Warp Speed: Move to Manly and Aussie Christmas 2012

Poinciana tree, Oz doesn't have poinsettias... But these are stunning

Traumatic, tumultuous, tears of sadness and joy. So much of importance has happened in our lives over the last months, we have not been able to keep up with ourselves (or the blog). Still, since this blog is our log of our adventures, though we’re actually currently in Mexico preparing for our wedding in 1 week (!), we’ll go back to where we left off… We hope to get several installments on line soon to catch up with the present day.

On Saturday 1 December, we chose to head out of the river. We timed dropping our mooring as the tide shifted from flooding to ebb to carry us out the river to Moreton Bay (and managed to save our space and the space two boats down for incoming Britannia and Convivia with the help of neighboring s/v Celiydah). What started as a mellow motor turned into a relaxing motor sail as we retraced our path under the Story Bridge then the Rivergate Bridge down the river near its terminus. By late afternoon when we reached the exit of the Brisbane River, the passage culminated in a windy/wavy/busy river exit. With current now strongly ebbing out and brisk afternoon winds howling in, steep waves were created in the less than 0.1-nm wide channel. Already a challenge before adding multiple fast large powerboats entering and exiting the river, an incoming sailing vessel under spinnaker, an exiting motoring sailing vessel mere boat lengths behind us, and the final cherry on top, cargo ship traffic. Chris was excited by the adventure and motivated Shawn (a bit under duress having expected a relaxing passage) to short tack upwind in steep seas in the busy reef flanked narrow channel. Memories of short tacking up the fairway in Berkeley Marina flashed through our minds as we worked, Chris at the helm and Shawn on the jib sheets, like a well oiled machine. Tao, of course, negotiated the situation with ease. After several heart pounding short-tacks, we finally made enough way upwind to fall off out of the channel to enjoy a Moreton Bay sail, surprisingly reminiscent of the SF Bay with similar shallow depths and weekend warrior filled conditions.

Brisbane River mouth, check out our dotted yellow tacking track!

Having spent two blissful weeks up the river watching late spring blooms, eating fresh food, hiking around the city, riding the CityCat and CityHopper ferries, sailing Fatty and doing yoga, we decided it was time to point our bow toward Moreton Bay and an available marina space to start preparations for our next steps. After being moored in the flat river (side to nearly continuous ferry wakes), we sailed Tao from the heart of Brisbane out the River into Moreton Bay and ultimately to an available slip at East Coast Marina in a town named Manly. As the sun lowered into the Manly hills, we fired up Yannie and pulled our triple reefed mains’l down as we motored into the huge Manly Harbor. Filled with several marinas berthing hundreds of vessels, we were happy to have confirmed what space was available for us with a map. Winds still very fresh, Chris expertly maneuvered Tao into the tight slip and Shawn proficiently wielded fenders and with the help of friendly neighbor boaters, snubbed Tao to a stop and tied her to her first floating dock since Mexico nearly 2 years prior.

Post wedding dress purchase pizza party!

Though there is so much to do in Oz and so many places to see from a sailboat, it was time for us to start lining things up for our next tranche. Both of us put energy toward wedding planning- the big event (at that point) a mere three months away in Mexico, oceans away physically and figuratively! Chris persistently tediously worked on essay laden applications to Masters of Education programs at Harvard, Stanford, Santa Barbara and a teaching internship at Punahou (in Honolulu, where Obama went to high school). Meanwhile, Shawn busily taught yoga, visiting Brisbane area Bikram studios, figuring out the Brisbane public transport and successfully (with invaluable help from Britannia’s Amanda) found her wedding dress just before Christmas!

Lorikeet! Picture captured by Tucker s/v Convivia

Although connected to the city with public transport trains, ferrys, and buses, strong will was required to leave the quiet non-ferry waked marina to head back the 1.5-hrs into town. Luckily friends and yoga studios drew us to the city as Britannia and Convivia arrived in Brisbane the day after we moved to Manly. We switched off trips with Britannia visiting at each other’s boats and forging lasting friendships. We also joined the Convivia crew for an unforgettable trip to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary where we all acted like kids (okay, maybe just Shawn) and interacted with koalas (FYI they are not actually bears), kangaroos, platypus, laughing kookaburra, lorikeets, Tasmanian devil, wombat, and emu. Until now, these had just been words of strange animals in a far off land.

koalas everywhere!

 Chris and a baby kangaroo. Note the huge emu above the kanga!

 laughing kookaburra and lorikeet

  

 fluffy chickens and a Tasmanian devil noshing

 This does not look comfortable!

And all of a sudden, Christmas was upon us. It is always fun to celebrate holidays alongside different cultures. We pulled out our Charlie Brown Christmas tree again, and though in our Tao upgrades we removed our everyday LED strings of lights that needed replacement, Chris added some super bright USB powered lights to deck the little tree. With so much to do and the sun out, it sure didn’t feel like Christmas. It felt more like Fourth of July in the States, so we were rather Scroogey. Since the locals flocked to the outer islands and beaches, we planned to just nestle down in our slip and continue to try to get things organized. On Christmas proper, we managed to motivate against the crowds into the city, usually very busy, it was bizarrely still and brilliantly sunny. We joined the crews of several cruising boats in the Botanic Gardens at a Christmas potluck for which we supplied hot buttered rum. Luckily that was in a thermos, but all the open wine bottles littered around the picnic table drew the “Blue Heelers” (the term used for police officer in Australian, after the Australian Cattle Dog, because it accurately describes the personality and blue uniformed appearance of an Aussie police officer). The nice fellows asked us to at least hide all the alcohol in the public park right next to a playground and said “Merry Christmas.” Australian culture is surprisingly different. One moment we will would think we were in the US and the next we’d realize we hadn’t understood a word being said. In Australia, Chrissy = Christmas, lift = elevator, carpark = parking lot, and holiday = trip. These seem easy enough, but people sure looked at us funny when we said “Happy Holidays” since they usually weren’t going on a trip.

Britannia visiting Tao and a mess of Christmas cookie making (note the olive jar rolling pin)

Christmas Eve and Boxing Day dinners

All of this excitement on its own would have been manageable, but add on top of it the most contentious, emotional, and time consuming project of all... (drumroll please)... getting Tao prepped to sell, and the past months have been a roller coaster in warp speed.

Happy Holidays 2011

Celebrating Hawaiian Style

On Christmas Eve, as a gale raged with 18-ft seas in the Alenuihaha Channel, we were safely moored in Honokohau Harbor decorating our Charlie Brown Christmas tree, listening to the breathing sounds of endangered Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle (Honu) just outside Tao's cockpit, while sipping Jack Frost tea under a star-filled moonless sky. Christmas morning, Shawn taught and Chris took an 8 am class at Bikram Yoga Kona. Just before Final Savasana at the end of the packed class, one of the students proposed to his girlfriend; so much love! Back on the boat we gorged on sushi and our favorite Hawaiian style poke then worked it off with a first try of stand up paddleboarding (SUP) and a sunset hike. Maybe not the traditional celebration (at these moments family does seem very far away), but we very much enjoyed a sunny, warm, ocean-filled Hawaiian Christmas together! To herald in the new year, we plan to go to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in search of flowing lava and hope to catch a glimpse of Pele's glow. We'll let you know how that goes. Happiest of Holidays to everyone, wherever you are!!

Too much or not enough Oahu??

Just in case you're wondering why everything seems to take us so long. This is what happens when Chris has breakfast duty… Needless to say, Shawn ended up making brunch around noon and now we have a nicely cleaned sink with all the old no longer functioning adhesive material completely removed.

We can’t decide if we’ve had too much time or not enough on Oahu. We really had all the intentions of being in Oahu for only 1-week. But at the end of that week, the forecast for crossing looked grim. No problem, we can always find fun ways to explore and spend time. Mellow is more our style anyway. So we continued to visit Chris’ grandmother frequently and added trips by bus to see interesting parts of Oahu. While APEC was in full swing, we tried to get away from the city to hike Diamond Head, but found that for safety of the dignitaries, the trail was closed early. So we hopped another bus and continued E to Hanauma Bay. Permanently off-limits to motorized vessels of any kind, this well known bay is where hoards of Honolulu tourists descend to snorkel the beautiful reef. Ironically it is also where Chris’ grandparents watched workmen dynamite a section of the coral in 1957 when the first Trans-Pacific undersea telephone cable was laid. From here we had a gorgeous view of Diamond Head at sunset to the W and Koko Head and the fullmoon rise to the E.

The next day we did an around-the-island bus trip stopping at a few points of interest. Our first stops were on the NE windward side of the island; Kaneohe Bay and Mokolii Island (locally known as Chinaman’s Hat), which might just have the most beautiful bus stop in the world. We caught another bus and got off again to explore Kawela and Turtle Bay on the NW windward side of the island. Again we boarded yet another bus and continued SW around the island, and near literally stepped off onto the the world renowned beaches of the “North Shore” where tons of surfers were shredding the small waves of Pipeline and Sunset. The energy of onlookers and surfers alike was abuzz in preparation for the imminent annual ASP Triple Crown surf competition.

Over 2-weeks in Honolulu-town and still, the weather was not mellowing. We negotiated a monthly rate with the Kewalo Basin folks and although there was a small weather break forecast for the end of the next week, we decided to buy a full November bus pass (an upgrade from the 4-day passes we’d been using until now). Also, our list of fun things to do kept growing. This extra time allowed us to visit Chris’ other uncle, Strat, show him Tao, and join Grandma and him for another trip to the Punchbowl for the year anniversary of Grandpa’s passing. On the 17th, we had to move Tao to the slip open on the other side of our dock as the owner of the one we’d been in was due home. Shawn taught a yoga class at Bikram Yoga Nimitz in Honolulu and Chris met with Dorothy Iams and sat in on a few science classes at Punahou School. We were surrounded by the hustle and bustle of humanity with stores constantly reminding us of the approaching holiday season. Since USPS was accessible here, we decided to do our Christmas shopping early. Among all of these tasks, we continued to visit Margi every couple of days, and the howling trade winds persisted. We are under the impression that winter weather in Hawaii includes more breaks in the trade winds than summer months- however this has not been our experience thus far. Pouring over the online weather models, we found a small 24-hr window starting Thanksgiving afternoon before stronger-than-normal trade winds would return late Friday, and decided to attempt an eastward crossing. Our focus immediately shifted to tying up loose ends in preparation to sail.

We mailed out boxes stuffed with holiday gifts, filled our tanks with diesel which required a half mile walk to the nearest fill station and back with a 5-gal jug twice (good job Chris and thanks to Kewalo Basin Harbor for lending us a dolly!) and water (always a tedious task was made more interesting by requiring carrying twelve 5-gal jugs from the water spout at the far end of the dock and then lowering them down to our boat at low tide because our drinking water hose was way too short for the distance). Finally, off to the grocery to provision for a couple of weeks as we make our way back to the Big Island via at least one several day stop at Lanai. Two back packs, 5 rip-stop nylon bags (one of the unsung heroes of our adventures) and $250 of groceries later and we caught a bus back toward the harbor and walked the final half mile to Tao where we cleaned up and stowed our purchases. The next morning we grabbed an early bus, poinsettia and Christmas present in hand, to visit Grandma for a nice Thanksgiving brunch (as well as the added bonus of a last load of laundry, hot freshwater shower, and frozen water bottles for our fridge). Even though there are many things we would still like to see and do on Oahu, we were able to experience much more than we ever expected, and most importantly, it was very special for us to be able to spend so much quality time visiting with Chris’ grandmother. Thank you, Margi!