Learnativity Updates: Season #3

Learnativity Updates: Season #3

Greetings all! Well after many different delays for many different reasons the stars have all aligned and it is finally time to leave lovely New Zealand and head north for what will be season # 3 of my grand adventures. I truly can’t believe that all the incredible experiences I have had could have possibly been done in only two years but that just means that my experience density factor will be as high or higher this coming year and I couldn't be more excited about getting started.

Equally difficult to believe is that it will have been over seven months that Learnativity and I will have been away from the open ocean and moored in New Zealand. It has been a fabulous time; I've met and spent time with many local people who were very kind and generous to me with their time, homes and conversations. The marine workmanship and supplies have been unbelievable and while I'm leaving NZ with a seriously emptied bank account I'm also leaving with a much better boat and a much richer person for all the experiences I’ve had here.

I didn’t have much time to do more writing while on this extended hurricane hiatus in New Zealand so I’ll do a quick recap here. As you may recall I arrived back at the end of October after making my way down from the surreal tsunami experience in Pago Pago in American Samoa with a stop along the way in Tonga for about a week and then at magical Minerva reef to wait out some weather before continuing down to New Zealand. I had a passenger on that trip, a fellow Canadian, Chris, who was stranded after the Australian ship of some fellow cruisers I knew was destroyed in the tsunami and so I brought him as far as New Zealand and then he was able to fly over to Australia and meet his family for an extended vacation there before returning home to Canada.

I flew back to the USA for some business arrangements and took Ruby the Wonderdog with me as I was going to be flying back and forth several times and it is quite a lot of work getting her in and out of NZ each time. So Ruby got to live at the Barnes’s Bread and Breakfast for wayward dogs, also known as Lia and Brian's house in Chico California, outside of LA for four months. She had a fantastic time as they had just moved into a new home with a full yard, doggie door and full time best buddy “Piglet” their little Papillion who is about the same age and size as Ruby. They had a blast together and it wasn’t easy taking her away from such a great setup but I sure did miss her for the four months we were apart.

In between I spent a lot of time on board Learnativity to do repairs from some damage done in the tsunami as well as the usual maintenance and some jobs I’ve been wanting to do for a long time such as a new set of solar panels, new bow sprit and anchor roller assembly, getting my water heater finally installed after not having or needing one in the tropics for the past 2 years, and a long list of other work that I was able to capitalize on the very high quality marine craftsmanship that is here in NZ.

In addition to the local people I met and got to know here I had several very special visitors while I was here. My brother Bruce took time out of a business trip to Australia to come over here and we spent 3 days together just catching up and enjoying the area. We both remarked how rare it is that siblings would get that much one on one time with each other as we spent all four days living aboard the great environment that Learnativity provides.

And then as serendipity and synchronicity would have it my longtime friend Linda and her husband Kevin from Oregon was going to be doing a house swap with a family from just outside of Auckland so we were able to get together both at the house they were in for a few days as well as being able to host them aboard the good ship Learnativity up in Whangarei for a few days. And then my dear friend Nigel from the UK was going to be in Australia where he used to live to visit his new granddaughter and family and he came over while Linda was still in the country and the three of us spent two days on Learnativity just catching up and solving the world’s problems. I do indeed lead a blessed life!

While back in the US I also managed to move my few remaining land based possessions from California to Florida where I now officially reside and was able to make that into another adventure by driving along with my super son Skyler who was also going to go live in Florida for a few months and my very special friend John and his Dad who were returning from racing in the Baja 1000. We had great weather pretty much the whole way across the USA and it was such a treat to see the country from that perspective and do so in the company of such friends and family.

Finally in April I picked up Ruby from Lia & Brian’s after a great four days visit with them and we flew back to Learnativity. The plan was to finish the boat projects in the next two weeks and set sail north at the end of April but a combination of some unexpected boat work such as needing to redo the anti-foul paint on the bottom of the hull and some very uncooperative weather kept pushing that back to the end of May. Then more weather challenges as the window just wouldn't open for long enough to make the two week sail north to Tonga or Niue until yesterday (June 12th) and FINALLY we are all good to go.

And there was one other last minute change in plans when a lady contacted me through the marina managers to ask if I would be willing to take her on as a passenger or crew for the first part of my voyage. I don’t usually take passengers or crew preferring to do all my sailing single handed but she was running out of options as it was getting late in the season. Her name is Mary and she had come to NZ to crew on another boat but the captain unfortunately became very ill and had to return to Denmark for treatment. We met up briefly one evening just to chat and the next day she let me know that she had found another boat to crew on and was leaving in the morning to fly to Vanuatu to join the boat there. However a few days later she Emailed me from Vanuatu to say that boat had not worked out either and would I reconsider? Ruby and I talked it over and decided that it would add to the adventure, and the number of hands and laps for cuddling Ruby, so we said yes and Mary is going to sail with us to Niue and likely on to Tonga before she heads home to the US or her next adventure. Purely platonic and great fun! She is also a former teacher and dual Canadian/American resident, 2 kids the same age as Lia and Skyler and so we have lots in common and great conversations. In the days while we were waiting for the weather to clear Mary proved to be a phenomenal cook and hard worker so Learnativity, Ruby and I are all getting spoiled and enjoying every moment of it!

On June 8th there appeared to be an opening in the weather so we motored the 20kms down the river from the Town Basin in Whangarei where Learnativity had been the whole seven months, back to Marsden Cove marina where we had initially checked into NZ and would be where we checked out. Still took a few more days for the weather window to finally appear and on Saturday, June 12th we did our final customs check out, got our official clearance papers and cast off the dock lines just before 3pm.

There are SO many more stories to tell of the past seven months and I will do my best to tell some of them in the coming weeks as well as to post some of the many pictures I’ve been taking along the way. But right now I’m back on the ocean blue on night watch so this will have to do for now until I land in Niue and get a good WiFi connection again to upload larger files.

I’ll be getting back to my daily updates for those of you who are interested and I think I’ve got a system setup that will let me post these to my Learnativity blog as well as notifications that will go out via Twitter and FaceBook for those of you who use them.

For now I am just so happy to be back at sea, back with Ruby aboard Learnativity and heading into yet another season of serendipitous adventures and experiences. Humbled and honored that you would want to follow along too and will do my best to continue to share it all with you.

More to follow tomorrow as the sail to Niue continues!

Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog

Posted via email from Learnativity

Comments

[Richard Foertsch]

Really, really good read Wayne! My first time using this tech and really (again) enjoyed your narrative. Looking forward to future updates. Hope Mary and RTWD are getting their sea legs and that the seas smooth out a bit---fair winds to all--