World ARC New Zealand Celebrates!





Annette from Germany with Joyce and Pat from England

It is good to celebrate! Especially when we think of what we have accomplished in the past 14 months: visiting 24 countries or island groups, sailing 13,000 miles and more than 1/3 of them by ourselves without crew. (That's one giant leap for this woman!) We are now traveling with couples - all of whom have sailed from Europe before joining the World ARC with us last January. These couples rarely have extra crew so there was a little pressure for me to step up to the helm!



Time to warm up from the inside out as it is chilly in NZ!

Actually, I like it with just the two of us on board, expect for long passages of more than seven days. I get too tired with the watch schedule. Even having one more person makes it easier to get enough sleep. We have adopted the watch schedule of one of the other boats and it seems to be working better for us.


We celebrated our safe passage and arrival in New Zealand with another rendezvous dinner in Paihia just down the road from Opua. Some of us had had an afternoon outing and joined the rest of the group for cocktails on the outdoor patio bar. As you can see, it was cold! They had the heaters running and gave us all lap throws to stay warm until the drinks warmed us!

Hugh, Lynn and John

Hugh, our WARC staffer, and Lynn and John Martin from the Island Cruising Association joined us and shared some information about New Zealand and Opua Cruisers' Week, which they help host. It was a fun week with seminars and social events. We had a number of New Zealand grilled sausages! And a pizza party with a comedy night.


World ARC New Zealand inaugural fleet minus S/Y Tulasi

Unfortunately, we did not stay for the full Opua Cruisers' Week of activities as we had a date with the airlines to take us around the world over the next two months to spend time with our children and grandchildren. It has been a long time since we have had family time. And we still need to meet the newest arrival, Henry in San Francisco!



However, we did enjoy the event while we were there. The seminars were held in the afternoon followed by an evening activity or meal. There was a contest for the best theme dressed male and female. The theme was "Tropical with Woolies" and I won the best dressed female category! A nice gift certificate to the chandlery. There are always things to purchase for the boat.



Definitely not the best dressed for anything but this
little contest! Layers of clothes wrapped in a sula!

Overall, it was a fun week in Opua and a chance to relax with global friends. Some are heading home for the holidays while others are planning to land cruise New Zealand.

Is Dennis advising Karl on grilling techiniques?