April 8, 2008 - Land Yachting: A Change of Pace
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

Before we ever met, both of us had done a certain amount of camping and roughing it. Our honeymoon over 53 years ago was a month in the Pacific Northwest in our '41 Chevy with an army tent, double sleeping bags and air mattresses, a one-burner stove and a wicker picnic basket with all the trimmings including a wee folding table and seats sent by Michel's parents from Brussels. Even today, whenever we feel like a change of scene and an adventure of a different sort, we choose to leave the boat to go camping - much to the amusement and amazement of others.

A few years ago we bought a 4x4 Toyota Lite Ace seven-seater van, known as Zorro because of her license plate ZR7471, which as it just so happened matched our ages when we bought her. Michel took out the extra seats, and ingeniously transformed Zorro into a small but adequate 'caravan' as a camper van is called in New Zealand. He is proud of the fact that he was able to use existing attachments, drilling only two holes in the chassis to fasten furnishings which consist of a double bunk converting to seat and backrest, a table, and a removable galley. We made an awning and sewed up a 'changing room', the latter seldom used except on the rare occasions when we go to a campground. Frequently Zorro takes us on picnics, but occasionally we go further afield for a week or three. One of the advantages of this type of holiday is that when we return to Magic Dragon the boat seems to be far more spacious than when we left her.

Our camper van.

Our most recent adventures on the road took us to call in on a host of friends, people of various ages and nationalities whom we had met on our cruises over the years who have chosen to swallow the anchor in New Zealand. We never let anyone know of our imminent arrival. We do not want any of them to feel they must make a change of plans or feel they have to fuss or dust. We simply turn up. After all, we have our own place to sleep, and a meal we can invite them to share. Sometimes when the weather is less than perfect, we accept the offer of a guest bed, but even then almost always we lay our own bedding on top. In this way there is little for our hosts to do to erase signs of our passing - other than to put their feet up and perhaps breathe a sigh of relief.

After hauling a load of gear ashore to take with us, we glommed the fourteen-foot tender onto the side of the Dragon's hull so that it would not fill with rain water, then put our GRP rowboat shell in the water to take us ashore. We carried it up our jetty and secured it leaning against a tree, the oars padlocked inside by means of a cable around the seat. Then we were off, but by this time, too late to get far. However, in Onerahi armed with a couple of pizzas, some wine, and some cobs of corn, we popped in on dear friends, met first in '73. Their boat Pinocchio is anchored beneath their house, the same boat they had when we first met them. They were just about to sit down to eat, so Elke slid their salmon dinner onto four plates instead of two. We relished this gourmet first course while the pizza was heating. A subsequent discovery: corn microwaved in its wrappings of leaves and silk is out of this world.

The day after - weekend - we popped in on a once-upon-a-time Hollywood piano tuner who in the seventies briefly became a member of an all girl crew on D'Arcy Whiting's boat Coruba. We had cruised off and on with the trio, and we value the friendships all these many years later. Ellen and her husband live in a corner of paradise near Whangarei Heads where they can swim and fish to their hearts' content and mess about with their boats. They seem to attract the most interesting collection of friends, including an active Wikipedia editor in the naval history line, having come up through the ranks of computing via the punch card era and onward from there via the very first Apple Macs and so on and on.

The bunk in our camper, ready for the night.

Next we set up camp atop a hill overlooking Whangarei city, where some cruising friends (engineless circumnavigators) from way back when, live 'off the grid' in an eco house with dove cote, chicken run, geese on a pond, a couple of wooly lawn mowers, hundreds of small trees taking hold, a wind mill and solar panels, a model train setup in their library-cum-office which spans an area full of small boats hanging or a-building, stacked firewood ready for the winter and a view in all directions. To crown it all there is broadband connection for our Vodem so we were able to use Skype, impossible in the Bay of Islands where there is no 3G Vodaphone cell phone capability. After we had finished our evening meal and I was settled into our bunk enjoying the sunset, Michel chatted to Christiane of French yacht Maeva in a small marina near Singapore where she and Joel were readying the boat for the next leg of their journey through Malaysia. It was a great thrill to hear so clearly a familiar and much loved voice.

Michel talking on Skype.

And so went the next two weeks - looking up friends from various corners of the planet wherever they happened to have hung their hats. The earliest acquaintance of the lot was a returned Kiwi we had met in Sausalito in 1960 or so. Doug had sailed across the Pacific to California with Ross Norgrove on White Squall. He married and while living on a boat in Sausalito Marina, the young couple had a baby, followed not much later by triplets. They brought the armloads of babies home to the boat where each had a drawer as a cradle. While the children were growing up, Doug managed to build a beautifully crafted ferro 60-footer behind their house in Corte Madera. A few years after his retirement, Doug sailed Hinano to New Zealand, cruised home waters with friends he had grown up with, only recently selling it to a farmer in the Malborough Sounds. Not long ago Doug and the 'children' bought a cottage near Coromandel township. All four of his grown children take great delight in getting together there when they are able to take time away from their California lives. Between times they rent Koru Cottage via the Internet.

The triplets in their cradles afloat.

It was while we were visiting with Doug in his Panmure home that I just happened to notice a book in his bookshelf: Rainbow Goes to Sea by Roger Miles. Hello. That is the chap who, with his wife Evelyn, sailed from British Columbia to New Zealand in an 80-year old vessel in the early '70s, a boat that had been a mere open pinnace to the Canadian naval ship Rainbow when it rounded the Horn just before the turn of the century. It had been altered from rowing boat into live-aboard yacht by previous owners. Roger and Evelyn were thrilled to be able to buy it for $5000. Roger says in the book that nobody expected them to arrive at their destination at all. We had met up with them on the Milk Run across the Pacific at various stops in 1973 and always enjoyed their company and outstanding hospitality. They went on from strength to strength, starting Rainbow Charters based in Opua. The rest is history. It was a good read if somewhat disturbing to discover that Roger tended to entrust to The Powers That Be what most of us manage to do ourselves. Making landfalls, steering through passes - or so he says. Rainbow is now well over 100 years old. Her present owner sails her in the Hauraki Gulf.

In 1965 we had two Kiwi nurses as crew for our first offshore adventures that took us from Victoria BC to San Francisco to Hawaii. One of them we visited in Whitianga in the Coromandel. Her family grown and flown, June at age 65 teaches wind surfing on the beach in Whitianga. She and her husband live not five minutes from Buffalo Beach overlooking the venue. On very windy days there is no holding her back. After she had her hip replaced, her surgeon said he wished she had made a greater point of the kind of activity she indulges in. Had he realized he would have put in a heftier joint!

June going surfing.

In Norsand Hardstand, among other familiar vessels we found a German yacht that we had first encountered in Vava'u in Tonga. We discovered that the owner, a retired master of seagoing ships, had fitted a mini-bulbous bow made of two welded steel LPG cylinders onto his steel ketch.

A small bulbous bow.

As we continued our 'camping' journey we were lucky to find most, though not all of our friends at home. If they were absent and it was feasible, we were able to camp overnight right there, and leave a note, One such was in a hidden cul de sac in Albany overlooking a forest of young kauri in a forest reserve where tuis and wood pigeons kept us entertained. Another was a Mangawhai orchard. The caretakers called the owners so we could chat with our friends aboard their motor cat in order to get permission to camp overnight where we had many times in the past.

Some of our buddies we spent brief moments with, catching them on the fly. A cuppa here, a few laughs there, an exchange of news and views. Better than a movie. Food for thought and for marveling. We found the superb shipwright Bill Townsen in his workshop, and after a cup of tea, we examined the small haulout facility that he with several friends and neighbours have built for their own use.

The haulout facility.

A Kiwi fisherman friend of long acquaintance, who had spent a good many years in Wales as boatman for the Earl of Aldernay, eventually found a vessel in Denmark that appealed to him. After some major changes, such as removing most of the fuel tankage to increase living space (she had served as a fueling vessel for fishing boats at one time) and rigging her with used spars, he sailed Jete to Aldernay. Dale spent his spare time fitting out the interior before setting forth to return to New Zealand to be with his ailing mother. Parts of the trip he did single-handed, managing alone his 60-foot gaff-rigged boat in prolonged contrary winds for much of the last exhausting 3000-mile leg. It was wonderful to be able to pop in briefly to catch up on his latest.

Jete.

One of the several sets of circumnavigators we looked up have built a house and opened a B&B near Warkworth on their large property. Their plantings and landscaping are extensive, their energy output staggering. There was a choice of lovely hidden places to camp on Zorro overnight. Another, who did his circumnavigation with children, now with a different partner lives on a ridge near Sandspit in a house with breathtaking 360-degree views, a house that they have transformed - completely renovating. Tony now sails a fast French catamaran although his previous yachts were of the heavy displacement variety. He is currently writing a book and has another planned. In his workshop is a sign that appealed to us: LIVE WELL. LOVE LOTS. LAUGH OFTEN.

We learned that Jim and Cheryl, first met in Ontong Java during their circumnavigation on Win'Son, sold their ensuing yacht, their much traveled, beautifully built and maintained Dashew Deerfoot, Wakaroa in preparation for the next project in their busy lives. We camped overnight by the river, near where we had occasionally spent time on Magic Dragon in years past. As always, we stopped to check out the various yards, marinas and haulout facilities along the way. In Gulf Harbour Marina we happened upon their boat under wraps on the hard where the new owner was having its underwater surface sliced off in preparation for re-epoxying, something that we deemed to be entirely unnecessary, so sound is the hull.

Wakaroa under wraps.

Our whole trip was a mind-blowing experience, one marvel following close upon another. It seems that those who have had the energy to do a circumnavigation also have plenty of that drive, energy and stamina left over to carry on with remarkable feats ashore, creating memorable and beautiful dwellings. Mentioned here are just some of those fascinating people we ran into on our land-yachting drive.

The weather - which had been relatively benign throughout the holiday from our vacation - became not just less so, but downright wild. We dared not go back aboard in the storm that thrashed Northland that night, particularly since we had left our tender pulled up on Magic Dragon's hull. Our cockle shell would not have been able to handle a safe return in a swift running river. So, stopping well short, we went to where we had started our hop scotching and once again put our bedding on the guest bed in The Pet House atop the garage in Onerahi to await better weather. That night it rained heavily and blew hard, for a brief while gusting over fifty knots. Fortunately the trees that could have threatened ourselves and our hosts had blown down a few months earlier, so we did not have to lose sleep. (Well, not for long...)

Sunrise from the Pet House.

Two days later we returned to home pilings precariously balanced in our seven-foot rowboat. All was well. The wind had been from our sheltered quarter. Though we had neglected, for goodness knows what reason, to zip up the Crystal Palace (clear cockpit shelter) on what turned out to be the weather side, the driven rain had drained out of the cockpit. But the luckiest part of it all was that because we had neglected to padlock the dinghy to the tree when we left, someone up to no good had untied it and put it in the water where it was left, free to float away. (Its oars were locked and therefore unusable.) Fortunately, one of the regular users of the jetty saw it untethered and afloat and managed to reach it, pull it up the bank to secure it where it had come from. It had been a wonderful holiday but it was even more wonderful to be back home aboard our Magic Dragon with all its luxury and space.