Reporting in Pt 1
Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Mon 14 Jun 2010 23:13
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Hi Folks,
Im back, sorry for the lack of reporting in but its
been a bit of a tramatic few months, and as I have just
been reminded no entry has been done for a while,
catch up time ....
It all started back in late April, I packed my bags
and made the journey north, Train again Im afraid, I have
been trying to avoid airports since my last flight
to the UK from Martinuque, it all seems so long ago but I
have manage to travel the best part of 8000 nm
without the use of them.
Train journeys for me always remind me of
when I was a kid and we traveled to and from Cornwall , the trip North from
Wellington is great, you meander through wounderful countryside, steep ravines,
numarus viaducts, and the famous spiral which brings the track down from the
volcanic plains to sea level within the space of a few miles, its not quite
Richard Bransons train set but its very kiwi, wehad a signal failiure about
halfway up the north Island, what does the train driver do , radios ahead and
tells them he will proceed and change the signel and points himself ! know it
sounds strange but thats how we covered 100 km up the line, I think the
electronic brain that works the track signal sys had failed in that sector and
to keep the train on time the driver stopped at each signal and point sys got
out and changed them so we could proceed , wonderfull, we were only 30 mins late
getting in to Aukland , and the leaves on the track
didnt slow us either.
I spent the night in some seedy Chinnese hotel,
paper thin walls and lots of grunting and groning, dont
know what sort of hotel it was but it wasnt your
usual Hilton, it was only 60 bucks and as it was near the bus station I didnt
have far to hump my kit in the morning.
Bused up to Opua the next morning, the driver
stopped on the hill and my lift was there to meet me and take me to Tranelly
a 43 ft Oyster yacht, my home for the next two
weeks and our trip North to Fiji.
You have probably heard about Trenelly
before, we met Jason and Fiona in Panama in 08 and kept bumping into them along
with Seabright,Summerwine and Rythem for the remainder of the journey to NZ,
Fiona had a baby girl on arrival in NZ and took the
sensible option of flying to Fiji ahead of the boat, this bit
of sea has a rep, a bit like Biscay, but its not a
three day jaunt but 8 to 10 days depending what mother
nature spits out at you from the Tasmin sea, we
were just out of Cyclon season and Jason had decided to gather a mottly crew of
three boyz for the trip North.
The boat was stowed and ready to go , so after a
catch up and goodbyes with other freinds we have met along the way we set sail
to Fiji on the dreaded Friday, Lyns non sail day ! our other crew
member Stuart
was strait into the fishing, whilst we rolled along
the east coast towards cape Reanga, similar motion to our trip in Feb only this
time it was me who felt a bit quezy, the tuna however kept jumping on the
line and Stuart seemed to have real luck, we dinned pm on thinly sliced raw tuna
with some wonderful sauce
Stuart whipped up, night drew on the wind was from
the east right on the beam, we set the sails for the night, expecting the wind
to increase and made our plans for that event, which it turns out the first
night didnt occur, anyway it was a typical first night out, nobody settled and
not much sleep occured either !
Pt II to follow , a quezy crew
member
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