Taking it easy… Thursday, 25/01/2024

I have been leading a relatively quiet life here, dealing with various contractors regarding repairs and maintenance for the boat. In order to stay fit I’ve been going on long walks every day, typically in the late afternoon when the sun isn’t so strong anymore. On Saturday I hired a car, mainly to go to the best chandlery in the area, which is in the port zone of Whangarei, but it also gave me the opportunity to drive the half hour trip down the opposite side of Whangarei Harbour. There I walked up to the top of Mount Manaia, which towers over Whangarei Heads at the entrance to the harbour. There was a brilliant view from up there and it was great to get a clear perspective of everything around Marsden Point – the land this side is very flat so it is difficult to comprehend the layout clearly. From up there, at 360 metres (1200 feet) above sea level, everything is very clear.

Being New Zealand, it’s common to come across friendly people – I’ve had several conversations with people who live around here. Yesterday afternoon I had stopped just short of One Tree Point and was considering where best to swim. The tide was in and the water lovely and clear. I saw a couple swimming from a little beach so swam out and got in conversation with them. They live opposite.

While polishing the outside of the boat today I got into conversation with my neighbour, a man in his late 60s who has a large cabin cruiser. He has previously owned a couple a sailing yachts and has travelled all around the region: it was interesting to hear his opinions. And then we got to talking about our respective childhoods, he growing up on Waiheke Island just off Auckland (which is now prime real estate), me about growing up in Durban, never far from the sea. It’s interesting to hear of people’s varied lives – what brought them to this point where I am living amongst them. That’s the really big difference between what I’m doing and going somewhere on holiday: it’s having the time and therefore being able to spend much longer in some (almost random) place.

A woman called Kristin was closely examining my boat yesterday. I popped out and said Can I help you? This started a long conversation, and it turned out that she and her husband own the yacht two berths down. It was an interesting conversation: she said that she’d sailed the boat alone a number of times. I observed that it was very seldom that one comes across a solo woman sailor. She agreed. Her answer was: women tend to be more risk averse. I remarked that one notable exception is the the Englishwoman Jeanne Socrates – who she then said she had met!

Jeanne Socrates is legendary for continuing to sail alone, even though she is now 81. She started sailing back in 1994 – when she was already in her fifties. Her start was the same as mine: she did the Royal Yacht Association’s Competent Crew course. She and her husband then bought a yacht in 1997 and sailed it down to the Canaries and then on to the Caribbean and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. He was then diagnosed with cancer, and died in 2003. But she didn’t stop sailing: she went on, eventually to become the oldest woman to circumnavigate single-handed, as well as the only woman to have circumnavigated solo nonstop from North America. So there are good examples out there for those who seek inspiration…