It is truly bittersweet leaving New Zealand. We have such wonderful memories here. However, at the moment, it tears me up to be leaving our dear friends who we have sailed with for thousands of nautical miles….. Currently, most of us have had our heads down getting our vessels ready for another cruising season but we can’t NOT get together and share laughter that makes you cry, incredible music, and really good food.
The highlight was the Cruisers Potluck held at the Opua community center, all organized by Jill Corbin! She literally supplied beer, wine, decorations and all the invites and outreach. It was such a success and really brought all of us here in Opua Marina together to share our stories and make new friends. Jill, thank you for all that you are and do for this community…it is truly priceless!
The set up crew and pre-cooking staffThe food…you never know what you are going to get at a cruisers potluck…it could all be a quinoa salad for all we know. But this was so incredible and balanced! Lentil curry, whole chickens, pastas, shrimp, appetizers, and even Kraft macaroni and cheese (and so much more)!Even the dessert table had a wonderful variety.We set up tables and chairs thinking about 30-40 people would show…it was more like 80 (including kids)!Jill discussed with Richard from SV Southern Cross (he’s right next to us in the marina) to organize a band for the event. They practiced for weeks…. Kids also joined the band with a trumpet and pan flute. The entire band supplied their own instruments that they had on their BOAT!The dancing beginsThe clean up crew….I think we cleaned up the wine and beer too…don’t ask… we all had a seriously good time!Jill, love you so much! Though the dignity spoon is on its way : ) You have all the right in the world to have the entire bands autograph! You deserve it for all the hard work putting this amazing event together.
Snap shot of other fun times here at Opua, Bay of Islands Marina in April, 2018
Going away party of Slow Flight for Nancy from SV Spill the WineKristy and Dan from SV Te Poe Rava stayed on Slow Flight for 3 days and we took a break from work and headed to a wineryWe found this little guy on the boat and decided to have some fun with Legos for a photo shotTrivia night with Jill, Clay and Briley off of SV Me Too at the Opua cruising club….our team name was “Sour Cream and Soy”…. get it?!Lamb dinner on SV Spill the WineNew Zealand day…Before the Dawn parade…Jill, Briley and I woke up at 5:30 to join the local parade at Paihia. It was like a Memorial Day in the US. We marched to bagpipes and all the servicemen laid wreaths and speeches were made. There were lots of people there and was quite moving!“semi-formal” dinner on SV Me Too…we broke out the 2012 Cabernet I have been holding on toAfter dinner wine on SV Sky Blue Eyes…funny story..or not really for them…they borrowed an external hard drive with movies on it to copy from…Karl accidently broke it…they worked on trying to recover it by driving all the way to Auckland, purchased us a new hard drive, and proceeded to gather from other cruisers terabytes of movies to put on our “new to us” external drive….they even provided a list of all the movies! They worked on this for a week….I am pretty sure we got the better end of the stick on this deal…but we are thankful for all their time and energy..even though we really didn’t care if it was lost…it’s just movies..they lost a week of their lives!Dinner with Tony on SV Mandalay
It’s now early in the morning and am a bit emotional as we are leaving New Zealand and our sailing family tomorrow. We had a small gathering of our good friends for dinner at the Opua cruising club, mostly so we didn’t have to cook dinner… but Jill, Clay and Briley made a beautiful video of all of our time together throughout our year together out on the Pacific Ocean and showed it to the group….. I was in tears!
We will miss all of you so much but promise to keep these extraordinary memories close to our hearts. We can’t wait to hear about everyone’s adventures in the future.
