"Good water, good life; poor water, poor life; no water, no life" Sir Peter Blake


Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Wedding Cicada

I cannot resist natural things when they are staring at me, quite often silently.... This cicada was just chilling in the tree at my cousins wedding so I couldn't resist a photo! 

It was very much a 'natural' wedding, so it was very fitting that there were both the tree insects and the farm animals around us.  Whilst I was taking photos during the ceremony another cicada happened to land on my hand too!

Thursday, February 13, 2014

A-class harnessing with Pete Melvin, A Class Championships

We were invited to see the A Class boats in the World A Class Championships and met up with friend Pete Melvin.  We have become great friends with Pete and his family both on and off the water, and Freya & Blake thought they would get some world class trapeze tricks from Pete while the boat was on grass.

Check out Melvin & Morelli's website for some really cool boats. 






Pete Melvin, of Melvin & Morelli, a seriously fast sailor and multi fantaic!  

Saturday, February 08, 2014

World A-Class Championships & Prelims, Takapuna Beach, Auckland

While half of New Zealand are out on their own boats for the summer, there are often other sailing regattas happening that bring others passionate in sailing to our beautiful country for few weeks of our summer period.  The World A-Class Championships were held at Takapuna Beach, Auckland and had many sailors from all over the world come in and have a race against some of the top sailors in world racing.  We saw them both on and off the water, and it was a great week for most, with only a few damages to boats.  The boats looked as though they were on skates, zooming effortlessly across the water as if they were on ice.  Some of the boats showed trials of foiling systems, additions to rudders, with tiny bits of carbon fibre attached at strategic places for even the slightest improvement in performance could be a gain valuable points.

In the previous weeks Craig was very fortunate to be asked by Pete Melvin to work on his A-Cat in preparation of the World Championships.  Craig had worked with Pete at Emirates Team New Zealand for the America's Cup and formed a great friendship both Pete and his family who are all very much dedicated to sailing among other great sports.  It was quite an amazing shift from working on a AC72 to a small beach sized A-Cat, yet still trying to push the boundaries of technology.  A lot of these regattas are the pivotal point of where the leap of technology can be gained and then utilised in larger regattas such as the America's Cup. 









Thursday, February 06, 2014

kiwi kingfish alarm clock

OK, this might sound bizzare, and yes, we thought it was quite weird at first, but it seems we have attracted the local kingfish residents to our hulls.  There are often 3 kingfish that are over 1m in length 'bumping' & 'bashing' our port hull, and occasionally the starboard hull.  It is amazing how violent they are, in fact I was woken at 4:30am by banging and crashing, and then splashing that I thought someone was stealing something from our cockpit, then leaping into the water with an almighty getaway with flippers on!  My heart was racing so fast that I bolted out of bed, Craig thought it was me bashing about, and we both ended up on the bow watching these fish with curiosity! 

Seriously, what goes through your mind at that hour is not that fish are using your boat as a scratching post!  We were lucky enough yesterday morning to have them do this at a more reasonable hour of 6:30am so I tried to capture them (not literally, although that had crossed my mind!). 

The other morning it was 5am and I was going to tell them it was a public holiday which meant sleep ins so they had to come back later!

This is certainly something quite special! 

 




 

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Afternoon Swim, Stanmore Bay, Whangaparaoa Peninsula

Stanmore Bay is one of my favourite beaches.  Firstly it was the beach that I grew up knowing, then after meeting Craig, it was the beach we would walk and run the dog (dog would run, we would walk!).  It is safe for the kids for swimming, with very few rocky areas so mainly sand that gets taken home in togs, towels and bags.  For anchoring it's not the best as there can be quite a swell that comes from the N making it bit exposed.  For wind it can be exposed from the North East right round to the West, but I have seen boats in there over the summer periods.
 
When we're all overheating and it's a lovely day.... the only way to fix it is to go to the beach!  We were fortunate to catch up with our friends Jess & Alec Salmond and Jess's friend too, which was awesome for when you need a mermaid tail done!  Thanks guys!
 
The picture says it all! Kiwi Kids!!!
 
Who needs a surfboard?

 Ahhh, the love!
 
 
 Making a fish smoker
 

Muscle Man again.... 

Monkey Man this time!
 
 You look funny Mum!
 
 
 
Freya's Mermaid Tail, and the Baywatch Babes in the background washing shells for the tail...