'. Sure enough someone stopped and explained that the house with the crisscrossed balustrade was infact a shop. So we had icream, coke and chocolate for lunch!
Actually, the 'shop' wasn't just like all the other houses...becuase it was inhabited - so many of the houses here are deserted - it's really sad - the population used to be 5000 in the 60s, but people have been steadily leaving since then to live in NZ or Australia. Now the population is around 1300, but people leave their houses here to go to wrack and ruin becuase if they demolish them they lose their claim to the land...
Right, that's enough for now. We're leaving this evening as there's some weather moving in at the weekend - 6m seas - don't want to be caught out in that. There was some talk about leaving tomorrow morning...but sailors just don't leave harbours on Fridays!
Lots of love
will write when we get to Tonga (240 miles so should be 2 days...)
H&Cxx

Tuesday 26 August 2008

Niue Rocks

Helen: Got to be quick but thought you'd like to know that we have arrived safely in Niue - go look it up on an Atlas - tiny limestone rock 200 miles from Tonga. All the limestone means there's lots of crevices and caves and canyons to explore (well, if you're not a great big wuss like me). We're sticking to hiring bicycles today instead. I aslo wimped out of snorkelling yesterday as the sea is infested with highly poisonous sea snakes - apparently they 'aren't agressive' and you'd have to 'stick your finger down it's throat to get it to bite you'...but that's what people say about Rotweillers so I'm not taking any chances!

It really is quiet and relaxed here. Totally different from the bustle of Rarotonga. They only get a cargo boat once a month - so if they forget to order the icecream they run out! C has got another crazy drivers licence (to add to his Cook Islands one) - the Niue licence is covered in pictures of palm trees!

Our passage here was great - bit windy for a couple of nights and then, predictably, not enough wind, but the Yamana crew are great. Was a bit worried that sailing with 2 kids would be hell on earth - but they are bright and really fun to play with! Olive and I made a stuffed multicoloured parrot over the course of 4 days, and Ruben and Charlie made a hot air balloon out of beer cans, night lights and tissue paper (when they finally tried to launch it though it burned through the string before it could take flight - oh well, back to the drawing board...) Talk about blue vs pink!

Right, better go otherwise we don't stand a chance at getting round the island in a day - especially the speed C cycles at - they don't call him 'lightening' for nothing...

Lots of love
H&Cxxx

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Broken glasses and mended shorts

Helen: It wasn't my fault. It really wasn't. I put them down for two minutes and then a small child picked them up and they snapped. Doubly annoying because I really liked them, and they were my only pair. Will probably have to wait til NZ for a new pair. Humph. But...on the positive side, my sewing has been going really well. I've fixed C's beloved old blue Beefeater t-shirt and his everyday shorts (using a pair of our new skippers old board shorts - I even managed to make a headband for myself out of the same material so now C and I look like something out of The Sound of Music with our matching clothes...). And, best news of all, I've pretty much made myself a dress out of the hibiscus material I bought in Papeete. It fits perfectly...which means that getting it on and off is a real palaver. Will have to put a zip in or something. I spent all day yesterday on the sewing machine - took me and C at least an hour to try to set it up and, of course, there were a few moments when I screamed at it, but, all in all, it was a pretty uneventful session as sewing machine sessions go. I did run the batteries on the boat down though. Ooops.
We're heading out for Niue (world's smallest independent nation I think) today - should take 5 days. We should have a couple of days there and then it's on to Tonga - grandma is visiting Yamana so we have 6 weeks in Tonga on our own... Our first couple of days on board Yamana have been great (broken glasses incident excepted) - we even got a bedtime story last night - Alice is reading Lord of the Rings to the kids - but Rubin was so exhausted (because C had had them running around all day trying to make crutches out of odd bits of wood for their friend who had broken her leg!!) - he fell asleep before the Ring was destroyed... C even promised to read (and has since read) the first HP book - predictably he said it was 'rubbish'. Speaking of which - we went to see Indy 4 at the cinema on Weds - I was so excited...but it was awful :( - when did Indiana Jones ever, EVER, have anything to do with Aliens? Think Lucas and Spielberg got their films confused and thought they were making another Star Wars or ET. More money on scripts please, and less on bad special effects! Oh well, the whole cinema experience was a laugh. They wouldn't even run the film til they had at least 10 people, and then they just stopped it half way through for an interval!
Right, that's enough rambling - will write again, if we can, when we get to Niue
Lots of love
Hxx

Thursday 14 August 2008

Glow in the dark graves

Helen: Still loving Rarotonga. Been hiking twice, snorkelling, diving (where we were accompanied by Tommy the Trigger fish - he followed us around with his mouth open in the hope of being fed...) and even managed to hire Lasers (small one person dinghies - for me it was just like being back at school - I started to remember all the tricks we used to do - C wasn't very impressed when I started seeing how close to him I could tack, or when I practised the art of stealing someone else's wind...Oh well - dinghy sailing must be the only thing in the world I can do better than he can :) )

Rarotonga seems to be the Menorca or Costa del Sol of the Southern Hemisphere (except nicer) as there are lots of Aus and NZ tourists here and lots of bars and clubs. Even got C dancing last night. Only problem is that we have to keep reminding ourselves that, although everyone else is on holiday, we're not! This is our life - and we can't afford to go out every night!! But it has been fun so far. We had a BBQ at our hostel the other night and ended up drunkenly watching the Olympics at 1am. We have a pretty international crowd (Canadians, a German, a Swede and us Brits) so there was lots of friendly competition. I love the Olympics. When else do you get to watch women's weightlifting, or road cycle racing, or archery or table tennis or countless other obscure sports and be proudly patriotic about them?

Right, going to have to go soon as I'm being bitten to death by mossies. But that's about the only bad thing about this island. Other wise we're in love with the place - sunshine, motorbikes, tatoos, sailing - doesn't get much better than this! And, to top it all, it even gets cold here. Sounds odd, but after so long in the tropics it's nice to get a bit of variety in the climate. We've both worn our long trousers (pants - learning lots of Canadian English at the moment) and long sleeved tops and wooly hats, and we've used our sleeping bags. Knew there was a reason we've lugged them 10,000 miles around the world...Actually, it's a good thing the climate is changing - all our more summery clothes are beginning to look decidedly tramp like - I spent all day yesterday sewing patches on C's t-shirts and shorts. He now has a big flowery hand print on his bottom...

One final thing to tell you about before I go - all the houses here have family burial plots in their front gardens. I kid you not. They usually have at least 2 graves, but sometimes half a dozen. They're all above ground, rather than in the ground, as to put earth on a woman's body is considered very bad form. So people get buried in concrete tombs instead. It's very odd to see these graves outside people's houses for me as that's not at all what people do at home...but it does mean that they are nearly all very well tended, which is good - they nearly all have fresh flowers on - some even have 'glow in the dark' flowers that you can see at night...

OK, time to go
Lots of love
H & Cxx

Monday 11 August 2008

Photos

Helen: Forgot to say - we've finally found a decent internet connection, so there are lots of new photos at www.flickr.com/charlieandhelen...
hxx

Thursday 7 August 2008

They speak English and have Indian restaurants here!

Helen: Well that says it all really - how could a Brit be happier on holiday?! We've had a productive day today - C has hired a motorbike and booked another tattoo session to fill in some of the gaps on his arm, and I've collected a mountain of leaflets (Daddy would be proud) about what to do and reserved a table at the local curry house for supper.

We arrived yesterday evening with Candine - the first few days were a bit rough (35-45 knots) but then the wind disappeared and we had to motor the whole last day - typical! Lots of fun though - music courtesy of Anton's guitar (but if I hear Paul Simon or Dire Straits again before Christmas it'll be too soon - the CD player just plays continuously and no one could be bothered to change it!) Actually, everyone on board is so laid back that no one could be bothered to do much so I played mother for a week and cooked and cleaned - the boys were pretty grumpy that I made them eat vegetables instead of pancakes. I'm a pancake nazi apparently. But we had pancakes today - made by a Canadian the way they should be. Smothered in real maple syrup. Yum.

Really really enjoying Rarotonga so far - the people are great, scenery is stunning (C's already spied some rocks for climbing...) and they speak English with a heart meltingly relaxing Kiwi accent. Nothing is too much trouble.

Right, gotta dash.
Lots of love
H&C (both clean for the first time in a week - oh that feels good :) and we're doing laundry tomorrow. Wooohooo!!)

Saturday 2 August 2008

Time to go!!

Helen: Not much to report - have just been relaxing - walking, watching films, eating baguettes - even played the Name Game last night. But thought you might like this little gem: my seasickness pills (Stugeron) say that as well as treating motion sickness and dizziness they can be used to treat 'symptoms of a cerebrovascular origin including...unsociability and irritability disorders' - why did no one tell me about this before!!
Ok - got to get stowing - we're off to Rarotonga this morning - nearly left yesterday until we remembered it was a Friday - one of the sacred rules of sailing is 'thou shall not leave port on a Friday'. (It's also supposed to be bad luck to have a woman on board...)
Lots of love
H&Cxx

PS if you want to track our progress, go to www.winlink.org, then 'maps' then 'user positions' and look up VE0TIM (that's a zero not a letter oh) in the list on the right - then you can see us on Google Earth. Cool huh? There'll be a big celebration when we finally get 12 miles offshore and have officially left French Polynesia...

Thursday 31 July 2008

Rahula to the rescue

Helen: Since the last post, you'll be glad to know that we have swapped the evil old witch for a couple of hippies and life has turned out rosie! After a 'union meeting' in the dinghy, Charlie, Anton and I decided that we really had had too much on board Sonadora so we jumped ship and the good ship Rahula came to the rescue once again. We did feel awful leaving a little old lady stranded at anchor...but the final straw was when the generator blew up and she wanted to go back to Tahiti. Nothing in the world could make us want to go back there. So we didn't! We did a 'Rahula Tours' whislestop whizz round Huahine (they like to travel the same way we do - see it, 'Tick', and move on - Anton was a bit bemused by all this and could have happily spent several days talking to the tame eels...). Then we visited Raiatea and Tahaa (honestly, there are way too many vowels in this language - and you have to pronounce them all, so Faaa is Fa-a-a. What a mouthful!) Tahaa grows 3/4 of the vanilla in French Polynesia and the whole island smells of vanilla. Yum. We went to a vanilla plantation - it is so expensive in the UK it was really wierd to see so much just lying about in the sun!Anyway, here we are, on Candine, finally relaxing. We're in Raiatea, and plan to leave for Rarotonga the day after tomorrow. Should get there in time for their Independence Day celebrations - sounds like an excuse for lots more scantily clad ladies to shake their bottoms if you ask me! And, the best news of all, it seems we have a lift all the way to NZ with their friends. So...all is well for now. :)Lots of loveH&Cxx

Wednesday 23 July 2008

Evil old witch

Helen: It's official. The only people who need crew are either incompetent or complete arseholes. Our current skipper is both. She is rude to us every day and takes advantage of us and has us working for 10 hours most days without paying us. She pretends like she's some helpless sweet old lady, but really she's a vindictive, manipulative bitch. We've all had enough and will jump ship just as soon as we can. Although, judging by our past experience there's no guarantee that the next boat will be any better.
Oh well, gonna have a bonfire and some beers on the beach tonight, as we have the last 2 nights, so can't be all bad. Navigating through the reef with headtorches after a couple of beers is quite a feat! C is getting pretty good at the guitar now and can play lots of Levellers and Wonderstuff songs. And I'm learning the words to Anton's 50s folk songs. C taught me D and G chords the other day too.
Right, have to go, time's ticking by on the old internet counter.
Hx

PS We finally made it to Moorea! Yippeee...

Thursday 17 July 2008

STILL IN TAHITI. ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH

Helen: Not much more to add really. Think we're leaving on Tuesday. Can't wait. Was supposed to be Sunday though, so not holding my breath that we'll make it on Tuesday. New boat is ok...but it's a bit like sailing with your grandmother - we have to lay places for every meal, she makes up the rules of games as we go along despite what the rule book says, and she can't use 'the internet'. Added to which she insists on instant mashed potato, even when I offer to peel and boil and mash the real things, and we've just divvied up the jobs on the boat and C and Anton get engines and sails and rigging and I get laundry and provisioning. Better go buy some marigolds and a pinny. Grrrr. How am I ever gonna learn.
Humph.
Think I'm just grumpy cos it's late. And cos I didn't go to happy hour today for the first time in two weeks. And I've lost my hat. From Panama. And our package from the UK STILL hasn't turned up.
But, we have done cool things too though - we went for a super long hike on Monday - up to 2000m - that's 700m higher than Ben Nevis - took us 8 hours (paying for it now!). And I just bought a load of material with hibiscus flowers on it to make a dress - nothing like a sewing project to make me smile.
And, ultimately, we are still in the South Pacific, so it can't be all bad. As Anton says, just don't sweat the small stuff...
Hopefully, next post will be from somewhere other than Tahiti!
Night night
Hxx

Tuesday 8 July 2008

The big Three-Oh, Being Homeless and Ill and Sonadora

Helen: Haven't written for a while as we've spent most of the last couple of weeks being homeless and arguing with C. It's not much fun being a sailor with no boat and having to try to make your worldly possessions fit into bags which are blatently too small every couple of days and then go begging to the next set of friends to see if you can stay on their floor/sofa/deck for a couple more days. C really doesn't like being dependent on people, and Tahiti is such an expensive place to find accommodation that we couldn't afford to not stay with our friends. So. Not fun.

But now we have a new home. :). You'll laugh when I tell you it's on a yacht (Sonadora - dreamer in Spanish) that we met across the Pacific and that C and I swore we'd never crew on as we thought the owner was v strange! But, we were desperate so we came to say hello...and it turns out we were wrong. The skipper is, as we thought, a little dotty, but she's lovely. This is her second time round the world on this boat (big roomy catermaran) - first time was with her husband, but he's unfortunately dead now so she needs crew. It is a bit like sailing with your grandma (she insists we make our beds in the morning and set places for breakfast, and the kitchen smells like my great aunt's flat in Hove) but she really looks after us and, most importantly, she's really sociable. So unlike Stuart. We've had folk over for dinner a few times already, she says we can invite our friends round for drinks and she's always at Happy Hour. And, best news of all, our rudderless hippie Swedish friend from Panama/Galapagos (Anton) has joined us as crew. With his guitar and harmonica. So we've been keeping the neighbours awake singing English folk songs all night. Should be fun all the way to NZ.

Two other things to tell you about - I'm now officially OLD. Turned 30 over a week ago. Actually, it was a lovely day - in the midst of our homelessness nightmare we got rescued by friends on a v luxurious 63ft ketch and taken to Moorea - next island along - less stress, less traffic and people. Turns out one of the owners is (we think) English aristocrat with cordon bleu training. She was wonderful, showed me how to make salads I actually like (yup, that's SALADS I LIKE you didn't misread - she has such a well stocked larder - artichokes, capers, crab, balsamic vinegar, Fortnum's tea...) and she baked me a cake for my birthday (didn't even get a card from C :( ). Her partner is a v laid back American with a Southern drawl. Also lovely. We got totally spoiled for 3 days. Won't forget my 30th for a long time!

And then we had to re-enter the real world...and we got sick! First time since leaving the UK for me, and C has only had a cold in that time (also since we've been on Tahiti - must be all the germs from all the PEOPLE!). Carole (new skipper) had asked us what our health is like - we told her in good faith that we're generally pretty healthy...and then first night on board we were both throwing up and running to the loo all night! She's a nurse though so looked after us with tea and boiled sweets til we were better.

Right, that'll do for now - better go and help with boat chores - the boys are down in the engine room getting grubby changing filters - poor Anton - not something you want to be doing with a hangover. I get to check the stores and make a shopping list - pink for girls and blue for boys. Going out to see the opening of the Heiva this evening - the Polynesian cultural festival - C says it'll be rubbish and why does he have to go and see a load of dancing anyway - I told him not going would be like being in Edinburgh during the festival and not going to see a show. So I won and we're going. (Think this decision will come back to haunt me though and be used as justification for him buying a(n expensive and unnesseccary) diving knife that I think is a waste of time).

Looking forward to it as our friends Rahula are in town and Marco (from the Canaries) might pop by too...

Hxx

PS met some truly awful Brits the last couple of nights - ex pilots who are now ex pats in Malaysia/Indonesia. All they wanted to do the whole time was tell stories about how many women they'd slept with whilst getting very undignifiedly drunk.

Thursday 26 June 2008

Change of plan...again

Helen: ok, looks like I spoke too soon. No big boat shaped birthday present for me. Boo hoo. We packed up all our worldly possessions (alright, I packed them, and then got in trouble from you know who for not having packed 'properly'), we shiped them over to our new boat (took two dinghy rides - we had even picked out a name for her), and then we spotted a problem that would probably involve taking the mast off (expensive in both time and money). So we were swithering about whether to buy the boat anyway, and then about 2 hours before we were due to go meet the owner to move her to take her out of the water to buy her, we ended up having tea on another boat where the owner said 'oh, for a bit more you could have bought my boat' - which is gorgeous and full of equipment and spares (and a sewing machine and a welder). We thought that was too good an opportunity to pass up so agreed to buy it there and then, went to tell the French guy that the first deal was off (you keeping up?) and then yesterday morning owners of boat number 2 said their boat was for sale...but not til Fiji. Which is too late for C. It would only make sense if we kept the boat for at least another season, as Fiji is pretty much the end of the Pacific route - the only place people go from there is Aus or NZ. So...we have to decide if we want to be serious long term live aboard cruisers or not. I'm really missing having a base, but C says he wants a motorbike shaped adventure soon instead...

But, besides all this, now we're off Nomad (yey!) our immediate problem is getting a god damn bond to prove to the immigration people that we will leave when our visa is up. Not a problem when you're on a boat, but now that we're land lubbers for a while, it's a problem. And the bank won't take our money. So we called our bank in the UK and have been fighting with admistrative morons ever since. Looks like we'll have to buy plane tickets instead, which is expensive cos they don't refund the tax you have to pay. ARRRGGGGHHHH. Oh well, at least we're not at work!! (I said this in the travel agents just now...realised it wasn't such a good thing to say to the poor lady still stuck at her desk).

So, we've had a roller coaster of a few days - I'm sure everyone in the marina thinks we're totally flaky as every time they see us we have a different plan! C changes his mind more frequently than he changes his pants. But, things are beginning to settle now - we're staying with our frineds on Gaviota, which is lovely, and we have several options for crewing to NZ to consider - wish we had our own boat though as I'm pretty much fed up with living on other people's schedules. Ho hum. Looks like the most likely two choices we have are crwing on a J160 (fancy luxurious fast boat) or doing a delivery on a large cat - neither of which is really that bad!!

Who knows, by next week we might be going to travel home from Tahiti by donkey and waterski. ??
Love H & Cxx

Monday 23 June 2008

Un grand cadeau

Helen: Well...it appears that we might have just gone and bought ourselves a boat!! She's a lovely little (and we mean little - she's only 30ft) French aluminium boat. We're taking her out of the water on Weds and, as long as there aren't any big probs (which we're not expecting) then she'll be ours!! She doesn't have much gear though, so looks like we have lots of shopping to do (and lots of begging and borrowing from other folk - we are so in debt at the karma bank just now!!). Will write more soon to keep you posted. Would be a pretty cool birthday pressie for us both though!!
H and Cxx

Tuesday 17 June 2008

The Big Smoke

Helen: Feeling v old just now - we hiked across Tahiti today and yesterday and now everything aches. Knees, feet, hips, shoulders. C only turned 30 three days ago and it already feels like we're falling apart - that's what 6 months on a boat does for your fitness! My big 30 is in less than 2 weeks - dreading it on the one hand (there was so much I wanted to do before 30....) but on the other hand, my Mummy has sent me a birthday package with Marmite in it, so it can't be all bad.
We really like Tahiti. It's big and noisy and full of people, but it has a certain charm. Once you get over the initial shock of traffic jams, sirens and industrial estates (which was a considerable shock after months on near deserted tropical islands) it's great to be back in civilisation - fast internet connections, bars (although the beer is as expensive as ever) and a real buzz about the place as everyone's gearing up for Heiva (the Polynesian version of Bastille Day - a big holiday here as it's a French territory) which is 2 weeks worth of celebrations. For C's b'day we through caution to the wind and had 3 beers, went to a traditional dance display, had steak and chips at the local kebab van and then rum and limes on Andreas' boat - C woke up with a stonking hangover the next day as we've been nearly tee-total for months now - the booze is so expensive that you just can't afford anything nice - our skipper drinks 'Chateau aux Carton' but I just can't bring myself to do it - it's worse than paint stripper. (Speaking of which, apparently you shouldn't eat Chinese produced food stuffs just now - loads of people died in C America recently becasue of Chineese produced toothpaste with antifreeze in it!!)
Right, gotta go - will write again soon
Hx

PS have to tell you about Don and Marcy - an American couple in their late 50s who are crew on another boat here - they're great and they came hiking with us yesterday. They have so many stories and are the only people we know who can drop things like 'that time when I got arrested in Venezula' or 'after I got shot the second time' into conversations! What a hoot... Hope we have stories to tell when we're all grown up...

Monday 9 June 2008

Rangiroa

Helen: Rangiroa is the worlds second biggest coral atoll - apparently. At the moment though, its grey and rainy instead of lush and tropical. There are lots and lots of palm trees, turquoise water in the lagoon, dolphins and white sandy beaches - but to be honest it doesnt look that much different from Scilly on a good day!
Our yacht is anchored just off a swanky hotel - the sort of place where London bankers come on honeymoon. I felt v scruffy when C and I traipsed through their reception hall with several black bags full of dirty washing the other day - Im sure thats not what the guests were expecting for their 400 quid a night!!
Weve been diving once already (there isnt much else to do!!) and saw dolphins, lots of fish and a shark - not sure I want to see them any closer though! Was v strange as we swam away from the reef to see the dolphins - first time weve been in 'the Big Blue' - easy to see how people get disoriented and cant tell which way is up... Unsurprisingly, our skipper didnt want to come diving with us - hes barely been off the boat - seems like such a shame...
Today weve hired bicycles - its a brilliant place to ride as its totally totally flat - the highest things on the island are the palm trees, which is why this was a v dangerous place to sail and navigate until the advent of GPS. You can see most islands from 20/30 miles away, but these atolls arent visible til about 3 miles...
The winds pretty strong just now which makes getting into and out of the atol through a narrow pass quite tricky - looks like well be here for a few more days - there are worse places to be stranded! Id like to visit the local vinyard - no kidding - there is a vinyard here - but C says we should wait til NZ. We did take a trip to a pearl farm though - v interesting. Oh, and we spent last night at a German film evening! C even managed to keep up with the conversation and slipped in his favourite phrase which served him well in GCSE oral exams but is a complete lie 'Ich bin einzelkind'...
OK, as ever, have to go - post office about to close. But, this connection has been better than most and we have managed to get a few more photos onto our Flickr site. Enjoy§
Lots of love
H and Cxx

PS we think its about time to move on from boat 5, so if anyone knows anyone whos looking for crew from Tahiti to NZ do let us know.....