Tag: nature

  • The Solomon Islands: Passage & Arrival

    The passage from Vanuatu to Lata, Solomons, where we check-in is about 300 miles and should take us from 40-48 hours depending on conditions. We are racing a storm, which is not our favorite thing to do. Our first night out we flew our main and Code Zero. We usually don’t fly this large sail…

  • Goodbye Vanuatu: Numbaone!

    We enjoyed a lovely sail (as opposed to the bash we would have had the prior day) up to Peterson Bay, where we anchored in the outer lagoon, waiting for high tide to enter the very shallow winding reef entrance into inner Oyster Lagoon. With waypoints entered on our GPS, Calder and I on bow…

  • Australia Part 5: Tropical North Queensland

    Stepping off the plane at Cairns, it was immediately obvious that our short 2-hour flight had taken us from the desert to the lush tropical rainforest. The air felt moist, the birdsong was immediate, the greenery popped, and the air smelled earthy and wild. Welcome to Tropical North Queensland! Due to our flight delays, it…

  • Australia Part 3: Melbourne to Adelaide JUCY Roadtrip

    We are quite excited to be sharing the camping portion of this Australian adventure with the Whitacre family, our Alaskan neighbors, as we drive two “Jucy” campervans from Melbourne to Adelaide, including the Great Ocean Road. There is nothing subtle about two brilliant green Jucy vans, each packed with four of us juggling and shuffling…

  • Hauraki Horizons: Exploring Hauraki Gulf (Tikapa Moana)

    Looking at the big weather coming up, we decided to anchor in well-protected Bon Accord Harbour of Kawau Island, arriving late and anchoring (and re-anchoring) for the upcoming storm. We took a day to explore the trails out of Schoolhouse Bay to the Mansion House and Old Coppermine.  Sir George Grey developed the Mansion House…

  • Back to Paradise: Taveuni Underwater Magic

    Almost not allowed out of the USA, as (in an amateur move) I didn’t procure a letter from Immigration stating we had a “one-way ticket” to Fiji back to our boat. I had notified Fiji Immigration of our travel and we had purchased a two-way ticket but, as it had originated from Fiji, it was…

  • Back in the USA: Alaska & Idaho

    70 hours from the “front door” of Terikah in Savusavu, Fiji to the front door of our home in Petersburg, Alaska. Looking down at the Pacific Ocean, it’s hard to believe that same stretch of water took us 8 months sailing from the Mexico coast to New Zealand. Petersburg, from the heartwarming welcome of friends…

  • Ogea: Snorkeling Delights, a Village on the Edge, and a Gift from the Sea

    Up earlier this morning to catch the high slack tide leaving the lagoon of Fulaga to head to the next island of Ogea, only a 10-mile trip today, motoring on mellow seas with little wind. The pass into Ogea is wide and straight forward and we meandered to an anchorage off the uninhabited Ogea Driki.…

  • Schist Happens

    But first, the adventures before…Three nights at Glendhu Bay Holiday Park on the shores of Lake Wanaka allowed us to explore this area to the max.  Was the extremely bumpy washboard road and river fords to the 10km Rob Roy Glacier Track worth it? An emphatic YES! And we were treated to a road-grader smoothing…

  • Camping & Anchoring in Northland, New Zealand

    We kicked off December by a “shake-down” camping overnight to nearby Whananaki.  We walked the “Longest Footbridge in the Southern Hemisphere” at 395 metres, which was constructed in 1947, enabling the children living in Whananki South to attend school in Whananaki North.  Previously the schoolteacher rowed a boat across the estuary twice a day to…