The adventures of Charlie and Helen

Still alive

2009-06-18T14:01:00.000-07:00

Helen: HELLO!!! We still exist. Really, we do. We've just been sucked back into the real world of work and mobile phones and now seem to have no time to do anything other than sit in front of a screen. Bugger. BUT, having said that, we are enjoying being back - so much so that we've actually gone and bought a house. Moving date is July 31st so come and help us celebrate on Aug 7th (had to explain 'housewarming' to our Swedish friend Joel - guess it is a weird expression). The house is literally one minute's walk away from our old, fabulous, flat - it has a double garage with a proper workbench, a wood burning stove and a flower bed that's all my own. C is busy brewing a 'Homecoming Stout' for the party...it's bubbling away in a corner in the kitchen (we've regressed about 10 years and are currently staying in one room of a shared house with our friends. Having a designated shelf in the fridge makes us feel like students again...)

Edinburgh is still beautiful, although they have dug up all the streets in aid of the huge waste of time, effort and money that is the Tram project, so the traffic is truly awful and it's not quite so pretty as it was a year and a half ago. Also, annoyingly, they seem to have closed most of the city's cultural landmarks, museums and galleries for refurbishment - probably in time for the Olympics. So, while I've been singing the city's praises all round the world for being an architectural and cultural gem, it seems to have regressed to its student days as well. Oh well, at least the festivals are nearly upon us - I have brochures for all of them (Book, Film, Jazz, Fringe and International) and want to try to go to at least one thing at each, which means a lot of reading bumf. Or not, if you're Charlie and can't be bothered.

Not sure what else to tell - work is hectic - back in at the deep end. C had his first day of work today in 2 years. Was very pleased with himself as his commute was 10 mins each way, he got taken out for lunch and they're giving him a new laptop!

Hxx

PS our friend Harold who we met in HK and Beijing is visiting at the moment - we had a hilarious evening with him and his Chinese friend who doesn't speak a word of English last night - I think the Chinese friend got a bit of a surprise when we told him the pub we were in was full of gay men...

The Last Post?

2009-05-27T15:49:00.000-07:00

Helen: We're back. Can't believe we're back. It's been grey and wet all day. That I can believe. Feels very odd, and totally normal, all at the same time. Nothing has changed (apart from C's parent's kitchen of course, which looks fab).
Denmark was fun...but prohibitively expensive. £8 for a pint. We saw Hamlet's castle, rode a tandem round Copenhagen (first 10 minutes were a bit tense, but after C stopped shouting it was fine - Copenhagen is a stunningly beautiful city), and saw some ancient Viking ships, so I think we got Denmark pretty well covered.
I'm sure there's more to tell. Just don't know where to start. Plan for tomorrow is to finish wading through the mountains of our mail that have accumulated over the last year and a half (and that's after Laura and Bob have thrown out the real rubbish) and buy a car. Oh, and to try to fish out some clothes from the bags that are currently in my parents' attic. Will be so nice to have some different clothes!
Will post again when we've done something more newsworthy, like found a place to live!
hx

ps. will be in london on friday evening. not sure where, but planning a pint or two somewhere - let us know if you'll be around :)

Mongolia is like the Lake district on steroids

2009-05-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

Helen: It's how i imagined NZ was going to be. Honestly, it looks like something from LoTR. Except, up close, it's not quite as impressive - it's sooo dry and dusty. it's just the end of winter here, and everything's just beginning to recover from being under snow for the last 6 months. It'll probably all be green and gorgeous in a few weeks - before the temperatures get up to 40 degrees! I just don't know how anyone manages to live here - the climate is so extreme. but they do - in little white felt covered gers. and they are so hospitable (probably because the climate is so harsh). we stayed with families this past week, or in tourist camps which weren't properly open yet, so we had a real insight into Mongolian life in the countryside - mostly it was just us, our guide who spoke english, our driver (who didn't) and some leathery skinned, toothless herders and their families. Mongolian life in the countryside seems to involve a lot of vodka. but you can't just drink it. you have to dip your third finger of your right hand in it, and touch your forehead (for you) and then flick some vodka in the air over your head (for the sky) and then four flicks around you (for the corners of the earth). then you have to down it. girls are allowed to drink less, but men get funny looks like they might be pansies if they pass. c went off with the driver and a herder to drink when the girls had given up. they came back the minute the vodka was finished though. not at all like sitting around with a pint for hours! it's all about the vodka...
felt like townies the other day - we went for a romantic walk along the shore of yet another stunning mountain lake on the morning of our (6th!) wedding anniversary, and on the way back we found a sheep. It was obviously not a happy sheep as it was on its own. Sheep are never on their own if they can help it. And it didn't move when we went closer. Turns out it was stuck in the mud. Literally. So we walked all the way back to the ger and asked them to come and help us get it out (it really was stuck and was going to die if we left it there). Our driver essentially told us that one sheep wasn't worth the effort as there are so many in Mongolia. One of the herders did come with us though (in a standard shopping car, over rocks and bumps, balancing his 1 year old daughter on his lap). He just manhandled the sheep out of the mud by grabbing it by the neck. C and I felt like such townies - we'd expected that it was going to take machinery or at least 3 people and a lot of time. The country way was so much easier and quicker! We drove past the sheep later in the day and she was doing normal sheep stuff (munching on grass) so all was well in the end.
Back in UB now - thankful for the end of the week long meat diet (no goat testicles, but we did get presented with a bowlful of freshly boiled sheep innards on our last day. I was brave enough to try the smallest bit of stomach lining but it just smelled too bad to eat much before wretching. C refused (which is a bit whimpy I think, considering the day before I'd even eaten a whole cherry tomato). And our Mongolian guides looked at us like we were passing up chocolate brownies as they tucked into blood pudding, heart and lungs.)
Not having the greatest day today though - wanted to buy boots at the market (it's closed), go to a free folk music gig this evening (it's sold out), and sit in our favourite cafe while we use the internet all afternoon (internet's broken). Oh well. Meeting up with a friend we met in Bangkok this evening for a curry, and then it's up at sparrow's fart to get the plane to Denmark tomorrow. No one mention trains...
hxx
ps have a good example of Cyrillic for you: PECTOPAH transliterates as RESTORAN - no prizes for guessing what that means!

Blue skies at last!

2009-05-11T00:49:00.000-07:00

Helen: we were in china and hk for over 2 weeks and it was overcast pretty much the entire time. must've been pollution - 30 hours on a train to get to ulanbator in mongolia and all of a sudden the sky is a brilliant blue. the view from the train was stunning - first the gobi desert - flat sand as far as you could see with the occasional ger (yurt - felt tent) camp and a few horses, and then rolling hills with spiky mountains in the background and melting snow everywhere. and then, bam, the city of ulan bator. it's got such a lovely vibe to it compared to beijing - probably on account of its size (1m as opposed to 14m) - but also the people. they are v friendly and don't stare as much as the chinese. ub isn't going to win any prizes for architecture, and it's very grey here (not much grows in a desert so there's barely any trees and no grass, and most ofthe buildings are soviet inspired), but the food has been great (all european so far - we're stocking up as we're expecting nothing but goat meat and curdled cheese for the next week when we head out into the countryside). we visited a buddhist monastery this morning - was full of monks (with jumpers under their robes it's so damn cold here - we're both wearing our down jackets, thermals and hats - what a difference fromthe last year in the tropics!) but there were also loads of people in suits and on mobile phones, and wearing traditional costumes, just coming to pay their respects. felt like a living working place, not just for the tourists like in beijing
our guest house is crazy - we seem to be living in a (well estalished) shanty town on the outskirts of ub - its like the nomads just moved their lifestyle to the city - you can live in western appartment blocks and wear fashionable sunglasses if you want, and lots of people do, but here, they live in gers and family compounds like they always have. there is even a delightlful nibbly kid goat running around our place (its mother, which belongs to the owners in-laws who live in the countryside, abandoned it, so they are hand rearing it til it can rejoin the flock). c is impressed at their resourcefulness - they have just taken out the engine of a land cruiser in the yard, without a crane, and replaced it with another!
so, we're off for a tour in the countryside tomorrow, back on the 18th. will be our 6th wedding anniversary while we're away! (believe it or not, but we think we're going to buy an original Mongolian modern artwork as a pressie for each other - i know modern art isn't what springs to mind when you think about mongolia (more goat testicles, horses (we've had to impose a moratorium on Horse while we're here - there are just too many!), and furry boots), but we really liked it. picture to follow...
bye for now
hx

ps amusing ourselves no end by just wandering around trying to decipher cyrillic words on bill hoardings. often if you can transliterate the word, it makes sense. often, of course, it's nonsense, but it's fun trying. half their letters are backwards,which explains why it sounds like talking backwards when they speak. somehow, even though we can only understand a handful of words (cafe,internet, bank) it feels much less foreign and more inviting than china where everything was just squiggles. c made a good point - he said this place feels more familliar to us because it's a mix of asian and european - pity we won't see the culture change all the way back to europe...

Incognito rock stars

2009-05-05T04:50:00.000-07:00

Helen: We've spent all day saying 'ooh, don't forget to put that on the blog', so I'm afraid there's only one thing for it. A list. So, in no particular order, here's what's made us laugh and groan over the last few days:

- we have eaten soooo much. It seems to be the mark of a good Chinese host to make sure that there is food left over at the end of a meal. So they just order, and order and order. And you eat and eat and eat. And then, just when you think it surely must be at an end, more food arrives. It's nuts! (but very yummy)
- people have been taking pictures of us. Lots. And not just in the serupticious way they did it in Vietnam with camera phones. No, since we got to Beijing people have been sitting beside us, plonking their kids next to us, even accosting us in the street and insisting that we shake hands and have photos with every person in their group. At first I thought we were special, and that maybe they thought C's silly hair/beard/sunglasses/hat/tattoos combo meant he was a rock star incognito. But, sadly, no. We're photo worthy just because we're tourists. You would think that Beijing, being the capital city, would be pretty cosmopolitan and they'd be used to seeing people like us. Maybe the people taking pictures of us are Chinese tourists on their hols from the countryside who can now go home proudly with a picture of the foreign freaks? Or maybe they aren't as exposed to Western culture as I thought - our guidebook says only 10 Western films are approved for release every year in China...
- in a similar vein...we were dumbfounded last night when we were having dinner with an old school friend of mine (yes, I know, Old Senockians are everywhere) and his Chinese girlfriend, and we were talking about how odd Cambodia 'after what happened there' and she, quite straight faced said 'what happened in Cambodia?' Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge meant nothing to her (she's pretty much our age). Wierd what state censorship can achieve!
- we got horribly lost when we arrived to Beijing. Our taxi driver didn't know where our hostel was (surprise surprise, although at least he only charged us 20 ickeys - C was very proud of himself for avoiding the taxi touts who wanted 180 for the same journey - that's why he's in charge of the cash - I probably would have gone with the first guys!) Anyway, we got dropped off next to the right block for our hostel...but unlike other cities on grid systems, the old part of Beijing is arranged into 'hutongs' - each big block is subdivided into lots of little alleyways which are mostly pedestrian/used by bikes. It's really charming - usually grid systems are souless, but this way the traffic can still flow and you still get a really intimate feeling. So, we got dropped off 'near' our hostel, then walked in circles for a good half an hour carrying our heavy bags before I went off on my own armed with only my guidebook. Eventually a security guard and his mate at the local hospital helped me out - they took me to a doctor on the 6th floor who spoke a bit of English and then escorted us to the door. Predictably, only 5 mins walk away! We managed to have a great conversation - he spoke Chinese and I spoke English and neither of us understood a word of what the other said, but somehow it worked!
- final point, before my fingers fall off from typing too much - C wants me to tell you about Chinese tour guides - they all have headsets with microphones, attached to loud-speakers that hang from their waists, so it seems that they are shouting from their tummies. And they use the speakers even when the person they're talking to is standing next to them. Very amusing to watch!

OK, nearly out of juice. (had a wonderful day at teh Great Wall today - awesome scenery, good hike, almost totally deserted. Totally opposite to yesterday at the Forbidden City. Swarming with tourists and lacking in information.)

Hx

China

2009-04-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

Helen: Apologies for the lack of posts for a while. This has been due, unusually, to lots of late nights and drinking. It's mid-day now, and our party of 4 has just about surfaced and made themselves respectable, so you see what I mean...
We're in HK at the moment, staying (in the tiniest flat - it makes London living look palatial) with Mike, an old friend from school, and he is doing a fabulous job of showing us around. It makes such a difference having a guide - we've been to so many places we just wouldn't have known existed (bars and restaurants (and a gym)) that are on the upper floors of tower blocks - they have no signs at ground level to let you know what's upstairs, you just have to know! And often to get to a bar, you have to enter through a shop in a mall. But, usually the view is worth it - we had drinks last night from the balcony on the 8th floor with the HK skyline lit up behind us.
HK has been a true delight - I was expecting just the skyscrapers, and was only coming here to visit Mike. We both figured that it would be another Singapore or KL and we'd want to leave after 2 days. But we've just booked our train tickets to Beijing and we're staying over a week because we're having so much fun. It turns out HK isn't just HK island - there are lots of outlying islands, the whole of the New Territories and it's easy to escape to the hills. Yes, hills. Well, mountains really. Yesterday we climbed Lantau Peak, which is a Munroe at 934m. It was steps all the way up. Hard work at the best of times, but especially bad the day after a session at the gym (Mike goes regularly and C really wanted to go, so I went along for a laugh. Now everything hurts. My stomach. My quads. My neck for goodness sake.) The hill was awesome. At the bottom there is a 'giant buddha', a disney type village with a starbucks and hordes and hordes of tourists. But we only saw 5 other people on the trail. Was blissful. It was like Arthur's Seat in as much as you could look one way and see the airport, but if you looked the other way it was as if you were well and truly out in the countryside. Wonderful :) And today we're going to Macau, which is supposed to be totally different again - long Portuguese colonial history, forts, cafes, pastries. Will report back.
Hx

PS. Hmm, don't seem to have mentioned China at all yet - we only spent 3 days there before coming to HK - was ok - rained a lot! Had a few language problems, but the people were super friendly and we were always helped out by English students who wanted to practice with us (in fact, we've just got an email from one we met in Nanning who wants to be our penfriend). The landscape was pretty similar to N Vietnam - we went to see some stunning terraced rice fields. Oddly, the other tourists on the trip weren't western backpackers, but domestic Chinese tourists from Beijing. They travel en masse and all buy the same souvenirs and take the same photos. Very bizzare. And, at the top of the hill...there was ice cream and beer! We always joke when we're hill walking in Scotland that there will be beer and ice cream at the top (an insipring thought when it's cold and wet and you're wondering what you're doing on the hillside). Of course there never is. But in China, oh yes. And postcards, souvenir shops. The works!

Toc That

2009-04-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

Helen: We seem to have slowed somewhat in our whirlwind trip round SE Asia - we have been in Vietnam for nearly a whole week now. A whole week! Since the last post we took a bus to Phnom Penh (crazy crazy traffic - we sat in a bar and played motorbike poker - we were both tied with 5 people on a bike each, when C spotted a guy carrying, I kid you not, a full size wardrode. We also visited the Tuol Sleng Museum - the old school that was S21 prison during Pol Pot's time. Thousands of people were tortured and murdered there, and it's been left as a memorial to them. There are photos of them on the walls. It was almost too horrific to really take it all in. It didn't really seem real. The most interesting room was an exhibit by a Swede who had visited in 1978 as part of an official tour. Apparently communism was big in Sweeden at the time, and so when he visited he genuinely thought that the Khmer Rouge was a good thing. The exhibition shows the photos he took at the time with his thoughts from 1978, along with his thoughts from now (once the true details of the regime came out he changed his mind - just goes to show how people can be fooled by propoganda - even educated people who ought to know better).
Anyway, I got sidetracked. From PP we went to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) - stayed just long enough to get ripped off by a taxi driver (first time spending Dong so no idea how much stuff costs - we paid at least 10 times too much!) on the way to the train station, and then we spent 4 days in the hills around Hanoi. Wow. Wow. Totally amazing. Have a look at the photos on Flickr to see what we mean. Everywhere we've been so far that's been pretty has looked like Scotland. Not N Vietnam. It looks like nowhere else. Crazy limestone mountains, bright green paddy fields, people working the fields by hand with conical hats, cows that look more like elephants or rhinos. We stayed in stilt huts and traveled on roads that tourists never take - they were rutted, gravely, muddy - C did brilliantly with me on the back. You could tell that tourists never get to these places because every time we stopped to talk to the locals they would stare at C's hair. They would always ask if it was real ('toc that' means 'real hair') and they'd build up the courage to come and pull at it with toothless grins! Our guide Hai was great - he looked like a korean popstar, and was always flirting with the ladies, but he was a real gentleman. He really wanted us to like his country and went out of his way to make sure we had a good time. We stopped and had raw sugar cane juice and sticky rice cooked in bamboo. We saw chop sticks being made and he even took us to his house to meet his family (grandma had black teeth from chewing betel nut and didn't seem to mind that we didn't understand a word she said). We were so lucky - just the two of us and Hai for 4 days.
Right. Off to China tomorrow. Hope we have time to go and see Ho Chi Minh himself before we leave...
Hxx

PS thought you'd like this - we stopped to have lunch one day and a family invited us to join them. We had to decline their offer of home made rice wine (like vodka) but joined them for green tea (we've drunk so much tea in the last few days). We wanted to share with them so we offered them some chocolate. They ate it as if it was beetles, like they were only being polite! Actually, they didn't eat it like it was beetles, because the Vietnamese like beetles (we got served some the other night, and the only reason C ate one is because I ate one first). They eat grasshopers and snails and snakes and chicken feet and pig intestines willingly, but apparently not chocolate!

Angkor what?

2009-04-11T03:10:00.000-07:00

Helen: Cambodia redeemed itself today - we bicycled all around Angkor Wat (sparrow's fart start at 4am, to avoid the crowds and heat, and see the sun rise, which, of course, we missed, because I had heavy mudguards) and it was magnificent. C, not known for his love of 'piles of stones' even said it was up there with Machu Pichu, which is saying something. Naturally, this didn't mean he actually wanted to spend much time there...but at least he was enjoying himself. You might, if you are lucky, be treated to all of our gazillions of photos of the various temples some time tomorrow - we're on the road again heading to Penom Pehn, to a hostel with, fingers crossed, free wireless. The temples really were awe inspiring (kept expecting Indiana Jones or Lara Croft to appear round the corner (apparently Tomb Raider was filmed at one of them, which might explain Ms Jolie's penchant for Cambodian orphans?) Anyhoo, just wanted to say that we had a glorious day - lots of smiley faces and barely any pressure from hawkers. What a difference a day makes!
More from the capital later (should be fun - tomorrow is Khmer New Year...)
Hx

PS interesting fact: most of the Angkor temples were built as Hindu temples...but they are now Buddhist, so they have Hindu and Buddhist carvings - in a world with too much religious intolerance, it was lovely to see folk just getting along!

Ripped off in Cambodia. Again. And again...

2009-04-10T05:10:00.000-07:00

Helen: Even having been traveling for the last 18 months or so, we were scammed by all the scammers we'd been warned about today. Felt like newbies. Oh well, at least we got here (via buses that we'd paid for not being available and people insisting we needed their services to get price inflated visas). Not a good first impression of Cambodia. But, the good news is that we have bicycles sorted for tomorrow, and a route from our guest house owner to see all of the temples and avoid the crowds. Fantastic. Only snag is it means brekkie is at 0430. Better go and get some sleep now then.
More later
H&Cxx

Bangkok rocks

2009-04-09T08:06:00.000-07:00

Helen: We both remember Bangkok being totally manic last time we were here...but compared to Singapore and KL it feels relaxed and chilled out! Maybe it's because there aren't many skyscrapers and you can actually see the sky? Or maybe it's the people - always smiling? Or maybe it's because they're all Hindus and Buddhists? Whatever it is, it rocks.
Got here this morning on the sleeper train from Penang (at the Thai border, v amusing sign saying no-one with 'hippie characteristics' (waistcoat with no under garments and long, dirty hair) would be allowed in - C immediately started smoothing down his dreads!) and...we're leaving tomorrow! Going to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. 12 hours on a bus. Better be worth it!
Right, time for bed. Early start tomorrow. Think we 'did' Bangkok pretty well today - took a busy commuter canal boat into town with the locals, (got lost - de rigeur for us in SE Asian cities at the moment), visited Kao San Rd (all the 18 year olds made us feel really grown up), saw a political protest, and went to a traditional puppet show this evening. Tick.

Hx

PS thought you might find these Malaysian words amusing - see if you can figure out what they mean: kastam, imigresen, stesen, farmasie, notis, kaunter, basikal, motosikal

PPS a bloke came up to us at Butterworth train station to introduce himself - he'd been on the cruise ship too and recognised us...and he was traveling from NZ to Europe overland too! He was slightly more adventurous than us though, and is braving Iran...

Rain

2009-04-07T05:08:00.000-07:00

Helen: We've been in Malaysia 3 days now. And it's rained every single day. Buckets and buckets and buckets. We are currently hiding in our hotel room (clean and friendly, but looks a bit Communist), waiting for the rain to stop so we can venture outside for supper (hmmm, shall we have noodles or curry? Had noodles for breakfast and curry for lunch, and both yesterday and the day before so it's a tough choice...)
Did manage a quick explore earlier though - went to a Khongsi in Georgetown (apparently the whole city is a World Heritage Site - there can't be many UNESCO WHSs that we haven't visited - everywhere we go seems to be listed) and got shown around by a very enthusastic little old Chinese man with bad teeth, a big smile and a smattering of English. He posed for photos with us and we promised to send him copies (he promptly pulled some business cards out of his pocket with his name and address on!) A Khongsi is basically a family compound - this one was beautiful and dated from 1820. There was a temple (lots of gold leaf and ancestral tablets (like gravestones) and living quarters - no one lives there now, but when the Chinese emigrated here in the late 18th and early 19th centuries they grouped together in clans to support each other. (The clans then evolved into Triads and they started killing each other...) Clan life is still v important today and we saw lots of people lighting incense sticks for their relatives.
After that we took the funicular railway to the top of Penange Hill - I've never made it up 800+m so quickly! Took us over an hour to walk down again, spotting monkeys all the way (specially cute ones with black fur and white eyebrows/round their lips. The macaques weren't so friendly. They barred their teeth and started growling at us and we were stuck for a few minutes not knowing how to get past them!)
Generally v glad to have got out of KL - too big, too busy, and no charm. Georgetown is much more appealing. Lots of nooks and crannies and streetlife. Most of the population of Malaysia seems to be Chinese or Indian - both look like they've just stepped out of China/India respectively (I say authoritively, never having actually been to either place!) I don't know quite what I was expecting - but I was definitely expecting the Malaysians to be a distinct culture rather than two imported cultures.
The countryside in between KL and Penang (as seen from the bus) was strange - lots of palm oil plantations (aren't they responsible for killing off orangutans?) and peculiar new build estates that seemed empty (no lights on, no cars, overgrown gardens). I swear the barrat box type houses wouldn't have looked out of place in the Rotherhithe and the Thames estuary. At the other end of the spectrum we saw a few lovely homes as well, at the top of Penang Hill where it's cooler so all the colonials built city retreats and sanotoriums. The houses were twee little olde English style cottages with picket fences and garden furniture like C's parents have in Surrey. And there was a red GR post box outside!! Bonkers.
Right, that's enough. Hasn't stopped raining, but my tummy's rumbling so will have to make a dash for it anyway. Off to Bangkok tomorrow on the train. Going to do a bit of pinyin practice this evening to make sure we don't starve in China.
Hx

F1 frustration

2009-04-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

Helen: v quick post - am cold and tired so time for bed - but thought this would make you laugh - C and I went to the Malaysian F1 GrandPrix this afternoon, and totally failed to see any racing at all. It was so badly signposted, that by the time we'd figured out which entrance we had to use (involving much walking, bad directions and a dodgy shuttle bus) the action had been called off by a torrential Tropical downpour and we had to sit in our soaking wet clothes in the air conditioned bus all the way back to the city. Bugger! Still, managed to get the essential tourist photo of the Petronas Towers lit up like Christmas trees, so not a completely wasted day.
Glad to be out of Singapore - decided we'd 'done' the island yesterday - eaten in Little India and Chinatown, ridden the 'does what it says on the tin' "Mass Rapid Transport System" (tube), and had a (yucky, way too sweet) cocktail at Raffles (where we also managed a dance to a live band in front of the hordes of tourists who were herded into the bar by a guide to have their Singapore Sling in 15 minutes before leaving again. I'm not against taking tours...but come on people - do you really need a tour guide to take you to a BAR?)
So, now we're in Umpa Lumpa land. Saw lots of palm oil plantations on the road, and are relieved that everything seems to be getting cheaper! Thinking about heading yet further north tomorrow.
Right, off to sleep - C has dutifully checked the bed for bugs
Hx

Raffles here we come

2009-04-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

Helen: Is Charlie the only person in the world who hasn't heard of Raffles in Singapore? When I told him that we had to go there this evening to have a Singapore Sling he looked at me blankly and asked why. I tried to explain that Raffles is as famous as Harrods in London or like going to visit the pyramid hotel/casino place in Las Vagas...but he still didn't get it. Never fear though, I shall make him wear one of his two presentable shirts this evening (and I'm going to wear the dress I just finished making) and I shall go to the ball tonight whether he appreciates it or not!
So, now we're landlubbers again and struggling to come to terms with life when we have to feed ourselves and work out what we want to do for ourselves - it's a bit like how I imagine a caterpillar feels when it emerges from its cocoon blinking in the sunlight trying to work out how to use the new flappy things its acquired... It won't surprise anyone to learn that the very first thing we did when we got here was go out in the heat and have an argument! Yup, nothing like the tropics and busy streets to get us grumpy (but no raised voices in the street - not the done thing at all apparently. Canoodling (sic), jaywalking, not flushing the loo properly and eating with your left hand are also all out.)
We've only been here a couple of hours, but have decided there are lots of places we'd rather see on our tight schedule than a busy city, so we're heading for Umpa Lumpa tomorrow.
Lots of love
H&C

PS a few thoughts from the cruise:
- we were harrangued several times by Americans from the deep south who told us we should read the bible and carry guns
- C didn't win the boat building competition :( General opinion is that he was robbed though
- they have hand sanitizers everywhere and the staff won't shake your hands even at formal dos for fear of the dreaded lurgee - guess it would spread pretty quick
- the security guards were out in force when we entered Indonesian waters - on the look out for pirates we reckoned...
- Bali was wonderful (lots of Indiana Jones style temples and gorgeous fabrics) Java was mental (C said they drove their cars like they were motorcycles, often filtering on the wrong side of the road...) but we visited an amazing 8th Century temple and got some good karma from the lucky Buddha

Crocodile Dundee land

2009-03-27T17:39:00.000-07:00

Helen: Well, well, well. Our glorified ferry ride is turning out to be quite an experience! Our cabin is the biggest room we've stayed in since we left home and we have a private bathroom, all to ourselves. We even have a little man who turns down our bed, leaves choccies in our room and makes us a different towel animal each night (I'm not kidding, Holland America (the cruise line) has even published a book of the '40 best towel animals'!). I'm in planning and sewing heaven – I get a daily schedule so I can organise my day to the nearest nannosecond and I've met a group of ladies who knit and sew! How ridiculous is that. Marylin is a lovely little old lady who has taught me how to spin, and I've been getting tips galore on my new dress – it's going ok (now I've let our one of the seams I can actually breathe fully) and should be finished for our final night dinner next week.

C is also, despite himself, having a whale of a time. He's in the gym every day, which means he has made friends with all the ladies who work in the Spa next door – very useful as they are now searching high and low for materials for him as he is...building a model boat! It has to carry a cargo of 12 cans of Coke and will be tested in the Jacuzzi on the last day of the trip! So far he's had the staff collecting chop sticks and cans and I've made him a Red Ensign.

The biggest down side of the cruise isn't actually all the other people (in among all the fatties we've met some lovely folks) it's the time ashore. You don't get long, the shore excursions they arrange are uber expensive and they usually visit the more developed destinations as they're the only ones that can cope with 1400 people in one go. I've actually enjoyed the 'at sea' days more than the days on land! We've been to the Whitsundays (golf cart madness) and Cairns (bush turkeys were the highlight – what does that tell you) and we're currently en route to Darwin. Think we might save our money and just hang out in town in Darwin so we can hire a car in Bali and go and see some temples and rice paddies.

Not sure what else to tell – tonight is 'formal' night which means everyone is dressed up in tux's – apart from us. We're off to the buffet and then maybe the cinema. We even saw a magician a couple of days ago – he made his lovely assistant vanish – I know there's a rational reason how he did it...but it impressed me and made me giggle like a small child nonetheless.

Will write again when we get to Singapore on April 4

Lots of love
H&Cxx

PS We had our first jive lesson last night! We were swinging away, when we noticed someone doing fantastic jiving...and he turned out to be both a lovely guy and a dance instructor, so he taught us the basics. V cool. And the drummer from the band (old Polish man who's been with the company for 39 years!) said he might give me a drum lesson too!

More photos

2009-03-19T16:09:00.001-07:00

Helen: forgot to say - whole load of new photos at www.flickr.com/charlieandhelen :)

Floating hotel

2009-03-19T14:39:00.000-07:00

Helen: We checked into our cruise ship yesterday. It's SO cool :) Admitedly we are the youngest people on board by about 30 years (we did spy one other backpacker couple in the check-in queue though) and the decor is late 70s/early 80s (lots of sparkles and shinyness, despite the fact that the ship is only 9 years old - probably deliberate to make the old dears feel at home). But, all the staff have been absolutely wonderful (as well they ought to be - we are being charged an 'optional' $11 a day/person for tips!). Nothing is too much trouble and no one has so much as batted an eye lid over C's out-of-the-ordinary dreads. Our room is ok too - not in the engine bay after all. We have an en-suite bathroom, two wardrobes and even two portholes, as well as our own flat screen TV and DVD player (which was on when we got to our room playing a welcome message - very Big Brother). That makes it about the most luxurious room we've stayed in all trip! There's a gym that opens at 6am where C will likely be spending most of his time, we've found one of the restaurants that doesn't have a formal dress code, there's dancing and music every night and three screenings of two films every night too. I'm not going to want to visit any of the places we stop at at this rate!

C even begrudingly admitted he thought it was pretty cool too. It's so convenient - we have the best hotel spot in the city! He was a bit upset though - we had to give htem our passports and credit card details - and all we got in return was a little bit of yellow paper as a receipt!

So, we're off at midnight tonight. Then two 'sea days' before we get to the Whitsundays where we hope to do some diving, then Cairns, then the Great Barrier Reef, then Darwin, Bali and Semarang before Singapore. Very excited :) Will try to post en route if we can get to internet cafes, but I think our time ashore will be pretty limited and internet on board is via satelite so v expensive.

H&Cxx

Aussie mossies

2009-03-17T14:51:00.001-07:00

Helen: Went kayaking and camping at the weekend. Lots of fun, even for a self confessed non-camper, although I could have done without the Aussie strength mossies. They were even biting me through my clothes the bastards. Now have bright red welts on my backside. Not a good look when I was trying on bikinis in Bondi yesterday (you should have seen the look on C's face as he waited paitently in the shop. Didn't know where to look - even I was a bit bemused by all the gazillions of different styles of swimming costume there are out there. Sadly the only bikini I liked that wasn't 3 triangles of material held together with some floss was $150. $150!!)

Going to the zoo today to see koalas ("but we can see koalas in the zoo at home" from you know who) and maybe even a platypus. And then maybe to see the Star Wars exhibition at one of the local museums. Apparently they have a weightlessness simulator...

Not much else to report - have mostly been relaxing at Al and Hazel's house - catching up on admin/practising guitar (C is getting pretty good at Johnny Be Good) and I've started making another dress - was getting bored and tetchy - nothing like a good sew to sort me out.

Our boat arrives tomorrow and we sail at midnight on Friday. Very exciting. Al has lent C a shirt with a collar so that he stands a chance of being fed in the restaurants on board (although, it is a hawaian shirt!)

Hxx

PS still no decision on how we're getting home - the bloody Russian embassy here won't give us visas (long story - basically we have to go back to London to get them) so it looks like we might have to fly from Mongolia to Europe and then catch the ferry from Estonia or Denmark or somewhere like that. Hope to have it sorted this week - will let you know!

New hat

2009-03-08T22:26:00.000-07:00

Helen: What a difference a few hundred miles makes! Sydney is green and wet - it rained for hours last night. The only thing that crunches here underfoot are the cockroaches and the small blue jellyfish on the beach (that I told C not to stand on as they were probably poisonous just before I inadvertently trod on one and shreiked when it made a loud popping sound as I burst its air sack.)

We arrived here via several embassies in Canberra - a wierd Milton Keynes sort of a city - lots of monumental architecture and big boulevards...but lacking in atmosphere. Everyone on the streets had sensible hair and suits - most of them work for the government. We had hoped to be in and out in one day...but, predictably, I guess, getting the visas took longer than anticipated (we now have Mongolian and Vietnamese visas though - only Russia to get - got all the endless paperwork (no clue what it says as it's all in Cyrillic) and we're going there tomorrow)). So, we were stuck there overnight and had a few hours for sightseeing - I asked C which of the many 'National...' museums/galleries he wanted to go and see and he chose the Portrait Gallery as he said these are usually the smallest galleries. Hah! The one in Canberra is huge! (but also not very good so we whizzed through it). Saw a protest tent village outside the Old Parliament House - Aborigines and something about land rights - but no one offered to explain anything about it to us, and I couldn't help thinking they'd slightly missed the point. There were no actual polictians near their protest - they're all at the NEW parliament house just down the road...

Now we're in Sydney with our friends from Scotland Al and Hazel who live in Bondi. Reassuringly they don't sound a bit different from when we last saw them 3 years ago. Very comforting to hear a Scottish burr again. We've been to the Opera House to see Shostakovich (!) and I've got a new hat as the old one really was beginning to fall apart and I felt very unfashionable with all the beautiful people in Bondi.

Right, time for a cup of tea...
Hxxx

PS must mention the Melbourne Motorshow - it was full of manicured, made up birds in off the shoulder dresses and high heels who didn't know anything about cars. What's that all about? (C says I should try a bike show - the ladies there are in bikinis apparently!)

Dry and crispy

2009-03-02T16:33:00.000-08:00

Helen: Everything is dry and crispy. The grass is dry and crispy. The trees are losing their leaves and it's still summer. At least half the days that we've been here have been 'Total Fire Ban' days where you're not even supposed to smoke outside. They've had a drought here for the last decade, and yet people still manage to use more than 170l per person per day. The target is 150l. C, Stuart and I used 300l over 27 days (ok, so we were pretty grubby by the end, but you get the idea.) Jenny and Gareth (our hosts) are fanatical with water - they have buckets in the shower and reuse the grey water from the washing machine for the vegie patch - but they still manage to use nearly 100l per person per day - washing machines must be so horrifically uneconomical with water.
Jenny said something funny the other day - we were going to the Grampians national park for a long weekend camping (named for the Gramps in Scotland, although they are so far from the lush green hills in the UK it's bonkers). She said the first time she visited the Grampians here, over a year ago, she thought they were dry and red and dusty. Now she's recalibrated and thinks they're lush and green! Have a look at the photos (once we upload them) and see for yourselves!
What else have we been up to? Went to see The Taming of the Shrew outside (I've only ever seen it outside!) - very wierd to hear the Bard in a strong Aussie accent. Also visited the National (shouldn't that be 'State'?) Gallery of Victoria which even I agreed was the worst excuse for an art gallery I've ever visited (lots of china and furniture and pictures of Jesus) although it did have a very good temporary exhibition of C18th European satirical drawings from Hogarth and co.
Going to the Motorshow today (C's reward for having been so well behaved in the Chinese embassy) and we're leaving Melbourne for Canberra and more fun with the Vietnamese and Mongolian embassies tomorrow.
More later
Hx

Helen's, er, well, got a job, um, in Edinburgh

2009-02-25T04:06:00.000-08:00

Helen: Yup, that's right, I've gone and got myself a job. In Edinburgh. Starting at the beginning of June. On the one hand I'm sad that our trip will be ending soon, and that we won't get to spend as long as I'd hoped exploring Central Asia. But on the other hand, I'm certainly done with living out of a backpack and whatever we don't manage this time round we'll do the next time. And, I have to say, I am excited about having a job, using my brain, and working for the Fed (my old job with city farms/community gardens) again. I loved my work and it was a real wrench to leave, so I'm happy. And C is even more excited. He's already talking feverishly about what he's going to do when he gets home - skiing, putting a bike engine in his caterham, lots of climbing, martial arts...you name it. Think he thinks he's going to be a kept man!
It's late here and I'm off to bed. But, more news soon, I promise
hx

ps forgot to say, we're now in melbourne - it's great - v v different from nz, and from sydney for that matter. It feels like London or Glasgow. Lots of old buildings and character. There are more people in this one city than in all of NZ put together. Was quite a culture shock when Jenny and Gareth picked us up from the airport and we drove home on a 4 lane each way road! That's the biggest road we've seen since we left the UK!

Don't let the bed bugs bite

2009-02-17T01:35:00.000-08:00

Helen: Not been a particularly inspiring week, I have to be honest. We drove to ChristChurch from Nelson, and have been waiting here since then in limbo. We were all geared up to leave NZ and head to Aus after our YM exams...and then we got stuck here because C wanted to retake. Thankfully that's all sorted now and he's doing his exam again on Sat (back in bloody Nelson though. Another long drive - and we don't even have any Dan Brown to keep us occupied (I won't say amused or interested) this time). Oh well... hope he passes this time!

We have managed to go swing dancing once, meet up with some friends (from Tahiti - who are now having a baby - I told C that everyone we know is having babies now so maybe we should too and he just said 'no, all we need is some new friends!), and go to the cinema (Valkyrie is very good, if you can ignore Tom Cruise, which, I admit, is hard as he's the main character). But we haven't managed much, partly because we've been in wierdo limbo land, and partly because we've been hanging out at the Backpackers Car Market every day. It's about as glamourous and exciting as it sounds. We've been trying to sell our car for 3 days now and no one wants it! It's really upsetting C that people would rather buy rust-buckets that even I think sound awful than spend decent money on our car, which he's looked after well. I'm going to cover the car in coloured stickers tomorrow in an attempt to get people's attention.

Only other thing of note that's happened to us is that C has been munched by bed bugs. Yup, bed bugs. He had so many itchy red bumps he even went to the doctor to see if he had chicken pox. He didn't, so he went rooting around under the mattress in our hostel and found a colony of the little buggers. All our possessions have now been fumigated. It's making me itchy just writing this (although, I have, unusually, escaped, unscathed. Normally, if there's a rash to be got, I'll get it, but not this time. Serves C right as he insisted on swapping sides of the bed with me - he ended up in the bed bug nest not me!)

Ok, that's all. Time for bed
Hxxxx

not Yachtmasters :(

2009-02-10T14:23:00.000-08:00

Helen: Well...we didn't pass our sailing exam. Thanks for all your good luck messages all the same. We went for RYA Yachtmaster which is the highest non-commercial qualification you can get, as well as the lowest commercially endorsable qualification, and the exam was bloody hard! The examiner had us picking up buoys under sail, anchoring under sail and doing blind navigation round imaginary reefs. In the end he said he thought we sailed well together, and that his kids would be safe with us, but that we didn't have the experience for YM, so he gave us Coastal Skipper instead, which is the level below. To be honest, I'm dead chuffed with that. I wasn't really sure that I was up to YM, and Coastal is good enough for me. I've had a lot of sailing experience in the last year, but not much boat handling or skippering, so I think it was a fair decision for me.

C on the other hand is fuming. He didn't like the examiner from the start and thinks he has been treated very unfairly. Our instructor agrees, and they're in the process of lodging an official complaint to the RYA. C is cross about all sorts of things, the edited highlights of which are:

- when the examiner came on board he said he'd be examining us, but also that he hoped we'd learn something too - which put us in a very difficult position - all the time we weren't sure if he was testing us or teaching us, especially when he told us to do manoeuvres differently from how we'd been taught
- he didn't seem to be able to treat me and C differently - it was as if we were a job lot and I feel that C might have been tarred with my brush as it were. For example, the examiner said that it took C 5 attempts to pick up a buoy under sail which just isn't true - that was me!!
- he put us under stress by his personality, rather than just stress from the situation, which isn't allowed in RYA guidelines
- he wouldn't allow us to do manoeuvres the way we'd been taught by an RYA instructor - he wanted them done his way instead, which is just daft. If he's an RYA examiner he ought to abide by RYA regs.

And so on. You get the idea. Anyway, we're now back in Ch-Ch totally knackered (I'm writing this from bed, and it's 1135 in the morning - don't plan on doing much today at all - might finish reading Dan Brown to C (I keep him amused while he's driving by reading drivel that doesn't require much brain power) but that's pretty much it - oh, and we might go and meet some people we met in Tahiti for a beer). Then we have to sell the car, and head to Oz - but C might want to retake his YM exam in Nelson first...

Will keep you posted
Hxx

And then there were two...

2009-02-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

Helen: Now we're all on our lonely ownly ownsome. L, B and W went home a couple of days ago and now it's just us again. It's all quiet without them - but much easier to wash up after 2 people than 5! Predictably our baggage still expands to fill the boot of our car, and most of the back seat, even though we sent a whole bunch of stuff home with the Panks!

The last few days the rest of the clan were here we went kayaking in Milford and walked the hallowed Milford Track (well, 2 miles of it anyway) - have to say it didn't look that different to the rest of the rainforest we've seen in NZ! C & W got very excited because they thought they'd seen a kiwi in the wild - it turned out to be a weka instead (small, brown bird so they could be forgiven for the mistake). Then we went to Queenstown (where we saw real kiwis in a bird sanctuary), wine tasting in Otago (yum, yum, yum is all I can say) and ended up in Mt Cook where we got an amazing picture postcard perfect day with clear blue skies behind the snow and ice capped mountains. Bloody gorgeous.

Now we're back in Nelson (stayed a couple of nights on the West Coast where we encountered the rudest man we've yet met on our travels - he was, I hate to say, English, about 55, very fat and traveling with a much younger German girl. We were minding our own business in the lounge playing guitar and harmonica (we're getting quite good together) and he just started playing music on his laptop without asking us if we minded. Of course, we didn't complain - not the British way - but we should have. Bloody Dido droning on for hours. They went upstairs and left her wailing away - mercifully she stopped after 20 mins or so all by itself...and he had the cheek to accuse us of messing about with his computer - it had just run out of battery because he'd plugged it into the wrong socket. He was really agressive and accusatory. Wanker. Then we had to listen to him and his girlfriend shagging all night. Delightful. I can only assume that she was with him for his money...) Anyway, as I said, now we're in Nelson, in our favourite hostel, swotting up for our yachtmaster exam on Sunday. Cross your fingers for us.

Lots of love
Hxx

Squalid Tours

2009-02-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

Helen: Well, we've been a fair old way since I last wrote – we all bundled into Ming, our trusty Mitsubishi estate (it's a good thing Panks are small and travel light is all I can say) and then we headed off for Dunedin. The guide book promised 'the Edinburgh of the South'...but it wasn't a patch on the real thing. We visited Princes St and George St and saw a few old stone buildings, but the real attraction was that we saw penguins! They come ashore when it gets dark, so we waited for them on the beach and saw a handful of them waddle ashore with white tummies and big yellow eyebrows and their ankles effectively tied together. You have to stay a long way away from them otherwise you frighten them so they won't return to their nests to feed their babies. Was a magical night – no one else but us and the penguins.

Then it was on to Curio Bay – beautiful beach (L, B and W appreciated it more than us – you can tell they haven't been sailing round the world recently as they were excited by the dolphins too), and then a 3 day tramp. It rained pretty much the whole time (typical West Coast weather – much like the West Coast of Scotland) and we didn't get any views at the top, but the huts were very luxurious – you could even buy wine and beer! Now enjoying a well earned rest before kayaking in Milford Sound tomorrow and wine tasting in Otago after that...

Hxx

PS had a hilarious game of 'international' boggle while on our tramp – we met a lovely Dutch couple and an Israeli girl who all spoke pretty good English so they joined in with our game (Bob's a star and carried travel Boggle all the way up the hill). In the spirit of international relations we decided we ought to play a round in Dutch and a round in Hebrew too. Was interesting how many Dutch words the non-Dutch contingent came up with (they only counted if you could also come up with a reasonable definition and the word actually existed in Dutch) – we didn't do so well in Hebrew though!

PPS had an awful 'oh-bollocks-I've-lost-6-hours-work-on-the-computer' moment last night (believe it or not I'm applying for my old job in Edinburgh again). Annoyingly, I'm now too old to blame the computer (well, I would, but C just looks at me reproachfully when I do.

PPPS read a brilliant bit in the guidebook yesterday – apparently the Maori believe the Fiords were created by a god with an axe and they were so beautiful that the Goddess of Death had to unleash sandflies on the area so that people wouldn't want to stay here forever! It worked!

Final PS – It's Jan 29^th today. One year since Matt died. God I wish he was still here. Hannah, we're thinking about you and Nooka and all the good times we had together.

Blades of Glory

2009-01-19T20:48:00.001-08:00

Helen: C and I are now the proud owners of Pank crafted knives. Ok, so we had a bit of help, but I reckon we made at least 60 % of the knives ourselves - everything from forging the metal in hot coals and bashing the hell out of it on anvils (C was very good at this part - I was a bit pathetic and the man (with lopsided shoulders) had to come and help me out). Then we made the handles (from late 19th C wood no less) and spent hours and hours grinding the blades into shape and then polishing them. Mine is long and curvy and C's is short and stubby - you can definitely tell which is the girly one and which is the manly one. Unfortunately they didn't run a sheath making workshop too, so our beautiful new knives are now being stored in carboard tubes held together with packing tape!

Other than that we haven't done much exciting for the last few days - Greymouth was pretty grey and uninspiring and now we're in Ch-Ch, which, although not so grey, is also not very inspiring. You can punt on the river, and the botanical gardens are lovely - but they're not a patch on the real thing in Oxford or Cambridge. But...none of that matters too much just now as we have other things to keep us busy - Bob, Laura and Will arrived yesterday :) I don't know what the collective term for a group of Panks is, but we are now it. They are remarkably un-jetlagged and we're heading out of town tomorrow to start some proper sightseeing along the south coast.

Will write more when I've got something more interesting to report!

Hxx

PS forgot to tell you that when we were on the Abel Tasman walk we saw lots of marble. I know that sounds like a daft thing to add as a PS, but I think it's super cool - the whole of the park is made of limestone, but some of it got so pressurised in the earth's crust that it turned to marble, and now there are great lumps of it just lying around on the path - proper white shiny marble with veins in it - I just couldn't get over it, considering how expensive marble is at home - I wanted marble kitchen works surfaces til I found out how much it would cost!

PPS you'll be glad to know I now have another sewing project on the go. After all, as C pointed out what is an old sew-and-sew do do with nothing to sew... (I got some Maori print material to make a dress with sleeves - trying to get C to help me choose which print to buy was like pulling teeth. Getting material was the last thing on our very strange shopping list: pipe cleaners (for cleaning the camp stove), liquid fuel (for stove), red plastic (to help with C's colour blindness - if you look at a red light through red plastic you can still see it; if you look at a green light through red plastic it disappears. V important for sailing so you can tell which way the boats are going!), strong thread for fixing my shoes, some parcel tape and a big laundry bag).

Abel Seamen

2009-01-14T01:41:00.000-08:00

Helen: No news for a while because we've been at sea or up hills. It was odd being back on board again after so long on land, but we settled back into the routine well enough (the routine including mandatory sea-sickness for the first 24 hours) and had a great week. Our sailing instructor turned out to be my friend Eva's uncle Johnny (I swear there aren't many people in NZ, or the world for that matter, who Eva doesn't know by some roundabout way or other) and he was about as different from our last RYA instructor (who was an arrogant knob-head) as it is possible to be. He laughed and encouraged me through 5 days of sailing and manoeuvring leaving me feeling much more confident about our exam on Feb 9^th. Still not sure I'm going to pass...but at least I feel I have a chance now. C did really well too – but he was always much better at all that stuff than me anyway. He bought himself a 'Drizzabone' hat so he looks like a professional now too!

Nelson is a friendly wee town – not as much character as Wellington, but nice enough. Got some yummy cherries from the road side on our way in, have met our yachtie friends Pagos and caught up on all their news, and are feeling very smug as we've booked the next leg of our journey... C is mortally embarrassed about this but we are going on a CRUISE from Sydney to Singapore from Mar 19 to April 4. Yes, I know it'll be full of blue rinse old bats, but it's way way way cheaper than getting a cargo ship (weird, huh?) and it means we don't have to fly – we've got this far without flying (ok, technically we did fly a teeny weeny bit in the Caribbean, but not much), so it would be a shame to start now. We're also deep in discussions with Igor and Anastasia (I kid you not – I bet their real names are Darren and Tracey) in the UK who are going to sort out visas and train tickets for us for Russia, China, Mongolia and Khazakstan. Just so long as I don't have to do it!

We've also been hiking in the Abel Tasman National Park (top of the south island) – the place is crawling with tourists, but 95% of them do the easy walk along the coast – we opted for the inland route and got the place mostly to ourselves (we saw 13 people for 3 days, apart from the last half an hour which is along the popular Coastal Route where we saw 49!)

OK, got to go now – just put Star Wars 1 in the CD drive (I know it's awful, I know, in fact I'm sure the first time I saw it I swore I'd never see it again, but we want to see 2 and 3 again and they won't make sense if we don't watch this one first, so we'll grit our teeth and bear it. All particularly galling considering we could have been watching Erol Flynn's Robin Hood this evening at an open air screening – but it's too far away and C's not feeling well – sore throat – so it's Darth Maul instead.)

Okey Cokey – that's all for now,

Lots of love

H&Cxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

South Island

2009-01-04T01:53:00.000-08:00

Helen: Woke up this morning in Wellington...and now we're in Nelson - have gone from the south of the north island to the north of the south island! Was sad to say goodbye to Eva and Den and the boys - has been lovely having a good friend just down the road - but good to get back on the road again. C said going on a ferry always makes him feel like he's going on holiday as he always went on the ferry to go camping in France when he was little.

Wellington has great galleries, museums and gardens. And lots of cafes, bars and shopping. And hills. And walks. And the sea. And quirky wee buildings. All in all, our favourite place so far in NZ. Reminded us both of San Fran. You won't believe it, but we both quite enjoyed 'cat-sitting' for Noodles for the last week or so - we're both so definitely dog people and not cat people though it was quite a revelation to find that somehow we'd ended up with a ball of purring fluff on our laps every evening! We won't miss the telly though - we watched loads while we were house-sitting - just goes to show that if it's there we'll watch it - we're only human!

Nelson, from what we've seen so far, is great. More later when we've done some exploring. Won't be for a few days though as we're off sailing tomorrow - we have 5 days with a sailing school to prepare for yachtmaster (and then the exam on Feb 7 - yikes!) So, will likely be incommunicado til the weekend (I can't wait for Friday night - we're going to go and see an open air screening of Erol Flynn's Robin Hood - I've been trying to get that on DVD for years now)

OK, time for bed. C is already passed out with the lights on - he had 2 pints of strong stout/dark beer from the independent pub over the road! (The pub had oodles of charm - it had black boards on all the walls with quotations to read, cross words to fill in, points to argue (who would win a 'no-holds-barred' fight - Emimem or Elvis) and things to make you think (can you name 10 body parts with only 3 letters - abbreviations like bum, pec and ass don't count - C and I finally managed it in about 12 minutes - the record is apparently 3.5. Don't worry, next time I write I'll tell you the answer and put you out of your misery...)

Lots of love
Hxxx

Happy New Year

2008-12-30T22:42:00.000-08:00

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

Happy Christmas!

2008-12-25T02:29:00.000-08:00

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

Rain rain go away

2008-12-20T16:25:00.000-08:00

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

Cold Mountain

2008-12-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

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

Bath time

2008-12-05T22:48:00.000-08:00

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

Rotten eggs

2008-12-01T17:22:00.000-08:00

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

Pomp and Circumstance

2008-11-29T13:40:00.000-08:00

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!

Bond, James Bond

2008-11-26T21:14:00.000-08:00

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

Wheels

2008-11-21T16:39:00.000-08:00

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

Living it up downtown

2008-11-19T16:35:00.001-08:00

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

First anniversary

2008-11-16T23:49:00.000-08:00

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!)

We made it!!

2008-11-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

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

On the way to New Zealand

2008-11-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

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.

Hello again from the Sugar City

2008-10-28T18:21:00.000-07:00

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.

Suva

2008-10-26T21:12:00.000-07:00

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 :)

Lautoka

2008-10-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

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

Fish and moldy cheddar

2008-10-21T15:34:00.000-07:00

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.

Treasure hunting and other thoughts

2008-10-12T16:09:00.000-07:00

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

Feeling snotty in Taveuni :(

2008-10-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

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.

Bula!!

2008-09-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

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

Fiji

2008-09-25T16:33:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2008-09-24T02:42:00.000-07:00

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

We are the (pub quiz) champions

2008-09-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

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

People are strange

2008-09-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

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....

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

2008-09-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

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!!

RAIN

2008-09-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

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

Tonga

2008-09-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

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

Yamana tours the Tumbleweed island

2008-08-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

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

Niue Rocks

2008-08-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

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

Broken glasses and mended shorts

2008-08-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

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

Glow in the dark graves

2008-08-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

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

Photos

2008-08-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

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

They speak English and have Indian restaurants here!

2008-08-07T19:21:00.000-07:00

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!!)

Time to go!!

2008-08-02T12:41:00.001-07:00

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...

Rahula to the rescue

2008-07-31T18:15:00.001-07:00

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

Evil old witch

2008-07-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

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...

STILL IN TAHITI. ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH

2008-07-17T02:41:00.000-07:00

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

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

2008-07-08T13:57:00.001-07:00

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.

Change of plan...again

2008-06-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

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

Un grand cadeau

2008-06-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

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

The Big Smoke

2008-06-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

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...

Rangiroa

2008-06-09T17:32:00.000-07:00

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.....

Nuku Hiva

2008-05-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

Helen: Oh, how nice is this - an English keyboard! I spent all morning trying to use a French keyboard and got so frustrated I nearly through the computer out of the window - instead of touch typing at 60 wpm I was reduced to typing with two fingers. Add to the mix a clunky, slow internet connexion, and I think we'd be better off with no internet at all. At least if there wasn't the chance of getting on line you could just go out and enjoy the sunshine. But this way there is the possibility of communicating with the outside world so we've spent all day cooped up in the post office trying to send a few emails. Grrrrrrrrrr

But, now I've brought the laptop from the boat, and I have a Qwerty keyboard and all is well. We're on Nuku Hiva at the moment, which is the biggest of the Marquesas - it's also the least atmospheric as it's the most built up. Although, when I say 'built up', I mean by Marquesan standards. It's still ridiculously off the beaten track - I mean, the whole island, locals as well as yachties, is waiting with baited breath for the cargo ship which should arrive tomorrow, as there is no gas to be had anywhere until the next shipment gets here. And, as I said, the internet exists...but is still pretty backward - it all has to go through a satellite connexion so is horribly slow. But, it makes you think - until satellites were used for communication (1980s?) these islands probably didn't even have telephones...

Believe it or not, last Saturday was our 5th wedding anniversary. So we splashed out and went out for pizza and beer and a trip to the cinema (a converted lecture theatre). We understook pitifully little of the two films... I don't think our lack of language skills really detracted from the experience though - the films were both utter, utter rubbish - but it was fun to hang out with the locals - we were the only tourists there, and several of the kids pointed and laughed at C's hair! Apparently for a 5th anniversary you're supposed to get wooden presents, so we bought a wooden 'Tiki' - a funny looking little man with big eyes, a scary mouth and a fat pot belly!

It probably won't surprise you to learn that C has been in a grump for the last couple of days. He's been busy thinking about all the ways our trip could be more fun, and has compiled a list of all the toys he'd have on his 'fantasy boat' (a Catana 471 - a giant catamaran) - this has made him grumpy that he can't have it all NOW... He's also grumpy because he's hurt his toe (his fins rubbed a patch raw) and it won't heal in all this salt water. So I've made him put proper dressings on it and wear his wellies, both of which things make him look stupid, but will help him get better sooner.

We went provisioning yesterday - was a bit of a shock to the wallet - we decided we could live without kitchen roll til Tahiti - it was £2.50 a roll!! Stuart has started buying his own booze and biscuits which is good as he drinks/eats way more than we do - we were about 3 weeks into our pacific crossing and I offered C a chocolate biscuit - his little face lit up, as he'd only had a couple so far - but when I went to the cupboard they were all gone. We had bought 10 packets, and only had a handful ourselves - Stuart had even said he didn't like the ones we had chosen. But it appears even a biscuit he 'doesn't like' is better than no biscuit at all and he ate them all - how disappointing!!! C looked crestfallen. We think we've struck it lucky with ginger nuts though - he really doesn't seem to like those, which is lucky cos we do :)

Right, just about to be kicked out of the post office - will write again when we get to the next place - either Ua Poa in the Marquesas, or possibly Rangiroa in the Tuamotos...

Lots of love
Hx (&Cx)

Heading for Ua Pua

2008-05-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

Position: 09 Deg 54 Mins South, 139 Deg 07 Mins West

We've had a great time on Tahuata, mainly because we met a really nice couple from Santa Barbera called Jaimie and Brandon on a boat called Gaviotta (Seagull). They came over yesterday morning with some of the huge Wahoo that they caught as they couldn't eat it all, we went snorkelling with them in the bays around the anchorage and then we had drinks on their boat in the evening. Helen's getting over her fear of swimming and was diving down to look at all the colourful little fishies on the reef. Today we walked with them through the jungle (full of mangoes, bananas and limes) all the way to the village, it took about 4 hours. Thankfully when we got there we found a local boat to take us back to the anchorage.

All the islands are beautiful, the sea is clear, the fishies are abundant and the locals are friendly - when we arrived in the village today, the shop had no bread, but I spotted a lady by the quay with a big bag of baguettes, I asked her if she was selling them, and she said no, but I could have some anyway and gave us 3 to take back to the boat!

Charlie fixed the engine while we were here too, we were having to go into the engine bay and short the solenoid contacts with a screwdriver, til I found the problem with the wiring to the start relay. All that tinkering with Kermit's starter over the years is paying off!

La Vie Francaise

2008-05-11T00:15:00.000-07:00

Nous aimons bien Hiva Oa. C'est tres jolie, les gents sont tres gentils et le dejeuner c'est magnifique - pain francais, fromage (Brie!), saucisson et Orangina. :) Actually, it's a good thing we like simple French style picnic lunches, as we went out for lunch the other day and it nearly bankrupted us. £45/50 for a, not particularly inspiring or substantial, meal for 3. Not even any wine or beer. C'est trop trop cher ici. So, we've been trying to do things on the cheap...but it's not easy. We managed a trek through the jungle to see petroglyphs (scrawls on rocks according to C) by ourselves (for free) and we visited the cemetery where Gauguin is buried...but that's about it. Everything else costs.
Today we went for another trek in the jungle with Alain our guide - was expensive, but well worth it - there are so many archaeological sites in the forest that you'd never see by yourself it's so overgrown. We learnt all about 'Tikis' (carved rocks with stylised human faces that represent deified ancestors) and the sacred sites where you find them (which bits are 'Tapu' (taboo) and which bits are public). Alain also told us about all the plants - the breadfruit tree and the giant hibiscus have both been v v important to the Polynesian people - used for food, rope, house building, medicine, canoes, decoration. All sorts. They've also got cashews, coffee, papaya, mangoes and more here - it's so lush - every time I look out the window I must be able to see about 10 different shades of green. Alain took us to his house in the mountains - v v simple - water from a well he dug himself, legumes from the garden, horses to carry stuff, outside salle de bain. Think it might have been a bit too much like the Good Life even for me! It's a shame though - he said that he's the exception and not many other people grow their own food - in fact he says the Marquesans (he's an import from Paris) are gradually eating themselves out of house and home - there used to be lots of cows on the island...til they ate them all...and now they're working their way through the horses (learnt the difference between 'chevaux' and 'cheveux' today - got an impromptu French lesson from Alain as he didn't speak much English - my brain hurts now from concentrating so hard!)
Final anecdote for you: Alain told us about an American tourist who stole one of the Tiki a few years ago - when he got home his wife died and his house burned down - his bad luck didn't stop til he returned the Tiki to Hiva Oa...
Tomorrow we're off for the next island - thankfully only a few hours away. C spent the whole day yesterday filling us up with water - 450 litres which equates to 4 runs in our little dinghy hefting 20 and 30 litre jerry cans around. V tiring and one of the things that you lot at home probably don't appreciate about our trip - it's not all gin and tonics and adventures - it can take a couple of days just to fill up with fuel and water and go shopping!!
Right, time to go - Alain gave us some fresh avocados from his garden and Stuart is making supper...
Lots of love H&Cxx

Land...at last!

2008-05-05T00:35:00.000-07:00

Current Position: 09 Deg 48 Mins South, 139 Deg 01 Mins West.
We're now anchored in Tahauku Bay on Hiva Oa. It's so nice not to be rolling around. We had a total nightmare when we arrived in Fatu Hiva yesterday evening as it's very steeply shelving and very crowded (what are all these people doing in our island paradise?). After 26 days of sailing we tried and failed to anchor 4 times in the Bay of Virgins before we gave up and decided to sail through another night to get to Hiva Oa. At that moment, the heavens opened, the mainsail wouldn't go up (caught on the lazy jacks), the engine starter circuit failed and the stern toilet stopped working (flooded would be a more accurate description). That was definitely the low-point of our Pacific trip. Reminiscent of our non-arrival in Rodney Bay after the Atlantic crossing. What an anticlimax. That gin and tonic we'd been looking forward to was not to be. Had to haul ourselves up for yet another night watch instead and we sailed through the night to anchor up in Hiva Oa. But...it was worth it. We've just been ashore, wandered into town and watched a football match with the locals (in our best French - v confusing after speaking so much Spanish). We chatted with them, and got some money out. We have both now had showers - H has clean hair, and C is no longer visibly grubby - honestly - he was dirtiest he's ever been - he'd reached 'dirt saturation point' and the dirt was just sitting on his skin (all in the interests of saving water you understand...) Tomorrow, we're going to get all our laundry done - mmmmmmmm clean us and clean sheets! Fatu Hiva and Hiva Oa are outstandingly beautiful, we've taken lots of pixtures so you can see. It's a bit like the Lake District, except it's really sunny and warm, and at the foot of the mountains is the sea. Got an appointment tomorrow to see a man about some ink, and plans to go and see lots of archaeological sites/mountain climbing. But, for now, think we're going to relax and have another GnT and watch the Life of Brian with popcorn. And then sleep. A lot.
C&H xx

So nearly there...

2008-04-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

10 deg 49 min S, 132 deg 44 min W. Which means, unfortunately, we've come too far south already. :(. But that's the wind for you. Frustrating!! But the flip side of that is that it's also very Zen - you just have to go where the wind is and that's that. Happily it's turned a bit today though, and we're actually slowly heading north back towards Fatu Hiva. 'Only' 350 miles to go now... Tomorrow we should be there the day after tomorrow. Finally! All this time for thinking (and sewing - cockpit cushion cover is coming along nicely and I've got round to mending umpteen t-shirts and bras - I'm sure C puts holes in them deliberately - his t-shirts that is, not my bras!) has got me thinking... I've been remembering being little and going to museums with my Mummy, and things I did at University and all sorts of other things - remembering stuff I haven't thought about in yonks. Has made me smile.
C has progressed from Dickens to the Koran, which is appears to be much more repetitive and much less interesting! He caught a big fish today - it must've been at least 2.5 ft - we even have a photo to prove it to all you doubters. I got a lesson in filleting and we ate it for supper. Not much else to report - hopefully the next post will be from land!!
Love from (very grubby) H&C"

Only another 774 miles to go!

2008-04-27T09:59:00.000-07:00

09 deg 29 min S, 125 deg 37 min W. Since the last post, we seem to have found the wind, and have been zipping along at a pretty steady 5 knots. Not going to break any records, but should arrive by 2nd May, which is a relief. Much easier to take it all in your stride when you can see an end in sight. (Also in sight since the last post has been a ginormous gas tanker. On my watch, obviously, as I'm a 'boat magnet' - if there's ever any traffic to deal with it's always muggins here who has to deal with it. There's millions of square miles of ocean out here, and this tanker just happened to pass within 3 miles of us. Once it had gone we all started wondering if we'd imagined it! First sign of civilisation for 12 days...)
My other bit of excitement is that I NEARLY caught a fish - in the end though, I think I was quite relieved that it got away as once I had it on the end of the line, dangling out of the water, thrashing about, my heart was racing and I really didn't want to kill it. Which is pathetic, I know, as I'm more than eager to eat fish that C catches and kills. It was just much more difficult than I had imagined. I've never killed anything before, except insects. But, now I know what to expect I'm prepared for next time. Course I won't catch anything now - the one that got away has told the others to stay clear!
Other news: C has finished, and enjoyed, Bleak House; I'm still struggling with Al Quaeda - can't read too many chapters at once or all the clever words that have gone in one side of my brain start falling out the other; I'm finding lots of uses for pumpkin - v pleased that we still have some fresh produce even though today is day 20 at sea.
One final thing to tell you that I think you'll find amusing - we're heading for the Baie de Vierges on Fatu Hiva - that's the Bay of Virgins to you and me - was called Baie de Verges (Bay of Penises) after some phallic looking rocks...but the missionaries objected and inserted an 'i' to defend everyone's modesty!
Okey dokey - might be on land next time I write - looking forward to it sooo much - except think that it might all be a bit bewildering when we get there - having to deal with NOT being on a boat. Think we might all look and smell a bit like Stig of the Dump too! Oh, I hope there's a hot shower and some croissants when we get there...
Lots of love
H (&C - asleep now though as it's the middle of the night and I'm the only one up, on watch)xx

Day 13 in the Big Brother Boat

2008-04-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

(sent 20.04.08)
06 deg 40 min S, 110 deg, 00 min W. It really is like the BBB - '[in a Geordie accent] C has caught a fish, H is asleep, Stuart is having a coffee. Later Stuart makes lunch.' Doesn't get much more exciting than that folks. Except there's no jacuzzi or chicken run or diary room to make it more interesting. Just the same 41' of boat there was yesterday, and the day before... At least we seem to have found the Trade Winds though - currently have 16-18 knots and should be there in 15 days (last week the GPS said our ETA was the middle of July!! Don't want to miss Bastille Day in French Polynesia!)
C has resorted to reading 'Bleak House'. It's that desperate. I was going to read some chick lit book that was lying around, but my brain refused after the first chapter. So I've settled on a book about Al Quaeda instead. From one extreme to the other. (The last book I read was about the war and the Enigma machine - all the talk about rationing and mending stuff made me think of living on a boat - v pleased that, because of careful planning, we still have fresh provisions left after 2 weeks at sea. Had the last of the fresh peppers this evening though :( )
Should be half way by supper time tomorrow. Which is a relief - I had my 'I've been on a boat too long' wobble yesterday. Feeling much better now. How did people ever make this journey without knowing where they were going or even if there was anything at the other end? At least the GPS is making sure I'm inching my way towards a hot shower (haven't washed my hair since we left - was a bit yucky on day 5/6/7 but is now safely tucked away in plaits and looking after itself (plaits means that C sings the 'Oh Brunhilda' song from Bugs and Elma Fudd's 'Ring of the Nibbling' to me :) ) How does Ellen MacArthur do it without even someone else to whine to?
Right. No more news. Must go and unblock the loo before it floods.
Love from H&Cxx
PS - are now at 111 deg 29 min W - H v upset cos she was too busy talking to C to notice when it was 111 deg 11 min.111 W. Bugger!"

BORED

2008-04-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

4 degrees 59 minutes south,99 degrees 40 minutes west. Yes, I know, we haven't gone that far since the last post. That's because there's NO WIND. The sea was like a mirror two days ago. No kidding. It's going to take us forever to get there at this rate! Will have to start being extra conservative with water soon - no washing my hair for a while (maybe I should get dreads like C? Would stop my hair falling out all the time too - latest odd place a strand of long blond hair was found was in the engine compartment...)
I'm SO BORED. It's like being a little kid, when you're too bored to do anything. I'm making some cushions for the cockpit out of an old life jacket, trying to read a book in German and have learnt how to play Gin Rummy, but it's no good. It's still dull, and there's no getting away from the fact that there's 2340 miles still to go. And there's no getting away from Stuart (the skipper) or C either. Tensions have been a wee bit frayed the last couple of days - probably because we're all SO BORED (and because C has failed to catch any fish for days too!).
Right, sun's nearly up - nearly the end of my watch!!
More soon
Hxx"

PS yup, we do get lovely sunsets on the boat (although they tend to be cloudier than during the days) but...you get a bit blase about sunsets/rises when you see this many of them! We were sailing with another boat for a few days, but they've gone a different way to us now, so it's just us...haven't seen another vessel for at least 2 days now...

Catching the right fish

2008-04-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

"02 degrees 13.6 minutes South, 95 degrees 55 minutes West. Sun's just come up...but the wind's just disappeared. Again. So the engine's on, which means it's loud and smelly. But at least it means I can use the computer to write an email. Still can't quite get over the fact that even out here in the ocean we're still able to be online! Actually, even without email we're still not totally incommunicado. We can use our Single Side Band radio to get the World Service (including the Archers if we're lucky) and also to talk to other boats nearby on a 'Net' - it's a bit like the Waltons, everyone checks in every morning and evening to say where they are and what the weather's like!
Other news: C has caught, killed and filleted two mahi mahi (dorado - every time he catches a fish I have to get out the piece of paper with the pictures of FISH YOU MUST NOT EAT to check it's ok. The first one he caught was only a tiddler and I told him to throw it back. He said it had a bloody great hook through it's gob and had been dragged for miles so was half dead anyway, so he didn't throw it back. I did my bit for fish protection the next morning though when I threw a kamikazee flying fish back in the sea after it jumped on our deck. C was also visited during the night - by a flying squid which landed at his feet in the cockpit!!)
Not much else to report - have been sewing, read a v bad Robert Ludlum book and trying to think of inventive things to do with cabbage as we have lots of it. Hope we find the elusive South East Trade Winds soon. H&Cxx"

Nearly done in the Galapagos

2008-04-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

Helen: Thought we´d be gone by now...but we´re still here. Our skipper doesn´t like doing anything in a hurry, which is a bit annoying as we feel like we´re done here already and want to get going. Specially as we have a new plan forming... We think there is a very strong possibility that we might have had enough of sailing (especially sailing other people´s boats) by the time we get to NZ. One bit of sea, and for that matter, one island, looks pretty much like another, and we´re not really into the cruising lifestyle - lots of sitting on your boat looking at pretty views or moaning to other yachties about how long it takes/expensive it is to get parts. So...the inkling of a new plan that´s forming in our minds is that we might ditch boats in favour of bikes when we get down under. If Euan McGregor can do it, don´t see why we can´t. So, I´m just sitting here looking up what the weather´s like in Bejing, Nepal, Bombay, Cairo, Istanbul, Croatia, Vienna, Moscow, Sweden and Denmark, trying to plot a route that gets us where we want to go at the right times of year to avoid snow, big winds and lots of rain. We spent ages looking at a map of the world the other day and decided that the only way to avoid major war zones was to ship the bike from India to Egypt. We´ve had enough bad luck already without deliberately putting ourselves in harms way!
As for our immediate adventures here - we went snorkelling this morning in a lovely fresh water pool (kinda crevice in the rocks really) and have just had ice creams. Afraid it´s not much more exciting than that just now! We did, however, find the weekly fruit and veg market yesterday, which was a relief as otherwise we thought we were going to have to live off tinned food for the next month. Not an appetizing prospect.
Will write again when we can
H & Cxx

Underwhelmed and overtaxed in the Galapagos

2008-04-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

Helen: Wish I didn´t get so excited about things, like C, as then I wouldn´t get so disappointed when they didn´t turn out as I expected. I´ve seen so many pictures of the Galapagos in National Geographic and learned so much about Darwin at University, that I was really looking forward to the Galapagos. It´s really not that great though. Oddly, we keep meeting other tourits who say this is the highlight of their trip or the best holiday ever. We can only assume that they haven´t spent any time in the Caribbean or Africa or Asia for that matter - there are so many places we´ve been where the wildlife is more accesssible (even in Panama, just outside the marina we saw monkeys in the wild). And other places are cheaper!! It´s v expensive here - I´d like to believe that´s becuase everything has to be imported, and also becuase the money they raise by taxing and overcharging tourists is reinvested into the protection of the national park. C on the other hand is more cynical. He thinks the whole thing is an elaborate money extraction exercise, based on the reputation of the Galapagos and the fact that they have a captive market. Maybe he´s right. Although they don´t need any more tourists. They don´t have enough water for the ones they´ve got. Or enough fresh fruit and veg for the locals. It´s v v hard to find fresh produce here, so most people (locals included) eat out for every meal. Which explains why they´re so fat. They women at least - our guide for our mountain trek told us that only the men play sports. They women just watch TV and have babies. They don´t seem to grow much here - only one of the islands has fresh water - but they do get lots of rain, and the highlands are pretty lush, so we can´t help wondering why everything is imported. Hmmmm

But, it´s not all bad. We met up with a Swedish friend who we met in Panama; we´ve been snorkelling, and seen a sting ray (no seals though - they´re always in the water just before and just after we are in the water, but never at the same time! We also missed out on sharks, but I´m inclined to think that´s actually a good thing!); and we climbed a volcano on Tuesday. It was a very bleak landsacape with amazing colours (red, black, orange, yellow, white, green from the ferns that were growing in the craters and blue from the sky). We were lucky that we had the whole place to ourselves - just me, C and our 2 guides (could´ve done the walk no worries by ourseleves, but you must have a guide - see above, money extraction). Because we had decided to camp, we started out a lot later than the groups of tourists who trek up the hill on horses. They were all coming down as we were going up. They seemed to have guides who spoke good English - ours didn´t. At first I wished Carla and Cesar had spoken better English and known more about the geology/wildlife of the area - but C said it would have made him feel like he´d been on a school field trip, and, actually, having to try to speak Spanish was really good for us. We camped with them and the two national park guards that evening and sat around in their hut chatting (well, attempting to chat). A much more ´local´ experience than we would have had if we had gone with a large organised tour. (We weren´t expecting to find the guards at the campsite, and had packed for being in the wilderness - the guides and guards offered to let us cook in their well appointed kitchen, but C insisted on using his camping stove outside. They all came out to have a look - I´m not sure if they were impressed or bemused by the clouds of billowing deisel smoke!)

Right, that´s enough for now. For anyone who´s interested we´ve seen penguins, rays, blue-footed boobys, seals, giant tortoises (v v cute) and marine iguanas. So that´s a big TICK for Galapagos as C would say. Going to try to find some fresh produce and stock up on deisel and water and should be leaving for the Marquesas on Saturday.

Hx

Looking for tortoises!

2008-03-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

Helen: We´re here!! On San Cristobal at the moment - arrived at sparrow´s fart this morning. It´s daft - having spent several days motoring in the doldrums, when we got close to the islands this enormous westerly current kicked in (helped by the fact that it was full moon) and, even when we took all the sails down we STILL drifted west at about 2 knots. So we had to spend most of yesterday trying to go the wrong way so that we wouldn´t arrive in the middle of the night. Crazy.
But, here we are. Have been told that unfortunatley we can´t stop at all three of the inhabited islands - only one (well, we can stop at them all, but then you have to pay 3 times, and, at $100 a time, that´s prohibitively expensive). So we have to choose. C and I want to stay here as it´s chilled out and you can go walking. Think our skipper might want to go to Santa Cruz though as that´s where all the tourists go to get their boat tours. Hmmmmm. Hopefully either way we´ll get to go to Isabela too and do a 2 day hike up a volcano - after 8 days on a 41 foot yacht we both need to stretch our legs!!
Haven´t seen a tortoise yet...but hope to soon - looking out for a giant strawberry as that´s surely where the giant torts will be. Have seen lots of seals though - apprently you have to be careful where you park you dinghy here otherwise when you come back it´s full of seals!
Right, have to go - more later
H&Cxx

Doldrums

2008-03-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

Written Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 04 degrees 10 minutes N, 082 degrees 02 minutes W.

(Charlie) Well, the doldrums are dull, our journey has so far been uneventful, which, given our past misfortunes is a really good thing! The biggest problems we've got on board at the moment are the engine noise - no wind in the doldrums - and coming up with recipes for the masses of fresh tuna we have lying around. The boat was given a fishing line complete with lures a few weeks ago and it normally only takes about 30 mins to catch three tuna. They're big things and take some killing! The one I caught the other day made a really big mess all over the stern which took me about an hour to clear up. However, it was delicious.

The skipper has promised that if the weather's nice, then when we reach the equator we can stop for a bit and go for a swim. I am soldiering on with my Spanish and am now about 1/4 of the way through 'Prey' (Presa) by Michael Crichton - it takes a long time when you read each chapter in English, then in Spanish! Helen has just made some excellent bread in a pan as the oven is really not up to much. I'm ashamed to say it's better than the attempt I made the other day with the oven.

Next stop Galapagos!

2008-03-11T12:28:00.000-07:00

Helen: It feels like all we´ve done the last few days is SHOPPING! We must´ve bought about a tonne of food which should hopefully last us til the Marquesas, and some of it even til NZ. Spending 500 quid on food in one go is a bit painful...but over that timeframe it works out at about 2 pounds a day, so we can´t really complain (but saving all this money is a good thing...as when we get to the Galapagos it´s apparently horribly expensive!)

Life on Nomad is getting better (I´ve fixed the mattresses and head lining in our cabin, and C has fixed the loo (!) and I´ve hung bee up to keep us company)...but the skipper is driving me mad already. I´ve been thinking about it, and I think one of the main reasons I don´t like him that much is that he´s fat. I know that sounds odd...but it explains so much about him - he eats too much (biscuits, chocolate, fatty bacon etc...), drinks too much and smokes too much. He always wants to take a taxi instead of walk. Definitely NOT the Pank way. Oh well...he´s nice enough I guess...just does lots of little things that wind me up. Like not even trying to talk to people in Spanish. Or not looking to see if we´ve finished the last milk before opening another. But I guess one of the things you learn on a trip like this is humility and how to get on with other people...

Anyway, rant over. Gotta go soon - have a few more chores to do before going home, and then it´s an early night for us all as we have to leave for Las Perlas early tomorrow - a few days snorkelling there...and then Galapagos here we come. Hopefully we should be able to post while we´re sailing (thanks Bob!) but if not, I´m afraid this will be the last message for a couple of weeks...

Lots of love, hope the storms aren´t too bad in the UK (you have all the wind! Reports are that boats are motoring 900 miles from Las Perlas to Galapagos as there´s no wind here!)

Hxx

Pacific, monkeys, weevils and a Panama hat

2008-03-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

Helen: We´re in the Pacific!!! Our skipper was really ecstatic about this on Friday afternoon when we finally made it through the last lock of the Panama Canal - C and I were both too exhausted then to really take it on board and be excited...but now it´s sunk in that we really have just crossed into a different ocean and through THE PANAMA CANAL. Ok, so it is just a larger version of the Kennet and Avon Canal really, but it was v cool to be in the lock as the same time as a super tanker. Actually, on the way down, it was just us and one other yacht (acting as a giant starboard side fender) in the lock together, with huge expanses of empty space infront and behind. Our own personal transit :)

We´re back in Panama City today and I´ve been tour guide - we wandered around the colonial part - same style architecture as Cartagena except very dilapadated. Some buildings are being done up (and the President´s Palace (complete with teenagers with machine guns to guard it) is very swanky) - C and Stuart kept eyeing buildings and musing on their development potential...

We also went to the Smithsonian Institute research centre and saw week old tiny teeny turtles and a two toed sloth in a tree - C says that´s what I´d be if I was an animal - sleeps 20 hours a day and moves slowly when awake - sounds ideal :) We also saw white faced capuchin monkeys and howler monkeys in the wild in Colon (which make sounds like a pack of angry dogs - very eerie in a jungle when you´re all by yourself - kinda like hearing foxes in London in the middle of the night - their shrieking always made me think someone was being murdered...). The monkeys were in the jungle on the site of an old American army base - lots of deserted buildings and bunkers - just the sort of place you might set a horror film...

Final bit of wildlife we´ve seen isn´t quite so romantic I´m afraid - I spent yesterday picking weevils out of our rice!! C won the sweepstake - he guessed at 37 and there were 38 (makes me think maybe he knew how many there were cos he put them in there!).

Both v pleased with how our Spanish is coming on - C much better than me (he´s reading Roald Dahl´s The Witches in Spanish at the moment) - we managed to communicate with a taxi driver last night and got him to take us to a cinema where they show films in English - we saw There Will Be Blood (there was nearly blood - I nearly knawed my arm off to get out of there it was so dull!). Had to kill an hour or so before the film started though, so we went to the games arcade in the shopping mall (where else would you find a multiplex cinema?) - C won at shooty game and air hockey...but I beat him at the drivey game :)

Right, quite enough waffling - time to go back to the boat. Lots of chores/provisioning to do - we set off for the Las Perlas islands and then the Galapagos on Weds...

Hxx

PS forgot to say - guess who was in Shelter Bay Marina in Colon same time as us? Rumour has it a certain Mr Bond of Universal Exports was there too, in a huge big gin palace filming for the next film...

PPS I have a Panama Hat!! (well, not technically a bona fide Panama Hat, but a hat that comes from Panama - good enough for me¨:) )

Rewind

2008-03-04T06:21:00.000-08:00

Helen: [Got a bit carried away last time and forgot to mention something really cool - we met up with Ben and Erika in Cartagena - they've been in S America for a year and are just about to go home, but as we weren't planning on stopping in Columbia we didn't arrange to meet up. Then, when our plans changed and we were going to be in Columbia after all, I sent Ben an email...and we managed to meet up for a beer - it nearly didn't work out - if I hadn't been online when Ben emailed me back we would've just missed each other...but as it happens I'd asked C if we could spend another half hour in the internet cafe so I could finish something...and then Ben's email arrived. :) ]

Now we're in Shelter Bay Marina in Colon - when we told the guy in our hostel in Panama City where we were going, he rolled his eyes in horror and asked us why on earth we were going there - our guide book says the same - it says it's not a matter of if, but when you'll get mugged. Have to say though, the 5 mins we spent in Colon getting from the bus to the taxi (bloody typical - for the last 3 months we've been harrased by taxi drivers when we don't want a taxi, then when we finally do want one it takes ages to get one to stop!) the city seemed fine - really lively and bustly... We had to cross the Canal to get to the marina - it's so small!! Considering how important the Canal is for the world economy and the size of the ships that pass through, it's so small - kinda like how I felt finally seeing the Berlin Wall - despite its fiercesome reputation it was barely over 6ft high...

Panama City was very big and very busy - it reminded us of American cities with 4 lane roads, no crossings for pedestrians and no real 'city centre', just sprawling strip malls. But, the historic/natural bits we did see were good and the people were friendly and forgiving of our bad Spanish. Unfortunately Panamanian food seems to be deep fried (home away from home!) though. It was good to just have a day to ourselves though - we have really enjoyed meeting new folks during our travels, but we do need some time just the two of us...

Now we're on board Nomad with Stuart. He seems ok, and the boat is sturdy and well laid out - we have our own (aft) cabin and heads (loo). She needs some TLC in the cleaning/decorating departments, so when I'm done here I'm going to scrub the sink in the galley (kitchen) and fix the seat covers in our room. Should be leaving for the Canal on Thurs.

Hxx

Panama City

2008-03-03T05:31:00.000-08:00

Helen: Just about to leave Panama City to go and meet our new skipper Stuart in Colon....Bit nervous - hope we all like each other!

Feel a bit ashamed to have had to fly to Panama - really would have liked to do this big adventure without flying and we´ve already had to take 4 flights - but it just couldn´t be avoided. The weather forecast for this week is shocking between Cartagena and Coln - more of the same waves and wind that we had on the way from Bonaire - and, while we were fine the last time, and would probably have been this time - there´s no point deliberately putting yourself in that situation if you can avoid it so everyone decided to just stay in Cartagena. But we promised our skipper we´d be there by the 3rd...so we flew.

And boy, what an experience Columbian safety inspections are at the airport! C and I spent hours packing our bags the day before (we have so much stuff, it barely all fits and has to be packed very carefully inside each other in a specific order...) and then when we got to the airport we had to unpack both bags to be inspected!! The guard was v pleased when he found a plastic bag full of brown powder in C´s bag...but was disappointed when it turned out to be chilli powder!!

We´ve enjoyed Panama City so far - we went to walk round a big forest natural park yesterday (C said he saw a monkey...hanging by its tail...eating a banana) and then we went to see the ruins of old (17 C) Panama (´just a load of old stones´) and then we went out to a bar (where the music videos were just an excuse to play soft porn if you ask me!) Oh, and we took a local bus which is always an experience. We´ll be back in the city in a few days once we´re through the canal for more exploring.

Right, must dash, or all the free breakfast in the hostel will have disappeared!!

Hxx

Tunnels, Day trips and Stamps

2008-02-27T09:03:00.000-08:00

Helen: (Apologies for any typos - trying to use a Spanish keyboard - tried to use a German one the other day which is even worse cos it´s Qwertz instead of Qwerty - I never realised how much English uses Ys until then)

Anyway, C is feeling smug as all the museums we´ve tried to go to so far, bar one, have been closed. We did go to the Modern Art Gallery though...but the Tate Modern it wasn´t. Trying to get an opinion about art out of C is neigh on impossible. If he likes something, then great, you might get 5 mins worth of conversation...but if he doesn´t like something, he just says ´I don´t like it - I don´t have to have a reason for not liking it, only a reason for liking it´ and that´s that. Anyway, it was interesting to ponder if the art in the gallery (all south american) was ´bad´ art or if we just didn´t like it because we´d been brought up with different, European styles. We came to the conclusion that it was actually just BAD art - mostly it looked like people copying (not very well) European styles.

We also went to the castle - high up on a hill, with great views, the biggest Columbian flag you´ve ever seen and a great many windy, small, deep, dank and very very dark tunnels to explore. I´m sure none of you will be surprised to hear that C ran off and left me whimpering in the pitch black a couple of times, only jumping out to make scary noises. It was pretty eerie to be in the tunnels on our own...but then a hoarde of school children descended on us - at first we were, of course, indignant about the noise they made (we are British after all)...but then I started thinking that that must be what it would have been like if you were in the tunnel trying to escape from enemy troops following you shouting and screaming. Pretty scary. It´s also interesting how the mind can exaggerate things and adds two and two to make 5 - from the noise of the school group I thought there were hundreds of them - then only about 10 of them came down the tunnel!

Other than that we´ve been on the boat quite a bit...which was a good thing as we dragged our anchor the other day. The skipper and his wife had gone for sundowners on another yacht and we were just getting ready to join them...when 3 dinghies turned up to tell us we were drifting fast! C had to hang up on his parents (sorry!) and try to stop us sailing to Panama by ourselves.

Think that´s all our news - oh, except for yesterday´s adventure - we went on an all inclusive day trip to some private islands for snorkelling and beaches (you can´t go there with your own yacht) - ít was certainly quite an experience being herded around with all the other day trippers - just a small taste of what it must be like on a cruise liner. We all agreed that one day not having to worry about where we´re going/what to have for lunch was actually quite relaxing...but any more would be living hell...

Right, off to post our postcards now (buying stamps (the biggest stamps you´ve ever seen, an inch by an inch and half at least) was quite traumatic - it took about 10 mins, involving a written receipt and at least 3 members of staff - and it cost about 13 quid for 10 stamps!!)

Lots of love Hxx

PS I´m feeling v virtuous as I´m reading a book in German - nearly half way through, and I´m actually enjoying it!
PPS More photos on Flickr...

Big seas and small streets

2008-02-23T06:20:00.000-08:00

Helen: We made it to Cartagena in one piece...but had the roughest weather we've ever been in on the way over. The passage was 3 and half days - 3 days of which was great fun (we even managed to play the name game - Amelia's impression of Michael Jackson was wonderful - and James caught 2 tuna (he nearly caught a whopper...but it ended up the fish taking the whole lure and double hook - it was probably a mahi mahi, they seem to love the green and yellow plastic squid lures)). We'd been told that the trip from Aruba to Cartagena is one of the 5 roughest trips in a circumnavigation (cos the trade winds have blown all across the atlantic and then suddenly run into C America and have nowhere to go - the waves get reflected back and run into the waves going the other way, and, to complicate matters further, the sea bed shelves from 1000m to 200m in a mile or so, so all the water and wind gets funneled into a much smaller space). Anyway, the upshot of all this geekery is that the seas are supposed to be huge in this part of the world - we steeled ourselves for the worst, and got past the point where everyone said it was the worst with big smiles and clear blue skies 'Gosh, what was all the fuss about'...Well, that came later - we had 10m seas (from top of wave to bottom of trough), many of which broke over the back of the boat. Occasionally some came from the other direction too and slamed into the side of the boat really rocking her. These ones that come 'beam on' are the ones you have to watch for as they are the ones that have the ability to knock you over. In fact, our skipper said that if we'd been in a monohull, as opposed to a cat, we'd likely have been knocked down. So, well done Rahula!! She coped wonderfully - it was so stable inside even during these seas and 40knt winds that we managed to cook and sleep in beds without lee cloths. All very civilised. In fact, I slept through a large part of the evening it was so stable inside. I can see why people like cats! It was quite an experience sitting in the saloon watching great walls of water approach over the stern. Also quite humbling knowing that there's not much you can do about it! (In these conditions people often just shut the hatches and go to sleep letting nature take it's course...)

Anyway, that was our excitement. Hopefully that will be the only bad thing that happens on this boat - we've had enough go wrong on our other boats! So, we got here, and had a drunken barbie with another boat's crew using the tuna we'd caught to celebrate. It was strange approaching Cartagena - it was totally different from what we were expecting and different to what we've seen for the last few months - we've been used to palm trees and beaches and not much in the way of civilisation - Cartagena has 1m inhabitants and a skyline full of skyscrapers! But, there is also a lovely old town, dating from 17th C, with cobbled streets and beautifully cared for buildings. Did a bit of a recce yesterday (without a map so we could properly explore) and loved it. Going back today armed with the guide book to do some serious sightseeing!

Hxx

PS have heard from Susan and Murray that our torts have arrived in Scilly safely and are enjoying the greenhouse!!

Time to get going again

2008-02-17T12:39:00.001-08:00

Helen: Nothing very much to report today - went exploring yesterday and thursday - made way more difficult than it needed to be by the almost total lack of road signs on the island. But, we had a Royal Navy navigator doing the driving, so we got home ok eventually.

We had breakfast in the national park yesterday - C was over the moon as he finally got to use his new super geeky camp stove which burns just about anything you care to put in it. We had 'Hebrew Sausages' (it said on the packet 'We answer to a higher authority'!) and eggs (any way you liked as long as it was fried). Next stop was an ostrich farm - not terribly inspiring - C said they all looked and behaved like giant chickens - they do have v anthropomorphic faces though - all disney big eyes and lashes. But don't be fooled - apparently the males can run at 50mph for over an hour and can kill a man with one kick... Yikes.

Other than that it's been washing, cleaning the boat, fetching water and provisioning. We're off to Cartagena in Columbia this afternoon - should take 3-5 days depending on the weather and whether we stop or not.

H & C xx

Sunny Amesterdam

2008-02-14T05:58:00.000-08:00

Helen: ok, so who spotted the (wish I could say deliberate) mistake in the last post? I said 'curacao's hardly inhabited' when of course, I meant 'hardly UNinhabited' - we went to Willemstad yesterday and it's heaving. The guidebook said it's just like being in a tropical Amsterdam - they're not wrong. Bonaire had 13,000 people - Curacao, which isn't that much bigger, has a population of 150,000. It also had one of the world's largest oil refineries until Shell closed it in the mid 80s, and it still has one of the busiest deep water ports in the world, so, all in all, it's hardly a sleepy tropical paradise. There is (or at least was quite recently) a fair amount of money here, and the infrastructure to boot. The landscape is still scrubby and full of cactuses (cacti?) (found out why it's not lush and green like the rest of the east caribbean - no mountains = no rain) but it's full of houses. Bonaire just had a couple of settlements really, with big open spaces. This island is only 30 miles away but totally different. Will put up some photos soon (C and I got photographed yesterday when we were in town cos a journalist wanted a picture of a couple kissing for today's Valentine's newspaper...)

All the buildings here are really brightly coloured - purple, blue, yellow, green, red - apparently it's because a governor in the 1800s hurt his eyes looking at all the whitewash in the harsh sun, so it's a law that all buildings have to be painted. Makes the place look lovely and friendly. Willemstad is a World Heritage Site - the gabled buildings on the waterfront look just like Amsterdam.

C was pretty well behaved yesterday - Amelia is just like me and loves sightseeing and museums (James, the skipper and her husband, is just like C and hates it!) - we went to see the oldest continually used synagogue in the western hemisphere yesterday (has a sandy floor to remind jews of the exodus through the desert) and we went to a (v good) slavery museum. And he didn't moan much. He has asked to be excused from bikini shopping today though!! (Sobering thought from the slavery museum: slaves on slave ships had less room than a man in a coffin. Also interesting is the fact that as well as the African slave trade, there was apparently a v healthy trade in European slaves too...Didn't know that...)

Tomorrow we're off to an ostrich farm (for lunch too :) ) and then to see a plantation house, and then possibly the Curacao distillery - not sure we'll buy a souvenir from there though as Curacao liqueur looks revolting!!

Auf wiedersehn (practising my German as we've made friends with an Austrian couple on another cat...)
Hxx

leaving bonaire

2008-02-12T04:55:00.000-08:00

Helen: hey guys, v short post, as our skipper is waiting to give us our 'sea brief' before setting sail for curacao. just wanted to say that we should be finally leaving bonaire in a couple of hours - think C and i have unfinished business here, and will likely be back - but it feels good to finally be leaving after waiting for so long (we've been stuck here for 5 days or so waiting for a sail to show up)
will write again when i can, but may not be til cartagena, as until then we'll only be anchoring in uninhabited bays (well, ok, so curacao's hardly inhabited, but after that it's just us and the fishies).
hxx

More photos

2008-02-08T12:18:00.001-08:00

Lots more photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlieandhelen/

Moving on...

2008-02-06T13:20:00.000-08:00

Helen: Thank you all so so much for writing, calling, emailing and commenting on our blog in the last few days. I can't remember a worse week, and your support really has made a massive difference. I don't think C and I could have been there for Hannah if we hadn't had a wonderful support team ourselves.

Things are looking up a wee bit just now. C and I passed our dive exams on Friday so are now Open Water Divers. And we found a new boat to take us to Panama - James (from Bromley no less) and Amelia (matriculated at Somerville, Oxford the same year as C) left the Navy and set off from the UK in March in a 35' cat - they're now here (we met them at happy hour at the marina) and they will take us to Panama via Cartagena. It's especially lovely of them seeing as they haven't taken crew yet... They are both great, and exactly the type of people we would hang out with at home. They climb, dive, and generally DO stuff (they even sailed up the Gambia river - only about 10 boats a year do that!). They bicker, just like we do, and their boat is like a floating 'Good Life' episode - solar showers with rain water for example. Looking forward to living/sailing with them immensely.

I've also been thinking about Matt and Hannah too and trying to make sense of last week. C and I were there and helped Hannah give CPR - it's not like it is on ER or baywatch or in first aid training - people don't just cough and sit up and thank you. But Matt looked peaceful, and it is likely he died before we started ressucitation. Hannah's taken him home now, and we are trying to take comfort from the fact that he died with his wife who he loved very much, living his dream, in a beautiful place. It's slightly ironic that he died just a few days after sorting out all of Nooka's problems...

Anyway, I've come to the decision that the best thing we can do is remember him, support Hannah, and repay the kindness shown to us in the last week by helping others when they need it. The best thing you lot can do for us is (and apologies in advance for the cliches, but if they weren't true they wouldn't be used so much...) make sure you live your dreams, whatever they may be - not everyone dreams of sailing round the world! - and don't forget to tell the people you love that you love them.

On a slightly different note I thought you'd like to know that there are 2 cruise ships in port today. That's 5134 extra people, all trying to cope with the fact that they use guilders here instead of dollars, and all wandering up and down the high street buying rolexes and 'crafts' in the 5 hours they have before leaving again. Tick. Done Bonaire. Honestly...

Think we might have a BBQ tonight - then, if we have more than 200 amp hours, we might watch Finding Nemo on DVD - if the boys have been using loads of juice though, we might have to resort to Pass the Pigs...

Lots of love

Hxx

PS The world really is a small place - found out a few days ago that Hilary and Tony, the guys who looked after us when we left Nooka, used to live in Blackheath, and sailed at Bough Beech at the same time as me - must've shared a changing room with Hilary about 15 years ago. Six degrees of separation and all that...

Matt - a great skipper

2008-01-31T13:19:00.000-08:00

Helen: Unusually for me, I'm pretty lost for words this time, and don't really know where to begin. C and I started this big adventure partly to see the world and have fun, and partly to see what life would throw at us. So far it's been pretty challenging, and we didn't think it could get much worse. It did on Monday night. The skipper of our boat died on board in his sleep. He was only 30 and was on his honeymoon - he and his wife had taken a year off to sail the world. It doesn't get much more unfair than that. I'm glad I don't believe in God, because I'd have a hard time reconcilling his existence with a situation like this. There's so much more I'd like to write about this, but time is short, and, it all seems a bit unreal still. I think that's the only way my brain can really cope just now. On Monday, C and I were stoked that we'd seen a turtle diving, and the most pressing thing that we had to do was some homework for our diving exam. The four of us had a lovely evening together - we never thought we'd never see him again. I hope we've helped Hannah by being here until her family arrived - this whole thing has been traumatic enough without having to cope on alone and so far from home. On Tuesday I was pretty ready to pack up and come home, until Hannah said 'don't be daft, Matt would be really unimpressed by that - you've got to carry on'. So we will. We're talking about him now, and laughing, and crying, and trying to remember all the good times. He was such a wonderful skipper and a lovely bloke. ITS SO FUCKING UNFAIR.
Anyway, the sailing community has really rallied around, and we're staying with a couple until we can find a lift to Panama with another boat. The kindness of strangers over the last few days has been the silver lining, and restored my faith in humanity - one lady said that C and I are the same age as her kids, and she couldn't bear to think of them so far from home with no one to look after them, so she's putting us up. Right now, all I'd really like to do is talk to my Mummy.
I think that's enough for now.
Hx

2008-01-23T04:07:00.001-08:00

Helen: Today is Tuesday - it's a good thing I couldn't get to a computer earlier than this as this blog post would've been really irate and ranty on Sunday...but now we have our passports back and the world is a better place. Let me explain...

They call St Martin 'The Friendly Island' which is like calling Alcatraz 'a charming seaside resort' in as much as it's a complete lie. We arrived in Sint Maarten airport on Sunday morning, having been delayed AGAIN by LIAT (called 'Late If AT all' by some of the other travellers we've met). We were supposed to arrive on Saturday night, but spent all of Saturday afternoon waiting in St Lucia airport for our plane to materialise - this is a particularly gauling thing to do as just outside the departure lounge there is a gorgeous white sand/turquoise blue sea beach - at least if we'd been allowed to wait out there we could've got away from all the whinging Brits who were also waiting for the plane. It starts its journey in Trinidad and then stops at Grenada and St Vincent before getting to St Lucia and continuing to Antigua. Well, this time, it stopped in Grenada. For good. So, LIAT sent us on a later flight to Antigua and then put us up in a hotel there over night to get a connection to St Martin on Sunday morning. I thought the hotel was actually quite good...but all the other 'distressed' passengers were complaining - felt like telling them that was the last hot, presurized shower we were likely to get for a few months so they should consider themselves lucky.

So, having got only 4 hours sleep (we arrived at 23.30, but couldln't go to sleep for at least half an hour as there was cable TV in the room which is a bit of a luxury for us sea gypsies - then we had to be up at 4 for a 6am flight) we finally arrived in Sint Maarten at some ungodly early hour on Sunday morning only to be met by the most unfriendly Immigration officer in the world. We didn't have a letter from our next skippers to say that we'd be joining their boat, so she took our passports and gave us 3 days to come back with an appropriate letter. When C pointed out that it's illegal for her to keep our passports she told us it was illegal to enter St M without evidence of onward and that if we didn't want her to keep our passports that was fine, but we'd have to get back on the plane. Ah. OK. She won. But, as C pointed out when we were safely out of earshot, this is a daft protocol - when you enter their country illegally, the one thing they want you to do is leave, which is the one thing you can't do without a passport. Anyway, we went back to the airport today with as many documents and pieces of paper as we could muster and asked very politely if, possibly, maybe we might, please, be allowed to have our passports back so that we could leave their god-awful inhospitable country. (They nearly said no, we'd have to come back another day as the Immigration Officer who'd been on duty on Sunday wasn't on duty today so couldn't stamp our passports. Honestly, if they were going to bend the rules and back date the stamp in our passports, couldn't they bend them some more and get someone else to stamp the damn things? As it turned out there was someone on duty today who was also on on Sunday so the passports were dutifully stamped and we went on our way.)

We haven't managed a huge amount since we got here - although we have participated in the island's main pass-time - shopping! We both got new duty free sunglasses and C got a watch (unfortunately, it's not like the other islands where if you have ship's papers you get a discount on the price on the ticket - in St Martin there just isn't any tax at all, so the price you see is the price you pay. So, not as cheap as we were hoping, but still, cheaper than home.) We have been to Marigot though, on the French side of the island (one side is French, and the other is Dutch). V strange as it's just like being in France - we had lunch in a cafe with tables on the pavement and half a bottle of red wine and a cockerl just strutting around by our feet. C has been practising his best French - haven't had any embarrassing misunderstandings yet.

Our new boat is great - she's called Nooka after a character in Noggin the Nog :) - and the couple who own her are also lovely - Hannah and Matt - turns out they're both from Oxford and we have several friends in common! The boat is brand new so not only is everything v clean, it all works!! What a wonderful experience :) We've also had a briefing on how stuff works and have been promised a safety briefing when we set off in earnest tomorrow. Yesterday we moved the boat from Phillipsburg to Simpson Bay Lagoon, but that only took half an hour, and we motored (as the boat doesn't have a boom just now) so that doesn't really count. This lagoon is crazy - it's full to bursting of gin palaces and superyachts all trying to out do each other - think it costs upwards of $50k per week to hire those sorts of boats. Bonkers. Especially as there's bugger all to do here if you don't like beaches. (C and I decided we ought to start playing 'Caribbean Island bingo' - we tried it with tourist attraction gift shops in the UK and it was great - you have to come up with a list of 5 things you think you're going to find somewhere and then you get points if you see them. So far, I have: 17th century fort on a hill, minibuses as public buses and cruise ships (extra points if they are Ocean Village 2 or Windsurf). C has: Rastas offering him weed and people trying to rip him off. Hope I win bingo as I think C is currently winning Horse.

Right, think that's plenty enough from me. Won't be any posts for a few more days I'm afraid as we're off sailing tomorrow - heading to Bonaire, just off the Venezulan coast. Might even try some diving there.

Hx

PS. Bob, if you want to know where we are just now, here's the GPS reading: 18 Degrees 02.024 Minutes North
63 Degrees 05.111 Minutes West (had to write it in words rather than using symbols, as this laptop was bought in Spain so the whole operating system and keyboard is in Spanish - we're navigating it better than the Swedish version Joel had last week though!)

International Batchelors Club of Rodney Bay

2008-01-18T14:31:00.000-08:00

Helen: Spent today not doing too much - hanging out with the members of the International Batchelors Club of Rodney Marina (basically 7 or 8 guys (from all over the world, Sweden, UK, South Africa) who did the ARC and then never left the marina here - they just hang out on each other's boats (while the owners are away) drinking beer! Joel is a founder member...

So, today we managed laundry (some of Joel's clothes hadn't been washed since Las Palmas and were beginning to grow mould...), bought another case of Piton beer (they give you a discount if you take the old bottles back - why don't they do that everywhere? It'd be an incentive not to litter - perhaps even an incentive to pick up other people's litter), had a lesson in the dinghy (C and Joel both look shell shocked - it took me a couple of attempts to land the dinghy on the dock and to get the hang of reverse. While I was trying this, several people on the dock offered to help - I was all for batting my eyelashes and looking as pathetic as possible to get them to help me...but C said I had to learn for myself so round and round we went til I got it right!), and the last thing we did today was, of all things, call the bloody Inland Revenue and pay them several hundred quid. Honestly, even when you're thousands of miles away they still catch up with you!

Yesterday, however, was a different matter - we hiked the Petit Piton - have a look on google earth - it's an awesome looking mountain - just like you would've drawn when you were a kid (except without the snow) - a really steep triangle covered in lush rain forrest - we were wearing our walking boots, while our guide was in trainers, but I'm glad we were - it's only 2600ft (not even a Munro!) but it was a pretty hard climb - most of the last quarter was vertical using ropes (but no harnesses or safety clips! Wonderful views from the top, but difficult to enjoy them as I was so worried about getting down! It was great to get some exercise...but my legs are paying for it today! After that, Joel drove us home (he's Swedish, and had never driven on the left before - we had to keep reminding him to stay on the left. Interestingly, Sweden used to drive on the left but then one day in the 60s they just changed to drive on the right - how mad is that - wonder if there were many accidents that day!?) We drove past a great sign 'Drive Refreshed' sponsored by Piton beer! Our trusty rental car had the windscreen wipers and indicators on the wrong sides so every time Joel tried to indicate to turn he turned on the wipers - was amusing every time!

One of the most amazing things we saw on the hike was a hummingbird nest - was only about an inch long and an inch deep and had the most minute egg in it - about the size of my little finger nail, or maybe smaller. When we got home, I cooked roast chicken and Christmas pud - decided we'd missed out on a proper Christmas dinner so we had it on Jan 17th. Better late than never!

Right, think that's everything - C's just finished supper - off to St Maarten tomorrow - C just booked a place in St Martin in his best French - glad we don't have to spend long there (just one night before we get on our next boat) as it's v v expensive. Will be sad to leave If Only and Joel (but not all the broken bits on this boat - to flush our toilet you have to join two bare wires together - lots of sparks and smoke!!)

OK, more later
Hxxx

2008-01-16T06:26:00.000-08:00

Charlie: Well here we are back on If Only for few days. It's good to be able to unwind. We've now got passage oranised from St Maarten to Panama with Hannah and Matt - they were on the ARC and we've met them a couple of times, and most importantly they did the Atlantic crossing quickly with no reported breakages and 'ate well, caught fish and relaxed'. Their boat's called Nooka and we're meeting them on Monday the 21st. We're planning to top in Bonaire so they can go diving and I may have even pursuaded H to do some too!
When we get to Panama we've arranged (via www.findacrew.net) to meet Stuart and sail through the Canal and on to NZ by November. Having been twice bitten by terrible skippers/boats we produced a LONG list of questions which he was kind enough to answer...

- Can you tell us a bit about your background and experience, specifically what significant journeys have you skippered on?
- When was the boat last sailed by you (not motored)?
- How old are the sails and the running rigging?
- What preparations are you making for a long ocean passage in terms of equipment, avoiding wear on sails & spreaders, halyards etc... and provisioning, cooking rotas, watch rotas etc.. ?
- Can you / do you cook?
- How many people are you expecting to have on board for the Pacific crossing?
- What equipment do you have on board? Liferaft, SSB, Watermaker, EPIRB etc..
If you have SSB, do you have experience using it - there is an SSB on the boat we're currently on, but no-one on board knows how to use it! If no water maker, how large are the water tanks?
- Are you planning to cross the Pacific as part of an SSB radio net?
- Where are you planning to visit in the Pacific, what's the planned route and how long do you want to take? We'd really like to see the Galapagos and take our time crusing the islands...
- How do you normally plot your course? GPS chart plotter? GPS + Paper charts etc...?
- How much do you expect things to cost and what are we expected to pay for?
- Do you have a slot booked for going through the Canal, when do you need to leave and how flexible is your timing?

I feel encouraged by the fact that he was actually able to answer these questions, our previous two skippers (read idiots) would not have been able to do so.

I felt pretty guilty leaving David on Santana in Union Island. Without a crew he couldn't move the boat - especially as the engine was bust. So he was stuck at anchor there until he either got more crew or got his engine fixed (or both). Helen said he treated us badly and took advantage so I shouldn't feel bad, but I just don't like to see people stuck, no matter how revolting they are or how much he took advantage. Anyway, I voted with my feet so I was fed up enough to overcome my guilt! Our progress had been so slow, every time we did even a short passage we'd have to stop for days for repairs! - First time it was the gear selecor mechanism for the engine, second time it was the mainsail, third time it was the engine overheating and setting fire to all the oil that had been spilled all over it! This was on top of the rest of the massive list of stuff that needed to be done - fix the outboard, fix the dinghy punctures, fix the leaks in the forepeak hatch, fix the log, fix the depth gauge, fix the wind gauge (I could go on...). Plus he didn't shower for many days even when he had the opportunity and had really started to smell, the cat walked its litter over all the surfaces - he thought it was cute and did nothing to prevent it, he left open tins of catfood in the fridge (bear in mind that sailing fridges are normally top-opening hatches in kitchen surfaces, so stuff is normally stacked inside. If you leave open things in there they almost always get upset and pour their contents over everything else in the fridge.)

He was frail enough that when he went forward whilst at sea, he nearly fell overboard, had to be told what charts to buy, didn't navigate, couldn't operate the sails, didn't cook (except when we were out!), so on our last passage the ONLY useful function he performed was steering! Again I could go on, but I think that's enough ranting and complaining for now!!

Glad to be back in St Lucia

2008-01-15T14:43:00.000-08:00

Helen: In St Lucia now - met up with Joel - had a couple of beers - just gonna have supper - all's well :)

Giants' fans...

2008-01-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

Helen: Seems like, finally, our luck might be changing! We now have two passages sorted out, hopefully all the way til Nov - first one is with friends of friends of Helen's, from St Maarten to Bonaire to Panama, and the second is from Panama to NZ via the Pacific islands. We've tried (fairly half heartedly admittedly) to get a yacht to St Maarten from here...but it's a long way (and we have to be there by next Monday) and we were thwarted by a lack of sticky tape to put up our crew adverts yesterday, so we think we're just going to fly instead, and stop off in St Lucia en route, to see Joel and climb the Pitons.

At the moment, we're in Bequia, which is lovely. V relaxing, v pretty - everyone's really helpful, and there are lots of very well stocked delis too. We even managed to find some chilli powder for the first time in 2 months. It has a different feel from the other Caribbean islands we've been at so far, as most of the business seems to be run by expats...

So, we are enjoying not being on a boat for the moment, not living in squalor, having free time to read books, and having an en suite shower. We walked to the beach yesterday, and then met a couple of New Yorkers in a bar (called 'Can't Remember The Name' - what a great name for a bar!) - we ended up spending the rest of the night with them, watching the NFL playoffs on cable TV in a sports bar with a load of other Americans. The Giants (NY team) were playing Dallas - seeing as we were with New Yorkers, we decided we really ought to be Giants fans...which is just as well as they won. Even if we had understood the rules, it still would have been very difficult to follow the game as it stops every 10 mins for adverts. Apparently you have to wait 28 years to get a Giants' season ticket. 28 years!! And they're rebuilding the stadium...with less seats!

Two small soundbites to share with you before I go - one is a sign on the high street outside, which is a no entry sign that says 'No entry - except for religious processions'. The other was from a local lady called Stephanie who we met while waiting for the ferry on Union Island - she told us St Vincent was 'same shit, different island' - afraid we have to concur!

Think that's all for now - off to see turtles at the turtle sanctuary this afternoon...
xx

Leaving soon!!!

2008-01-11T12:39:00.000-08:00

Helen: We're leaving the god-awful boat tomorrow. Hurrah!!! We have found another boat and are going to meet the new guy in Panama in mid Feb. This time we have done our homework. We asked him sooo many questions about him and his experience and the boat, and he gave us really really detailed responses which made us v v happy. Really wanted to make sure we weren't jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. And, to make things even better, he's sailed in the Scillies :) (We'd still love to have our own boat, but the lazy Swede isn't so keen just now - watch this space though, we might still get our own yacht sometime this trip...)

Anyway, the plan is to leave the boat we're on tomorrow, and take the MV Barracuda to St Vincent (this is the mail boat that comes 3 times a week to Union Island - the locals have been telling us that the captain has a v bad temper. He has been known to get all the way here (5 hours) and then turn around and go straight home again if someone has blocked the entrance to the harbour (now, who would do a thing like that? Surely not - anchoring in the middle of the harbour entrance - you'd have to have a numpty of a skipper to do that.... The Barracuda captain has also left his wife ashore, apparently, when she took too long at the bakery, and she's had to take a speedboat to catch up with the ferry...on more than one occasion!)

So, after that, we'll head to St Lucia to see the lazy Swede and try to pick up a lift to Panama/Central America. Then, if all goes according to plan (ha ha ha), we should get a few weeks sight seeing in C America and then it's off to the Galapagos/the Cook Islands etc... to be in NZ by Nov.

It really is raining outside. Can't even see the boat its raining so much. Feel v smug that I'm in an internet cafe and not out there just now.

Oh, I wanted to tell you all about pelicans. Saw some today for the first time. They are odd looking creatures. And when they land on the sea they seem to plummet head first into the water! God knows how they don't break their necks. And then they lift their heads up and glug a whole load of fresh fish down. We nearly bought some fresh fish this morning on the quay side (the fishermen blow on a conch when they have a fresh catch) but while we were arguing about whether or not C knew how to gut/cook a whole fish (so fresh they kept leaping off the scales!) they sold out...

Think that's all our news - waiting for the rain to stop then got to head back to the boat to tell the skipper we're off. Not looking forward to that - we both feel really bad about leaving him in the lurch...but we didn' t give up our jobs and our lives just so that we could look after him and his boat. He is not our responsibility and, awkward as it might be, we have to get on with our adventure...

Ok, more later
H &Cxx