After about week of being at Marsden Cove Marina, Whangarei, New Zealand,
Swirl, my first crew to arrive , and I are having a snack of cheese,
crackers, salami, and olives before our dinner of Pesto on fresh Pasta and
zucchini. The weather has been inthe 70′s until this low pressure began
passing by the North Island. Yesterday, the wind began blowing at 25 to 30
Knots and today it is gusting to 35+ with intermittent showers.
It’s continuing tomorrow so there’s not much painting and varnishing getting
done. So much for my time table and those best laid plans. We’ve gotten
accustomed to NZ time, 3 hours less than a day ahead of you on PST. We are
having fun learning and marveling at the coloquil expressions in the Kiwi
language eg, a local convience store is a “dairy” & a refuge dump is a
“tip.”
*Swirl’s World*-It’s been a real slice, not the “default world”, but the
Kiwi version. The crew’s newest best friends are Roger and Jenny, a Kiwi
couple that live in the marina on their sailboat. They have taken a liking
to the crew of Intention and have become our official tour guides of the
area. Last Sinday we we to tea at Roger’s parent’s house. A proper Kiwk
home. Then we were off to the Maori Church and Cemetary, the beach in
Ruakaka, a cave with and under ground river (that reminded me of the cenotes
in Yucatan) and drink at the local pub in Waipu. Everything is familiar,
yet very strange and wonderful. It is a world of opposites; driving on the
other side of the road, summer instead of winter, plastic monopoly money,
and no GMO foods,