Stop Shaking Us!

In celebration of Art Month here in Auckland, the kids learned about protesting. The sign above spells out my current thoughts. It's difficult to grasp the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The images look like they came from the Hollywood movie, 2012, and not from anything real.

Kai and Ryan, our friend from the catamaran Stray Kitty, had something to say about dolphins.



Maya, Celia and Andrea also wanted to stop the world from harming sea creatures.



And for the chocolate lovers, what do you think of this sign?



Since we're getting around the city on bikes, I'm ready to stand on the corner and wave a placard, saying, "Be kind to bikers." Along the same theme, it'd be great to get everyone to "Stop Using Cars," but that's a huge dream, especially here where people seem wedded to traffic.

And how about smoking? My UC Berkeley roots are shaking away. "Stop smoking in front of kids." I just learned that there are laws in California, Oregon, Arkansas, Hawaii and Maine prohibiting adults from smoking in a car with children on board. Many countries, including parts of Australia, Canada and the United Arab Emirates have similar laws. A bit Big Brotherish, but still a good idea. Imagine if China adopted a similar law.

All right you readers -- if anyone is out there --- what would you have on your placard?

Happy Wednesday or Tuesday for those on the otherside of the international dateline.

Ireland comes to Auckland

Maya, Kai and Celia hopped on their unicycles, donned their Irish garb and helped bring a bit of Ireland to Auckland in yesterday's St. Patrick Day's Parade.



Maya and Kai did their backwards and forwards push me - pull you dance...



They weaved in and around the big giraffe unicyle as they made their way up Queen Street.



The bagpipes played on ...



And the floats had gorgeous little fairies.



The Irish flags waved.





Green sparkled the air



Shamrocks surfaced everywhere.





And Ireland came to Auckland ...

Earthquakes and Pirates

Here in Auckland, we didn’t feel the devastating earthquake that rumbled Christchurch on February 22. Christchurch is an island away from us. It’s in the South Island almost 500 miles from us here in the North Island.

What a horrible event. The people living in Christchurch have been experiencing earthquakes almost daily since the big one hit September 3rd. Today Maya and Kai and their classmates are wearing red and black to school and bringing canned food to support the victims of the quake.

Another horrifying event is the piracy in Somalia. We don’t know the Danish family on the boat Ing that is currently under siege, but people docked in our marina are good friends with them and said they received an email from the Johansen family just days before they were kidnapped stating that the parents thought they would be safe since they have three children on board.

I cringe at this naive statement and want to respond, “What were you thinking? Going somewhere so dangerous with your precious cargo?” Now isn’t the time to lecture and hindsight provides clear vision.

Many sailors that we know are considering following their route and sailing up the Gulf of Aden and through the Suez Canal. After all, that’s the shortest and easiest way to circumnavigate, plus it brings them to the Mediterranean and Europe. Some plan to participate in a convoy with a fleet of boats for protection; others are considering shipping their boat with Dockwise through Pirate Alley. If anyone asks me, I’d advise them not to go. It isn’t worth the risk. Go the other way – across the Indian Ocean, South Africa and Brazil. It might be longer and harder, but you’ll be much safer.

Rotorua - What Fun!

We picked Maya and Kai up after school on Friday in our new but old car with four bikes on the back and headed south to Rotorua. Our local friends cautioned us about Rotorua, calling it "Roto-Vegas" since it is one of the most touristy places in the North Island. But, heck, we're tourists and we wanted to see what all the hype was about. I'd say it was well worth it.

My favorite was seeing the infamous Kiwi bird who used to be all over New Zealand until the rabbits, stoats, possoms and dogs came along. The poor flightless bird couldn't protect itself or its large eggs so its population declined quickly nearly to extinction. Now, there are a number of organizations, like Kiwi Encounter, that are working to save the Kiwi bird.



The Kiwi bird is pretty funny and so unusual. First and foremost, the female lays the huge egg (actually she has two ovaries and lays two eggs, but often not at the same time), and the male is in charge of taking care of the egg.

Other funny attributes of the Kiwi bird is that they're more like mammals than birds. Their nostrils are situated at the end of their long beak; they have whiskers like a cat; they have tiny wings, but they can't fly; their feathers are more like fur and they have bone marrow just like humans. They're nocturnal, so we visited the Kiwi Encounter first in the morning to see the baby Kiwis and then at night to watch some of the adults in action.



One Kiwi bird named Forest put on a great show at our night visit - she bounced and pounced looking for food and moved her long beak in a comical way. Kiwi birds like to eat Meal Worms which supposedly taste like peanut butter. Yum!



Maya and Kai's favorite activity in Rotorua was the exhilarating luge ride where they drove their own three wheeled cart and zoomed down the concrete track.



This particular luge was designed and manufactured right in Rotorua and the slogan, "Once is Never Enough," seemed appropriate since the kids asked as soon as we got off the Gondola - we took a gondola up to the luge - when we're planning to go back to Rotorua.

Tim says he liked the mountain biking the best and indeed it was world-class and spectacular amidst the silver ferns and Redwood trees. The trails were well marked and most were one way.






After all this activity, we soaked in the thermal hot pools and then like most working people had to make our way back to the big city Sunday night. But before heading back, we stopped for the second time at one of the best ice cream stores in New Zealand, a place called Lady Jane's Ice Cream Parlour.



Photos of Kiwi Bird courtesy of Kiwi Encounter at Rainbow Springs

Important Stuff

Ok, we need to talk about the real important things in New Zealand. You might think I'm thinking about the incredible boats surrounding us, like the wild looking winged sail America's Cup 45 that we got to see up close today ...



Yes, the AC45 is pretty cool and one of the sailing gurus that I met today told me we were witnessing something revolutionary. Sticking an airplane wing on a sailboat might well be revolutionary ... and yes it's bringing professional sailing to a different level. Moreover, it's even cooler that the boats are being made in Warkworth at a place called Core Builders which is less than an hour from Pier 21, our home at the moment.



But, Warkworth has something else going for it,



something that's super important here in New Zealand. Something that Captain Cook brought here when he visited in 1773. Something that has four legs and goes bleet .... yes.. you guessed it ...it's sheep. Did you know that there are more sheep than people inhabiting New Zealand? In fact for every person, there are about 12 sheep.



They're pretty cute.



Some of them are even pink.



And sometimes they need a haircut. Like this one.



Maya, Kai and I learned how to shear the sheep. It looks easy, but it's a tough work and it's pretty incredible to imagine that one shearer could do the job in 15 seconds.



Also living in Warkworth is Joey, the possum. Most Kiwis (that's what we call the New Zealand people) don't think very highly of the possums, and some have even declared an all out war against the possum, but Joey is pretty cute. When we held him, he licked us endlessly and we learned that he also likes to suck on lollies (another Kiwi term for lolly pops).



I think Donkey from the movie, Shrek, also has a relative living in Warkworth. He likes to be stroked behind his ears.

Little Ducky You're the One

Today was one of those beautiful clear days here in Auckland with the sun shining and people out and about on the Viaduct, a part of Auckland's swank waterfront. I picked Maya up from her third day of school and we both biked back home to the boat. Note: Maya is going to school which you'll hear more about in future blogs and I don't know how to drive on the wrong side of the road, so we get around on our bikes.

But back to the story, we were pleasantly surprised to see a big little duckling in the water ...



And look who was also examining the duckling!



That's one of the old America's Cup boats.

We had another good sighting, something pretty cool ... the New America's Cup 45 catamaran. We couldn't get very close, but from a distance the mainsail looks like it came off straight off an airplane. Apparently, we're going to be seeing more of them in Auckland. The AC 45s are the scaled down version of the America's Cup 72s that will be racing in San Francisco in 2013. How exciting!



In the meantime ... what was the big little duckling doing on the water? I understand it's been in many other cities around the world.

And what is Kai doing?

Life in Auckland

We've been living in Auckland the past month, excited to be in the City of Sails with the highest boat per people ownership in the world. Most of our time has been working on Kamaya, preparing her for sale ... so if anyone wants to live their dream, Kamaya is an incredible comfortable, sturdy, beautiful floating home. We just put a tab on the blog with details about our wonderful home and we're creating a separate website.

In between, sanding, varnishing,



cleaning, buffing, polishing and more, we've also had some fun. Fortunately, we have friendly boat neighbors, especially, Innocenti, a Kiwi boat-family with three kids, Celia, Fergus, and Rachel and parents, Angus and Anna.

Over the holidays, Maya and Celia created a performance that's took halyard swinging to almost a Cirque de Soleil level .





Kai and Fergus played the monkeys high up in the peanut gallery.



Evi, our friend from the boat Wonderland, came down from Opua up in the North to help out, mostly by eating ice cream with Maya and Kai and exploring the city with them. They went up the sky tower and fortunately didn't bungy jump, like this man.



We also farm/house-sat our friend Robin's place over the holidays and took care of Billy the goat, Tara the dog, Stormy the cat and the clucking chickens and boisterous rooster.

Here, Billy is looking fairly obedient, but sometimes he wasn't so good. One day he bucked his way through the chicken coop and into the garden.



And he also wanted to come with us in the car -- that mischievous goat.



Tara the dog liked to sleep with Kai.



And Maya fed the chickens twice a day.



Overall, Auckland's a fantastic city. The jury is still out whether farm life beats boat life -- both are pretty demanding.