Stay At Home!

With islands across the South Pacific restricting access due to Covid-19, we knew any hope of our big sailing trip to and from French Polynesia was over. With that in mind, we cancelled having the boat hauled for a bottom painting and put on hold any other work that might be needed for an offshore passage. Instead, we decided to set forth on a short cruise around the Bay of Islands while we waited to see what was going to happen with this virus. Our general plan was to then return to the marina to attend to any possible repairs, restock on food and fuel and then set off for Auckland and the Hauraki Gulf for some fine sailing. Not going to the South Pacific this year? We consoled ourselves with the thought of the fantastic sailing that New Zealand has to offer.

Wednesday, March 18th – Stocked with a good 2 weeks’ supply of food, we release the lines and motor out the marina. Our departure, however, was not auspicious. We knew that, after sitting in the marina for months, Avante‘s bottom was going to be encrusted with all kinds of sea life and growth. The need to have those mussels and other sea life scraped off her hull soon became paramount. At the helm, the wheel vibrated with the uneven water flow across the barnacle encrusted rudder, and Avante‘s speed was slower than a Galapagos turtle! More alarming, though, was that shortly after leaving the marina, blue smoke began coming out the exhaust. The Captain felt that this was to be expected with a diesel engine that had not run in months and began advancing the throttle to “burn things out.” When the engine temperature rose to the alarm level, we quickly turned off the engine to assess the situation. The Captain felt that the water intake opening was probably partially blocked by all that growth, thus not allowing enough water in to cool the engine at higher speeds. We let the engine cool a bit and then restarted it. With our eyes on the exhaust and the temperature gauge, we slowly “put-put” to anchor in the nearest bay. There we squeezed The Captain into his wet suit so he could dive below with scrapers to unblock the intake opening. It was a cold job, but soon we are on on our way with the engine now running at the right temperature and with The Captain making a call to the local diver to arrange to have the bottom scraped – the sooner, the better. With vibrating steering, snail-like speeds, and sluggish handling, Avante is no fun to sail when so encrusted.

Paradise Bay off Urupukapuka Island is tonight’s anchorage. This is a favorite spot of ours because of the miles of well-maintained easy to moderate trails on the island.

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Thursday, March 19th – Eagerly, we set out for our first hike of the season. As in the mountains of Telluride, every hike here in New Zealand begins with an uphill. Up the first steep hill from the beach we trek. It proves a difficult, slow climb for The First Mate, but she makes it. Resting a bit at the top, she forges on. “No pain, no gain,” she tells herself, but she is forced to stop frequently. Her breath is coming in ragged gasps with feelings of nausea and encroaching tunnel vision. What is going on? Is she this out of condition from the pneumonia? Granted, it has been a good 3 months without any really strenuous activity, but still …. this bad? She has never experienced anything like this, and it is disconcerting. Frightening even! Calling our hike short, we painstakingly make our way back to the beach.

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Motoring back to Avante, we swing by our friends Annette and Ron on s/v Free Wheel. Upon hearing of The First Mate’s disastrous hike, Annette mentions that she sometimes has reactions like that because her blood pressure is naturally very low. Latching onto that idea, we consider that that may be the problem. When her blood pressure had spiked extremely high with the pneumonia, The First Mate had been put on blood pressure medicine, and now, at sea level instead of in the mountains of Telluride, she is still taking those pills. Maybe that is why she also occasionally feels dizzy when she stands up.

She had brought the blood pressure monitor with us, but she had not been using it. Stupid of her, I know! The gauge is unpacked. Sure enough, her blood pressure is low. We decide to stop taking the pills. It takes a few days, but eventually her blood pressure returns to its normal level. The dizzy, light-headedness stops, but hiking remains an ordeal. Not only is it her legs, back and neck, she realizes that her lung capacity is not what it once was. That for sure is the pneumonia. The good news is that each day sees her feeling and doing better out there on those hills.

Urupukapuka Island is a large island cut across with over 20 miles of trails. There is a ferry stop for day people coming in to enjoy the hikes and beach, but other than that, the island is unpopulated except for the flocks of sheep that roam the pastures. There is nothing so bucolic as walking through a green field of sheep or being watched by an angelic group of woolies peacefully whiling the day away in the shade.

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There is also nothing so disgusting as walking through a pasture of sheep. They are the most poop-prolific animals that The First Mate has ever run across! It is physically impossible not to step on little black marbles of sheep poop. She knows. She’s tried! The only blessing is that there is no smell!

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As noted in the previous blog, three days after we began cruising, on Saturday, March 21st, New Zealand announced a 4-stage Alert System for Covid-19 and implemented Level 2 social distancing restrictions. Two days later, they moved to Level 3 and announced that in 2 more days, the country would move to Level 4 at midnight on Wednesday, March 25th. Level 4 is a very strict lockdown where everyone must stay in their home unless providing or acquiring essential services. Wherever you are at midnight, you must remain there for 4 weeks. Fortunately, our home is a boat, giving us some flexibility, but we realized we were going to have to make some changes to our life style and quickly, too! We could berth Avante in the marina and stay on her there for the 4 weeks of Lockdown, but the marina has announced that they intend to close, leaving only one bathroom open for anyone who is living aboard their boat. We decide it would be more pleasant to ride this lockdown out while anchored in the bay. In order to do prepare for this, we need to replenish the various fuels we have on the boat: diesel, gas and propane. We know that grocery stores will be open during Level 4, but we do not want to be coming ashore every few days for food. A good 3-weeks supply of food is what we want to start this lockdown, so we need to go to the grocery store also.

Tuesday, March 24th – With less than 48 hours to be ready for Level 4, we head for the fuel depot at the marina to fill all Avante‘s tanks with diesel. Task completed, we motor to anchor in the shallow waters off Paihia to be ready to dinghy ashore in the morning to the gas station and the grocery store.

Wednesday, March 25th – Up early, we dinghy to the beach below the gas station and grocery in Paihia. Propane tanks and a red gas container are unloaded, and then we trundle up the street to the gas station. Luck was with us here, for there was an attendant on duty who knew how to fill the propane tanks. That has not always been the case to The Captain’s immense frustration. While The Captain attends to the gas station, The First Mate crosses the street to the grocery. There is a well-spaced line outside the store. She waits. Disinfectant wipes are handed out as one person is allowed to enter the store only when someone leaves. The store is well stocked. She buys what she can carry and heads back to the waiting Captain.

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We lug everything down the sidewalk, across the street, up over the lawn, and down to the beach where we load everything into the dinghy. With the social distancing restrictions, our mission took longer than we had planned. Back on Avante, we load everything, start the engine and motor across the bay where we are to meet the diver at noon.

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The diver and his wife make short work of Avante‘s crusty bottom. We are amazed. In less than 2 hours, they are finished. We thought it would take much longer to scrape all those cemented barnacles off the boat, and the best part was that it only cost us $200. We had expected a surcharge due to the extra growth on the bottom. The diver told us that this was his last day of work. How lucky we were that this job could be fit in before the lockdown. The diver’s job does not expose him to other people and he certainly had plenty of work lined up, but it is not considered an essential task.

Luck has taken a positive turn for us after the dreadful start to 2020. Now with this coronavirus threatening and changing the world as we knew it, we are grateful to be on Avante, well fueled and provisioned, and heading out into a large bay replete with beautiful anchorages. We have friends on several other boats and can maintain social distancing contact with them. We are ready for the next 4 weeks of mandatory lockdown here in New Zealand.