Letter from Aoetearoa

Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Thu 7 May 2009 06:31
Hi Folks,
The weather is still blustery with showers, we are still on the hard stand also, the internal jobs are now underway, these we expected to do when we returned later on in the year but as the external jobs are on hold we have to make the best use of the time.
 Lyn is still on the outside grimly attacking the waterline, rubbing down with more wet than dry paper, she sits gnome like on the scaffold looking like she is fishing for something, probably dreaming of the sun, warm winds, but the reality is a hot water bottle and an electric blanket once she goes down south, it has been rumoured that the "800 buck" a month parents will be arriving in Wellington soon, that's what Gail's friends are banding about, briefly its a slur on the poms who put the central heating on in the winter, the cost to the poor house owner who has them to stay I believe .
 
No more yachts have left as I write but a few are prepping for the end of the month, our friends "Rhythm" are also prepping for the haul north to Tonga, before long it will only be three boats that remain from "Class of 08" those being ourselves, Seabright and Trenelly, the fleet that left on Sunday however caught the tail end of the next low that has come rushing through, would have been a bumpy night for the 30 to 40 fters with bum winds at 40 plus knots, we would have been further North than the rest of them if we had gone, there's no substitute for water line length and a great advantage on long passages, the down side when you get there however is draft and idyllic accessible anchorages.
 
As I listen to the radio here it is quite difficult to get a BBC type news service to listen to in the daytime but I have come across " Talk Radio" which is most entertaining, in the morning we get a "Pakeha" or European descendant New Zealander with strong views from a white persons perspective, and in the afternoon we get a couple of Maori lads giving it large about how the Europeans have striped them of there birthright, not all the time but they get a dig in where ever possible,but it is a glimpse under the skin so to speak of the issues that a visitor would not here or really care about and is the legacy of a colonial past but  its not the real Aoetearoa which I have come to know , if you listened to the am and pm views you would think the whole place was run by Maori bike gangs on the one hand and White Supremacists on the other the reality is some what different and the pace of life here is at a sensible pace, people have the time to say good morning with a smile, it seems to me to be a far more integrated society than the one we left in Blighty a few years ago, the racial mix is varied no more so than in the city of Wellington where we live, its a vibrant city with everything a city has but on a small accessible scale. 
 
Ka Kate
 
Lyn and Chris