On our way to the South Island of NZ.

We are today March 11th, sitting in Burnie in a carpark in Wanaka town with free wi-fi. The weather is cloudy and thus time to do an update of our travels on the South Island of NZ.

We took the ferry in Wellinton on February 22nd and drove from Picton to Nelson, then up to Cape Farewell with a stop in Abel Tasman National Park. Then back to Nelson, St.Arnaud with a visit to the Nelson Lakes. From there on to the Westport, Punakaki, Hokitika, Franz Josef, Fox Glacier to Jackson Bay. Back to Haast over the pass to Wanaka. The coming weeks we will travel to Queenstown, Milford Sound down to Invercargill and make our way back up along the East Coast.

As promised some more pictures from our visit to Napier.

Lots of 1900’s cars in Napier during the Art Deco WE.

Andy took us along for a guided tour from Napier. Thank you Andy and Sue for letting us stay 3 days in your beautiful house!

The whole town was in Great Gatsby style !

Pouring rain on our first swingbridge in Waiohine Gorge.

A KaKa bird eating away on a toast he managed to steal from the plates of a cafe guest in Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre.

Takahe, a flightless bird, looks a lot like its cousin the Pukeko.

We are in Kiwi Country ! We saw the Kiwi bird at the Pukaha centre where they protect the Kiwi by taking the eggs and incubating them. This is called Operation Nest Egg where eggs and chicks are protected from predators. The Kiwi is also a flightless bird, with hair-like feathers, strong legs and no tail. Kiwis are mostly nocturnal so very difficult to spot during the day.There are 5 species and all are threatened with extinction.

The parliament buildings in Wellington, with the Beehive that houses the Cabinet and the offices of its ministers. We were able to get a free guided tour of the buidlings.

View over Wellington from Mount Victoria.

We also visited Weta Cave where the movies Lord Of the Ring, Avatar, Great Adventures of TinTin are digitally mastered. It was a learning experience to see how much craftsmanship there is involved in these creations.

The Interislander ferry waiting for us to come aboard at 8AM

It was a beautfiul day crossing the Cook Strait.

Views on the Queen Charlotte drive to Nelson.

On our way to Abel Tasman National Park.

On our way to Abel Tasman we stopped to admire Rawhiti Cave.

Rawhiti Cave, also known as Manson Cave, is 40m wide and 20m tall. The ceiling is densely covered in stalactites which become increasingly finer deeper down into the cave.

More pictures in the next blog from beautiful Abel Tasman and the West Coast.

NZ is definitely a paradise for trampers and birdlovers !

February 21st, Tuesday,library of Wellington. Tomorrow we will take the 9AM ferry to the South Island. We arrived here after spending some time in Napier with an ex-colleague from Stefan. It was great to spend some time in a nice house with all the luxuries :-)) and not have to worry about the next camping spot.

Before arriving in Napier we did the Tongariro Alpine Crossing walk. Really wonderful ! Tongariro National Park is the oldest National Park in NZ and UNESCO world heritage since 1991. In order to prevent the selling off to European settlers several Maori chiefs (Iwi) decided in 1887 to give the grounds to the Crown under the condition that it would remain a protected area. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is widely regarded as one of the world’s best one-day hikes.(19.4KM) We started walkig at 8 AM and arrived at the car park at 1.15PM with a short stop to eat our lunch. We did not have any rain that day but the next 4 days it would rain off and on.

We were not alone on the crossing, about 700 people during a WE day do the crossing.

Finally the sun came out and we could enjoy our lunch at the Emerald Lakes.

The sun makes everything so much prettier.

The snow capped moutain is Mount Ruapehu, the one with the reddish colour is Mt. Ngauruhoe. You can see the path along which we walked.

Mahuia River in Tongariro National Park.

Our visit to Napier was a little rained out but we enjoyed the Art Deco WE, the old cars in town and all the people dressed up in Gatsby style ! We walked to Cape Kidnapper’s (20KM along the beach) and had a beautiful (rainy) view of the Black Reef Gannet colony.

The gannet (Jan Van Gent) colony on Cape Kidnapper’s.

The grey ones are the chicks. They will all fly to Australia in April.

Wet but happy to have reached the colony and view the birds so close.

The views were really beautiful too bad the sun was not there. The reality is soooo much better than the pictures.

It was named by Captain Cook after an attempt by local Mäori to abduct one of his crew.The cape is home to the largest and most accessible gannet colony in the world.

Now, we are definitely in sheep country.

Mission Estate Winery was established in 1851 and one of the oldest wineries in New Zealand. It was started by french missionairies.

Napier has a lot of art deco architecture constructed after most of the town was destroyed with the Hawke’s Bay earthquake on February 3 in 1931(7.8 on Richter Scale)

During the Art Deco WE people dress up in 1930’s costume and vintage cars are everywhere.

More pictures from Art Deco WE in the next blog.

Trundler, tramping, jandals we must be in New Zealand.

Monday, February 13th, Turangi library New Zealand. It has been raining since yesterday late afternoon and thus time to catch up on news, emails and blog ! I cannot believe we have been almost 3 weeks in New Zealand. The libraries are fantastic here, they are open all days from 9.30 till 17.00 and you can use their internet, room, toilets for free. Needless to say today the computer study room was packed with tourists, backpackers mostly from Germany and France. We have been travelling with our camper for 10 days now and it is really the best option for visiting New Zealand !

We stayed about 10days in Auckland with our NZ cruiser friends from the boat Aislado, Vaughn, Sylvia and their daughter Zara. We are very happy we could stay there and take our time to find a suitable campervan! During our time in Auckland we visited the city, did some shopping for the boat and vistited Waitakere Forest Park on the west side of Auckland. New Zealanders are very friendly and relax people, “no worries” is a standard answer. Also the traffic is less hectic than in Belgium, 100KM/HR is the max. speed anywhere.

Auckland city seen from the sailing boat Aislado when we were sailing in the bay.

Auckland is definitely a “sailing city”, soooo many sailboats were out that day…

Waitakere Ranges Regional park, west of Auckland.

We picked up our campervan “Burnie” early thursday morning and friday afternoon February 3rd we took the ferry to Waiheke island for a long WE. It was wonderful. We were lucky the weather was perfect, a little breeze, blue skies. Waiheke is an island just a one hour ferry ride from Auckland. It is full of famous wineries and good restaurants, beautiful walks and scenery. We enjoyed a great lunch at the Mudbrick restaurant with the voucher we had received from the girls for our Christmas !! Memorable for sure !!!

“Burnie” on deck of the Sealink ferry bringing us to Waiheke island.

We must be in wine country. We visited Mudbrick and Man-O-War wineries.

Having a memorable lunch at the Mudbrick restaurant.

We visited “Headland Sculpture on the gulf”, a 2-yearly event on the coast of Waiheke. We did the exhibition walk of 2km, lots of people but beautiful views and works. This work is from Virginia King and is called Phantom Fleet, a fleet of filigreed and branching vessels that connect nautical, botanical and anatomical worlds.

“White bird and white angel” from Semisi Fetokai Potauainehere.

Stefan’s favorite: Phil Price, Forbidden Tree, is like no tree in the natural world, it moves with the wind, creates shade but drops no leaves. It needs no water but is alive with movement.

Michael Tuffery, Trailing Tangaroa, aluminum frame and rubber jandals.

Views during our walk on Stony Batter Historic Reserve.

Stefan and “Burnie” on one of the many stops.

We came back from Waiheke on the 7th of February and drove for about another hour to just before Hamilton. From Hamilton to Rotorua, Lake Taupo, Wai-O-Tapu and now in Turangi. The scenery along the way is just beautiful.

Whakarewarewa State forest park near Rotorua with redwood trees 60m high and planted in 1901.

Whirinaki Forest Park was like a fairy tale park… Frodo and Gandalf around the corner.

After our walk in Whakarewarewa forest we soaked in one of the natural hot pools of Rotorua. The water was around 37-40 degrees Celsius.

Lady Knox Geyser in Wai-O-Tapu (Sacred Waters) thermal wonderland.

The artist’s palette, yellow from the sulphur.

The Huka Falls or “great body of spray”, here the Waikato river funnels into a narrow chasm before plunging over a 9m shelf.

Koru spiral – “new life” symbol for the Maori

We are currently in Napier library finishing this blog and looking forward to the Art Deco festival in the next days. We will go south and hope to take the ferry to the South Island in Wellington around February 27th.

Getting Sanuk ready for a wintersleep in paradise.

Belgium: It is sunday, January 8th, it is a foggy and cold morning while I am looking at the last pictures we took in Apataki…

November 12 2016: Apataki

Picture taken from our last anchorage in Apataki, november 2016.

Taking off the mainsail and all the halyards under clear blue skies.

Almost ready to go on land… The exterior is ready.

Sanuk being pulled out of the water on an adjustable hydraulic trailer. Alfred is driving the tractor while Pauline (his wife) is making sure everything is going well. Tony is underneath the boat adjusting the pads.

Almost there… Tony and a helper are adjusting the metal plates for the trailer wheels.

Sanuk on the hard ! We were lucky she was taken out of the water early in the morning on the 10th of November because afterwards the wind picked up and changed direction making it impossible to take out another boat that day and the day after!

We take the three days that we are on the hard in the carenage to thoroughly clean the boat on the inside. All the walls get a bleach solution treatment to prevent mold from growing. All lockers get emptied, cleaned and refilled.

While I was cleaning I found a little gecko on board ! They are good to have on board because they eat insects. I wonder if he will be still there when we return.

After 3 days on the hard, cleaning and preparing the boat for the 6 months on land, we were ready to fly to Papeete. It was a gorgeous sunday morning ! No wind, blue skies, the water was like a mirror…

The boat on the right will take us to the airport of Apataki.

The day we left, the sea was like a huge swimming pool.

“mamie” gave us each a flower wreath before we left. We will be back the end of April.

The sign for the boatyard in Apataki town…

Ready to leave for Papeete in the 16 seater.

View out of the plane, flying over the atoll of Rangiroa. To the left the ocean, on the right the lagoon.

Flight Papeete -> Los Angelos -> New York

After a couple days in Papeete we left for New York to visit with our daughter Meliena (living in Boston). Stefan and I spent a beautiful day at the “9-11 Memorial” in New York City. A total difference from the gorgeous nature in French Polynesia but we enjoyed the City for the day!

The National September 11 memorial and museum is a tribute to the 3000 victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Part of the antenna which stood on top of the twin towers.

The foundation of one of the old towers.

Billboard: Curious what 2017 will bring for the world order with the new leader in place. They both seem to have their doubts.

September 2016, Emma and Sebastien visiting Sanuk

We are already 2 months later…time really flies ! We have already left Sanuk in Apataki and are now spending 3 days in a hotel in Papeete. We are flying to New York on November 16th. It seems they are preparing us for bad weather in Belgium because it has been raining here for 2 days ! So ideal to update the blog, only the internet is still not fantastic. We will have to upload all our little movies when we are in Boston.

Emma and Sebastien arrived at 5 AM in the morning after being on the plane for 30 hours! After emptying the suitcases with lots of goodies for Sanuk and some for us, Stefan asked Sebastien to help with installing new solar panels and off they went. Emma and myself went to the little supermarket so we could fix lunch later.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Going to the supermarket Tahitian style. Foodshopping is fun :-))

ilseb-3 — Near the market in Papeete we passed the many stalls where they sold flower garlands and wreaths. Especially on sunday people wear these to mass or parties.

ilseb-16 — Beautiful girls and dances…We will post a video once we get better internet.

ilseb-2 — Visiting marae Arahurahu. A marae is a sacred religious site where Tahitians offered animals and sometimes humans to the gods.

ilseb-1 — Sebastien next to one of the Tikis at the site. A Tiki is a large or small wooden or stone carved human like form. They were often used to mark the boundaries of a sacred site.

We sailed to Moorea on September 11th.

440px-karta_fp_societe_isl — We sailed with Emma and Sebastien from Tahiti to Moorea, then to Raiatea and Tahaa, to Bora Bora and back to Raiatea where they took the plane to Papeete.

ilseb-4 — Sailing to Moorea, we could not wish for better conditions !

ilseb-6

ilseb-7 — Pineapple fields in Moorea. We did a wonderful hike in the Opunohu valley of Moorea.

ilseb-5 — Stefan and myself at Belvedere point on Moorea. In the back you see Opunohu Bay.

ilseb-8 — A Moorean girl having fun on sunday after mass !!

We sailed to Raiatea at night since we could not make it during daylight hours.

ilseb-9 — Sailing to Raiatea, leaving with the evening sun.

ilseb-12 — We booked a tour with Vanilla Tours around the island of Tahaa.

The vanilla flower is a type of orchid. The orchids bloom and die within a few hours unless they are pollinated. The pollination has to be done manualy because the bee that would do this does not live in Polynesia.

ilseb-11 — The vanilla pods after pollination of the vanilla orchid. The pods need 9 months to ripen on the vine. The beans then go through a curing, drying and resting period for several months, all of the work done manualy ! No wonder vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron.

At the end of the tour we drank fresh coconut juice (no alcohol added).

ilseb-10 — One of the motus in Raiatea where we dropped our anchor.

We were lucky to finally spot three whales in the lagoon of Raiatea.

It was great to watch them fairly close to the boat.

they were enormous and you could clearly hear and see the air escaping the blowhole

And yes !!! the long awaited catch of tuna !!!

Sebastien with the yellow-fin tuna ! We had sushi and tuna on the barbecue for 2 days!

The famous over-the-water huts in Bora Bora. They cost on average 800-1000USD per night. Luckily we have Sanuk !

On our way to Wi-Fi and a drink at the St.Regis hotel. A place for the rich and famous 🙂

Maybe another fish wil bite…life of a fisherman in Bora Bora 🙂

ilseb-13 — All good things come to an end…Leaving at the airport from Raiatea, I was happy we would see them again only 2 months later. Saying goodbye is not one of my strong points !

Leaving the Tuamotus for the Society islands

Today, October 24th 2016, we are in Bora Bora, our last night with our friends Katie and Karel. They are flying back to a cold and rainy Belgium tomorrow. We will be sailing back to Tahiti for a stop of 4-5 days and then on to Apataki to leave the boat for the cyclone season.

Flashback

I cannot believe the months of september and october went by so fast! We left Apataki (Tuamotus) in august to meet with our friends, Marine and Simon-Pierre (Jambote) on the atoll Ahe. We only stayed there 4 days but it was gorgeous! We decided to go back next year when we pick up the boat and we will follow a course to get our diving certificate.

ilsea-1 — Manta ray looking for plankton around our boat in Apataki.

ilsea-2 — A lemon shark in the clear waters of Apataki.

ilsea-5 — Walking around Ahe, can it get more tropical…?

While in Ahe we found a place where they produced monoi oil the artisanal way. No chemicals or machines involved. I bought 2 bottles of 0,5l for 10USD each where in the stores you pay easily 8USD for half the quantity. It was nice to support the local economy this way.

ilsea-6 — Drying tiare (Tahitian Gardenia)flowers to add to monoi oil.

ilsea-7 — Drying coconut to produce the monoi oil.

ilsea-8 — Mixture of coconut, tiare flower and intestines of the bernard-hermit crab. The latter is frequently added by the mamas to the mixture of tiare and grated coconut to accelerate the separating of the oil.

ilsea-9 — During our saling trip to Tahiti Stefan caught a Wahoo with his self-fabricated lure from a cap of a plastic bottle and a chips bag! So happy it was not another tuna!! The fish was delicious.

We are happy we will be coming back to this beautiful atoll in may-june 2017 and be able to spend more days here before we leave French Polynesia.

maart 2016 Video Sanuk vaart door het Panamakanaal

In maart 2016 zijn we door het Panama kanaal gevaren, en onze vrienden Anet en Jaques die mee waren als lijn handlers, hebben er een video van gemaakt
Hartelijk bedankt Annet en Jacques voor deze mooie herinnering!

The Tuamotus Blues

On August 8th we sailed from Tahanea to Fakarava during the night. The distance was 86NM and that is too far to cover during daylight hours. As you need to arrive during daylight at the pass there is no other option than to sail at night. We had 25KTS winds and were going too fast so we had to drop the main sail and only used our genoa which made for uncomfortable sailing since the boat is not as steady. I was happy when it was 6 AM and we were ready to go through the pass. We moored, had breakfast and went to bed :-). We anchored the next day in a more sheltered part of the lagoon. Fakarava is an atoll protected as an UNESCO biosphere since 2006.

An outrigger sailboat with Sanuk anchored to the left.

The Tahitian pearl is French Polynesia’s largest export, making up over 55 percent of the country’s annual exports. We visited a small one in Fakarava where we received a brief explanation on how the pearls were cultivated. Definitely a difficult and lengthy process. No wonder they are expensive!:-(

The cultured Tahitian pearl comes in various shapes, sizes, and colors from black to white with shades of green, pink, blue, silver and yellow in between. We will definitely visit a bigger farm to see the whole range of colors.

The black lip oysters need to be mature for 2-3 years to produce pearls. Most of the pearl farms are located in the lagoons of the Tuamotu-Gambier archipelago.

A pearl cut in half. In the center is the bead, made of shell, that was placed in the reproductive system of the oyster. The oyster then forms nacre around the bead. It takes about 16-18 months to have a layer of .8mm around the bead. The .8mm is the required minimum by Tahitian law for export. In Japan and China there are pearls with only a .4mm and .6mm nacre layer. This makes the Tahitian pearl more expensive and difficult to compete against China and Japan, but their quality is higher! They can use the same oyster up to three times and each time the size of the bead is increased to get a bigger pearl. So perfectly round pearls from the 3rd graft will be more expensive, since bigger, than those of the first graft. A grafter is an expert who enters the bead into the oyster. The whole procedure takes about 2 minutes. I will try to get pictures of this process on a next visit.

A lemon shark in the clear water of Apataki. They are no threat to humans.

Lunch at the waterfront with our New Zealand friends from the boat Aislado.

We left Fakarava on August 13 early in the morning (7AM) to sail to Anse Amyot on the atoll of Toau. The distance was only 39NM and easily covered during daylight hours. We arrived 7 hours later at yet another beautiful anchor spot!

Stefan took this picture while he was hanging at the top of the mast. You can see the solar panels at the back of the boat and Flipper behind,all on crystal clear water!

Picture taken at the top of the mast. On the left, the restaurant of Gaston and Valentine. On the right the two beacons which guide you into the pass when they are in line.

We planned to have dinner at the restaurant together with Aislado since they would be leaving for Tahiti on monday. Unfortunately Valentine was sick and dinner was cancelled so we organised a barbecue on Aislado together with Apparition (other NZ boat).

Surrounded by Kiwi’s 🙂 on Aislado. Hopefully we will see them back in Auckland in January 2017 !

We stayed a couple more days for snorkeling and relaxing and spent one evening at shore with Valentine and Gaston for “aperitive”. They prepared a coconut crab they caught the day before. It tasted a lot like lobster, very yummy. We brought beers and the last bit of rhum, amaretto and wine we had. We emptied everything. Valentine took her Ukulele and Stefan went to get the guitar we had. What a great evening with singing, drinking and eating our first coconut crab. Great memories….

Monday, August 22nd a grey day in the Tuamotus and thus time to further update the blog. We are currently in Apataki. We will come back here in November to take Sanuk out of the water for the cyclone season till the end of May 2017. In the meantime we will visit family and friends in Belgium (yeahhh) and go on a roadtrip through New-Zealand. But now we are very much looking forward to the arrival of our youngest daughter (Emma) and boyfriend (Sebastien) coming to Papeete on September 8th and our friends (Katie and Karel) joining us for 3 weeks in October !!!

Map_of_Apataki_Atoll

Map of Apataki atoll. We entered through the Passe Haniuru (SW) and moored there for one day. Then we motored to the carenage on the SE side of the atoll to Totoro where we are anchored now. We will leave the atoll through the NW pass, Passe Almonu. Captain Cook was here in 1774. I really admire these adventurers, sailing here without GPS, motor, depth sounder, etc it must have been scary!

Apataki when the sun was shining. View from the boat. The dark spots are the “bommies”.

We motored in between the 2 white poles and took a the only mooring (on the left). We had 2 meter water under the boat…I do not think we would have dared to do this a year ago! The dark blue and light blue is safe water, grey-brown is danger!

Looking from our mooring to the southern pass (Haniuru) at Apataki. We are just in front of the post office which was unfortunatly next to the village’s noisy generator! We were lucky since the supply boat had just arrived the day before and so there were carrots (4USD per kilo), potatoes, onions and even celery at the store. We have not had a real choice in fresh vegetables since we left mainland Ecuador at the end of April. Potatoes and onions are usually not a problem but to find carrots or tomatoes you have to be lucky! I got the last piece of Emmenthal cheese and did not look at the price! 🙂 A visit to the Carrefour or Delhaize will never be the same!:-))

A walk around the motu just next to where we will leave our boat in November till end of May 2017.

Stefan standing on the reef of coarse dead coral,behind him is the Pacific Ocean. A yacht stranded here on the reef in May of this year at night. A helicopter came to rescue the captain and his wife. The boat is at the carenage for repairs.

Survival in the Tuamotus

We left Makemo on July 31st for Tahanea. Because of the slack tides we had to leave around 4PM in Makemo and needed to arrive after 7AM in Tahanea. It was a bumpy sail and even with 2 reefs we still went too fast and arrived too soon. We “heaved-to” and entered with a counter current of 1 knot so not too bad.

The last 2 days in Makemo we moved Sanuk to the dock because their were too many waves at the anchorage and it became very bouncy.

Arrival in Tahanea ! No people live in this atoll.

Today , Wednesday August 10th, we are in Faakarava, UNESCO protected biosphere. We are sitting at Faakarava yacht services to have internet, update the blog, read and send emails and get the latest news. It is beautiful here! We have made reservations at the restaurant for tonight and will do some snorkeling this afternoon. This is really top! Tomorrow we will sail to Toau, Anse Amyot, not far from here. We can sail during the day since we do not have to go through a pass this time.

Navigation in the Tuamotus

Today is sunday July 24th. We arrived yesterday in Makemo (Tuamotus) after a 3 day grueling passage ! We knew it was not going to be a smooth one since a lot of wind was predicted. We had a constant wind of 22-28 KTS on the beam but the waves came from everywhere making it a very uncomfortable passage. I felt nauseous the first 48 hours and the only thing I wanted to do is lay down and sleep. After the second day Stefan convinced me to take a pill against motion sickness. Two hours later I felt fine and enjoyed a cup of Ramen chicken noodle soup ! The first day we already caught a beautifull yellowfin tuna, food for 4 days !!! We arrived at 9AM but could only go through the pass at around 1PM, when it was slack tide. Navigating in the Tuamotus is not just sailing from one atoll to the next. Most atolls have one or two passes where you can enter but these have very strong tidal currents (8-9 KTS) which reverse 4 times a day. At slack tide, just between high and low tide, this current is at its lowest and sometimes even zero for 15 minutes. It is important you enter the pass when the current is low so you keep control over your boat! After we had been in “heave to” for about one hour we decided to slowly move towards the pass and have a look. We arrived around 12.30 PM and it looked fine to go in. We still had a counter current of 2 KTS but this was manageable, now we just had to navigate through the different reefs. Luckily the sun was out and we could clearly see them and they were very well marked ! Needless to say we were happy when we finally anchored and were able to sit back and enjoy the scenery !

On approaching the pass into the atoll of Makemo. Deep blue water.

Reefs on starboard side, clearly visible by the sun and the markers.

We took out our bycicles and did a tour of the atoll. This is main street in Makemo.

Lots of coconut trees as copra is the main industry on the atolls.

Crystal clear water in all shades of blue.

Wind generators that were never finished. The money disappeared in somebody’s pocket…

More dancing at the Heiva (whole month of july) festivities in Makemo.

Miss election for the little ones…the winner for the girls.

I was asked to be on the jury for the Miss and Mr Makemo election.

Karta_FP_Tuamotus_isl — The following weeks we will be travelling, weather permitting, to the atolls of Tahanea, Faakarava, Toau, Apataki, Ahe, Manihi, Rangiroa and Tikehau.

The Tuamotus (meaning the Distant Islands) consist of about 80 atolls. These coral atolls are ancient volcanoes where the gradually sinking cone has been surmounted by coral reefs. You only see blue lagoons. It is like a lake surrounded by a string of narrow islands called motus.

Just before leaving Hakahetau Bay on Ua Pou,