A Year in New Zealand

(Click on any photo or map for a blow up)

Watch our Merry Christmas video here (Flash Video).

We arrived in New Zealand in November 2006. The weather was a shock after so many years in the Tropics. According to the Kiwis, they have 4 seasons in a day, which pretty well describes the climate.

When the sun is allowed to shine it is very hot. After all, the latitude corresponds to that of Sicily in the Northern Hemisphere. Unfortunately, however, the sun is not allowed to shine as much as we would like.


The fresh weather was a shock ...	.. after many years in the Tropics!

An other local saying is (when the weather happens to be nice): Just wait 5 minutes! The positive thing is that it often works the other way around also, even though the pretty weather again may last just for 5 minutes.


The Honeymooners (see report 37)	Great scenery

New Zealand is a country of magnificent scenery. We explored most of the islands in the Hauraki Gulf as explained in earlier reports.


Tidal waters and shallow shores	A Kauri dam in the mountains

After a while we installed wheels on the dinghy. When the tide went out there could be a 300 meter haul to get the dinghy into the sea again!


Meeter Maid	NZ has great walks

If I think that somebody tries to anchor too close to Scorpio, I may send Malla out on the fore deck looking like this (above left).


Gliding is a popular sport, here Malla and Finn Mikko of s/y Ninni inspect a plane.	Expatriate Timo helped us with the rebuilding of our Perkins diesel engine.

Before we vent on our annual vacation to Finland we undertook some major repairs and development on the boat and these projects continued after our return. These projects delayed us so much that we may not have the time to sail to the South Island as planned.


We bought a used car as many cruisers do	Finnish single handler Matti on s/y Snoopy

The biggest project was a complete over haul of the main diesel engine, but this escalated to several other related and unrelated subprojects.


If you wonder why many boat owners paint boot stripes, compare this picture (no stripe) ..	.. with this, where the boot stripe is back!

On these photos you can see Scorpio on the hard in the Dockland 5 shipyard at Whangarei.


Here's an other example, no boot stripe ...	... and here boot stripe is back!

As is the case with most cruisers, one accumulates a lot of junk aboard and there will be a need to raise the waterline. Usually people don't bother to paint a new boot strip in that process. But the stripe is there for a reason, as can be detected from these 4 pictures above.


We found a picture of Scorpio i a real estate prospect. The house on the hill is fore sale!	The food is excellent and affordable. Our good Swedish friend Christina looks happy.

The most wonderful thing for us, in New Zealand, was the food. The vegetables and sea food are plentiful, excellent and affordable. Even though the exchange rate of the Kiwi dollar has climbed considerably in recent years, the prices of common produce are much lower than in Europe. And, as a special bonus, there is an abundance of vineyards with excellent labels - and again, at bargain prices!

We'll let the photos below speak for themselves.


Green lip mussels, gratinated	Prawns galore


Lots of fish, prawns and greens	We made grav lax when we could find dill


No junk food here!	A small lunch snack


Aboard s/y Christina from Sweden	Life is like a box of chocolate!

On the photo above (right) Malla is trying on the shoes of Forrest Gump, when we passed through San Francisco on our annual trip to Finland. How right he was!

Scorpio logged a record low milage in 2007, but a second highest repair and development bill.

Next year there will hopefully be a lot of miles under the keel and few expenses. Fingers crossed and knock on wood!