Week 9 & 10 (possibly….?)

Hi Folks

Take a look at the picture below and ask yourself what the men on the Navy boat could all be so interested in….could it just be the interesting boat going past them? Below that picture is the answer….

Nope, it’s the very obliging ladies from the Mermaid bar in Auckland.

 

(Other picture deleted in anticipation of complaints from the less broadminded……)

They came out for a jaunt on Auckland harbour when we tested the jetski ramp for the first time. We happened to go past a Navy boat on the way back into the marina and having been at sea for who knows how long the Navy boys appreciated a bit of a flash. I’m assuming the admiralty had been at sea for a while and I felt compassion for Roger, the ships poor cabin boy that night. The ladies had a seriously good time despite the inclement weather, I haven’t seen a group of people with such a “don’t give a damn“ attitude for a while and our jaws were aching from laughter the whole afternoon and night. We all joined them later down at their place of employ and had a bloody hoot of an evening, with straight laced old Gemma Thornton getting her kit off for the first time in public and doing three songs on the pole for us. That took more than a little courage and she did it pretty well too. Bloody good on her.

We also met up with some really cool people on a boat called Takapu in the Viaduct marina and it’s fair to say that Pete pulled….Yes there was a gay bloke onboard called Michael that took a real shine to him. “He’s ssssuch a sssssexy mannnn”. We had a send off party with them a couple of nights before we left Auckland. Bill, Mandy and Mike put on a magnificent meal and we had a thoroughly good evening with loads of wine and good laughs. Had the best smoked salmon I think I’ve ever had. Life is good…..

The jetski ramp works very well incidentally. We can easily get the jetski onto the boat while moving along at 5 knots which is good for the tactics we have in mind for it.

We left New Zealand on the 25^th and after a bit of a rough trip across the Tasman are now in Hobart. The new owner of the boat, Ady Gil came along on the trip and handled it very well overall. We were going straight into a moderate south westerly once we’d gone around the northern tip of the island and the swell was rolling in at about 2 to 3 metres for a couple of days when it changed and we had a clear calm day about halfway across. We stopped and had a swim in the middle of the Tasman in about 5 kilometers depth of water. The second part of the trip was a bit more harrowing with an easterly blowing up to 30 knots at times from our stern. The boat handles the following sea well and at times we were surfing down the face of 4 to 5 metre swells at up to 23 knots. The normal cruising speed is 15 knots – that’s where the boat’s happiest and most efficient although as we currently have her configured she can do just shy of 30 knots.

The Jap whalers are already whaling down there according to some sources and the plan has now changed that we leave Hobart on Monday the 7^th and go directly down south. That leaves us a week in Hobart to finish our preparations and cuts out the leg to Perth, which makes perfect sense. The departure date is subject to change as we’re hoping to get the Dalai Lama on board as he’s in town on Tuesday. Quite ironically he’s a huge supporter of Sea Shepherd.

We met Laurens in Hobart. He’s the Dutch guy you might have seen in the second series of “Whale Wars” on the telly. He’s a volunteer who’s been doing a bit of fund raising in the States for Sea Shepherd since last season and will be on the boat with us for the campaign. So the crew will be myself and Pete, Laurens, an Animal Planet cameraman called Scott and the CEO for Sea Shepherd for Australia, Jeff. The remaining position it seems will be split between Mike the giant fireman from Tauranga and Stan the hardman carpenter from Auckland. There is another bloke, Jake who’s in the process of leaving the Navy who may join us halfway through the campaign if all works according to plan. They’re all pretty hard core blokes and I believe we’ll have a good crew down there. I haven’t met Geoff yet but he seems to be well thought of within the organisation and is a triathlon running type who should handle it OK. He’s a gluten intolerant vegan – which I’d say would kind of limit your options when it came to eating.

Hobart is quite a cool place and the interest and excitement we’ve had here is pretty overwhelming. It reminds me of some of the small African cities like Harare or Blantyre in some ways with buildings in the old colonial style and a quiet & peaceful pace to it. It’s relatively prosperous and happening though, and the residents generally seem fairly happy.

There is a very strong green agenda here and they’re busy protesting against the forestry companies cutting down the forests left, right & centre. There’re people sitting up in trees and they’ve got a village in the trees somewhere up in the mountains that has become a bit of an attraction. We’ll go up there on Sunday probably so I’ll try get some nice pics.

I’ve been amazed at the network of volunteers that has spring up out of nowhere wherever we go with the boat. They’re obviously well connected as they seem to be up to date with the latest of happenings and plans. I’m impressed with the motivation they have and their energy and passion. You’d imagine they’d all be pot smoking hippies who need a good wash with a fire hose and yard broom, but that’s definitely not the case. Most of them are twenties and thirties from all walks of life and they’ve all got the one thing in common – that they care about things. The Green Party’ offices here in Hobart have very kindly allowed us access to their internet and have been as helpful as they can for example. It seems that people in general are all suddenly realising that our planet is in crisis and some of them are motivated enough to take some sort of action. And somehow the world seems to look after you when you’re doing good stuff. Here’s an example. I was chatting with Matt, one of the volunteers yesterday evening about wondering into town to find a bottle store to buy some beer and not five minutes later there was a knock on the back hatch of the boat. A local surgeon was standing there and he says “I was just wondering if I could donate you guys this slab of beer?”  Obviously we didn’t take a lot of convincing.

I tied up with some old friends from South Africa yesterday, Tony and Joan Fenwick and Tony’s son Clay. The plan is that I’ll take the bus up to Launceston on Thursday and spend the night with them and catch up on old times. Apparently Tony fell off a roof a couple of weeks ago and broke two ribs. He’s knocking on a bit and I never would have thought he’d be able to get up onto a roof anymore unless in some sort of mobility chair, but fall he did and it rests on my shoulders now to try and make him laugh so the ribs hurt. I’m so looking forward to catching up with them.

A small side note here. Having been travelling for a while now I’ve been spending a bit of time in public toilets recently (no, not in a George Michaels sort of way) and have decided that you can tell the mental state of a society by the way they treat their public toilets.  It is an area in which I have some expertise as I looked after all the public toilets as part of a maintenance contract I had in a small town in the Eastern Transvaal for a while. The toilets in New Zealand and now Tasmania have been very clean and well looked after, the majority of people leaving them as pristine as they found them. For some reason the locals don’t seem to have the pathological need to shove cement bags and maize cobs, rocks and reusable shopping bags down the loo. They don’t feel the primal need to express themselves artistically on the walls with their excrement and defecate on the floor right next to a perfectly functioning toilet, or even tear the perfectly functioning toilet base physically from the floor at whim, as is my previous experience. It’s not a mainstream topic I know, I just thought that may be of some interest to you…

We’ll be in Hobart for the rest of the week so I’ll catch up on the blog again before we go.

Cheers

Larry