Monthly Archives: December 2015

We spent enough time in the Opua Marina resting up from a busy cruising season and finally got ourselves unstuck and moved a couple of miles to the cute tourist destination of Russell. The boat club makes its dinghy dock available to the many yachts that visit. 

On the walk into town we passed this beautiful community garden. The sign invites passers by to spend some time weeding and to help yourself to the vegetables and herbs. I took some chard, a head of lettuce and a branch of rosemary. I would have loved some weeding time if my back weren’t still bothering me a little. Gardening is one of the few things I miss living on a boat. 

Russell is our kind of town, with plenty of cafés and souvenir shops to peruse. We didn’t quite understand the name of this bagel place until we watched the introductory video at the town museum. Russell was called the Hellhole of the Pacific back in the day when it was a lawless Wild West crossroads of drunkenness and prostitution. Now it’s a tidy little community bordering on twee, but a sight for sore eyes for us.  

The centerpiece of the town museum is a one-fifth scale model of Captain Cook’s Endeavour.   

The other museum is the Pompellier House and Gardens, former headquarters of the French Catholic Mission in the Western Pacific. The rammed earth building houses a printery and tannery where the Marist brothers produced religious texts in the Maori language. 

Our tour included a group of students who were encouraged to try out the various hand implements for printing and tanning the hides used in bookbinding. 

Pine Island, Opua, Bay of Islands, New Zealand  

Not for nothing but you can tell your friends that you know the bona fide genius of the Jabsco Electric Quiet Flush Toilet, model 37045. Put another way, you could say that I’m the wizard of wizzing, the professor of plop, the sultan of…well I think you’ve got the picture.

Dear Escapees, this is where yr. Humbl. Skpr. mumbles that often-heard refrain aboard Escape Velocity, “it’s been warning me for quite soon time now” but you know that brownish liquid leaking out from under the head could be anything and, call me crazy, I don’t like getting knee deep in toilets. I’ve stared at the exploded parts diagram for model 37045 so long that it’s seared into my memory and as I regretfully told the long suffering Marce, they simply don’t have tiny toilet seals and o-rings for electric toilets in the South Pacific. Besides, while pointing at the tiny dot on the diagram labeled #19, the likely culprit is at the bitter end of a long chain of fiddly bits requiring the complete disassembly of the the entire effing toilet. So? So it was relegated to the New Zealand list.

Oh yes sir, we can get the parts, the overly cheerful “sales associate” chirped. They’re awfully cheerful here in New Zealand. I don’t know about you but when Yours Truly is cornered I smile and except my fate with as much grace as I can muster. Fifty five NZ dollars later I had the first of many small plastic bags with three tiny fiddly bits contained within. Now I know why they’re so cheerful. With a resigned smile I told M. tomorrow is toilet day. 

What you don’t know that you don’t know is what bites you in the ass. I don’t know, did I get that right? 

Immediately I found plastic bits where there shouldn’t have been plastic bits and the usual expected stuck and buggered-up screws, lost washers and nuts, but even worse, everything inside was covered with silicone sealant, a trick I confess that yours truly has resorted to on occasion. I have the feeling that someone has been here before me and was desperate to stop the leaks. As I worked my way through the Jabsco Quiet Flush Electric Toilet it became obvious that the butcher’s bill for broken or ad hoc repairs was growing exponentially to the point that “Mr. Cheerful”suggested the purchase of an entirely new Jabsco Quiet Flush Electric Toilet. No, I’ve got this…just one more parts kit.

Slow to start, once started I’ll see the thing through to the end. After full assembly of the parts, a grinding holy howl emanated from somewhere deep inside the soon to be re-disassembled toilet. Who knew that something called a “slinger” came with several stuck together? Not me. Unfortunately the “slinger” is the last fiddly bit in the long chain of fiddly bits that can be disassembled on the Jabsco Quiet Flush Electric Toilet, model 37045. Fixed. 

No leaks, no squeals, just your business out the hose.

Next?

At the marina we were excited to find ourselves tied up a few boats down from Field Trip, a cruising family we met in the Caribbean two years ago and who were a few weeks ahead of us on the way to the Marquesas last year when we were dismasted and had to turn back. It was a happy reunion as it always is whenever we cross paths with people we shared good times with in distant anchorages. This is Field Trip’s second cyclone season in New Zealand so they know the lay of the land, something we plan to take full advantage of for the Cliff Notes on our new temporary home. What’s more, they have a car and Sarah immediately offered to drive us to Kerikeri, a town about 40 minutes from Opua and the closest supermarket. Jack and I never turn down a car ride to anywhere but a supermarket trip was definitely tops on our list after weeks at sea and sacrificing the last of our produce to the biosecurity regulations. There’s a very good convenience store in Opua but it’s expensive and limited in variety. So off we went, along with Mark and Sue from Macushla and Audrie from Rehua. 

Sarah is a good shopping guide and pointed out the various stores along the way and what they’re good for. I don’t know about everyone else but the combination of long-term exhaustion and complete culture shock after months of retail deprivation sent my brain into a tailspin. At the huge and beautiful high-end, well-lit supermarket I was dazzled by produce we hadn’t seen since our trip back to the states last year, like kale and mushrooms and mandarins. I know it’s late spring here, and we normally buy and eat what’s in season locally, but I couldn’t resist parsnips, turnips and butternut squash. All of us were fully aware of the space limitations with a car already packed with people and yet we all met at the checkout lanes with carts full of good New Zealand wine, gorgeous fruits and vegetables and fresh herbs, cheeses and other groceries we haven’t seen in months. 

Sarah then took us to a specialty store where the vegetarians and vegans among us picked up a few more unusual items, then to a Walmart-like department store so we can see what’s there and plan our future shopping trips. 

Back at the marina we struggled to our boats with heavy grocery bags, then struggled even more to fit all the produce into limited fridge space. Sarah laughed when I swooned over the kale and said, “It’ll be there again tomorrow.” And that’s what we need to adjust to. Over sundowners with Mark and Sue we laughed that we’re so conditioned to jump on hard-to-find items when we see them, sometimes buying all that’s available knowing we may not see it again for months. Now that we’re back in the land of plenty we can be more conservative in our grocery shopping knowing it’ll all be there again tomorrow. It’ll take some getting used to.