Auckland -- Second time around

When we first arrived in New Zealand, we visited Bay of Islands and Auckland, picking up new passengers in the latter. We stopped in Auckland again, dropping off and picking up passengers (again) and restocking. Our goal had been to see something of the city – since, during the first visit, we had spent all our time washing clothes, finding a place we could directly connect our laptops to the internet, and restocking our bar.

Well, the site-seeing was not to be. We did the above-mentioned chores, came back to drop off laundry/groceries around 3pm, only to be told that ALL passengers were due back to the boat at 5pm (not the 9:30pm deadline we had been given earlier). Something about NZ Customs and Immigration. Sounded fishy to us, but we gave up on our sightseeing plans – only to be told at 4:55 that in fact the only people needed to be seen by Customs were those who had boarded in Auckland 10 days earlier. We were not amused. We did manage a few shots of the downtown area, but that's about it. The middle one (below) is kind of fun, it's taken from the main street down to the waterfront, and shows just how closely integrated the waterfront is, with the downtown area.

Bay of Islands -- 2nd time around

On the way back (leaving New Zealand to return towards the Pacific islands), we encountered Cyclone Wati, which resulted in our skipping Bay of Islands due to high seas. So, we've got some New Zealand currency left over for our next visit! We'd also planned to use the last of our cell phone time (we bought a pre-paid card in NZ) to call our respective families and say "Hi" from the southern hemisphere. Sorry, Moms.

Waves were up to 20 ft waves, winds to 40mph —probably the worst seas during the trip to date. Kathy, dosed up on her seasick remedies, did very well. But it is so hard to do anything upright like walking or even sitting with the ship rolling and pitching, we mainly napped. Every half hour or so, the waves would combine in a particular way and slam into our porthole, turning the room dark and sounding like we'd been hit by a giant log. If we'd have had hiccups, this surely would have cured us. Kathy, our "mine canary" of rough seas, was hardly green at all this time. Perhaps she's acclimating to the roll of the seas?

We left behind the rough seas the following day, and were relived to find that late-winter weather had ended and we were once again into the tropics. Time to put those Antarctic parkas back under the bed – we won't be needing them again on this trip.

New Zealand epilogue

You've got to wonder about a country that claims to be “Naturally Disastrous”. We rather fancy the place. We'll be back.