Category Archives: New Zealand

Donations for the Locals

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Many of the villages in the remote islands are in need of basic supplies like food, medical, clothing, tools, fishing gear, and school supplies.  So, we always try to stock up before heading out to these items to bring them much needed supplies and donations.

We are lucky enough to be a part of the Pacific Rally again this year.  It brings loads of benefits to us as cruisers crossing the Pacific. One of the benefits is having access to organizations who want to donate items to the remote islands but don’t have any means to get the supplies out to the locals.  So, they team up with the cruisers who collect the donations and distribute them to the islands along the way.

Glasses

The Papakura Lions Club is an amazing organization that collects glasses.  They receive between 350-500 glasses each month. Every Wednesday a group of volunteers led by Kevin sort the glasses. 

First they, sort damaged or broken glasses into large flour bags to be trashed, then they sort sunnies (sun glasses) into their own bin and lastly they sort eye glasses.  This is a photo of one of their two rooms dedicated to just glasses!

The yellow boxes are new donations, the white “Cotene” bags are discarded or broken glasses, the red and blue crates need to be sorted.  The eye glasses are first cleaned, then dried.  Next they measure the strength of the prescription and ensure that both lenses are the same strength.  Next they put them in little plastic bags and mark them with a label showing their prescription strength.  

I originally signed up to take 25 eye glasses.  After I emailed with Kevin he assured me he could give me more so I decided to take 50 eye glasses (25 for Vanuatu and 25 for Solomons).  But when I got to the facility and saw how many they had in stock, I left with a box of 350 eye glasses and 400 sunnies.

The sunglasses had to be cleaned and sorted into prescription and non-prescription and then they are all ready to go!

Clothing

The Pacific Rally received over 20 large pillow cases of clothes.  They were then distributed to the boats to distribute.  I volunteered to take 2 bags. One bag has 35 adult women’s items and one has 50 baby items.  

Medical and School Supplies

A local heard asked us to bring their donations of medical supplies and children’s books.  We had lots of extra medical supplies and some supplies that were expired so I added it to our pile of donated goods.

Fun Stuff for Kids

I purchased a lot of goodies before I accumulated the eyeglasses, sunnies, clothing, and medical supplies.  Not to worry as I am sure we will find lots of children excited to be on the receiving end.   We had lots of school supplies, goggles, and stickers, planes, jewelry, etc….  I can’t wait to hand these out!

Our blogs run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog occurred around mid-May.  In our last blog post we share how we provision for 6-months at sea.

Provisions for the Remote Islands

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We prepare to live in very remote, isolated islands with very little access to modern grocery stores.  It requires a lot of planning, shopping, organization, and storage.  This blog outlines our process to prepare the boat for the provisions.

We have a 7-page excel spreadsheet with our “normal” provisions.  It includes everything we use on a daily basis like spices, cheese, pastas, cleaning agents, beauty, oils, sauces, etc…It takes me 2 days to go through our inventory and check it against our current stock, then notate it on the spreadsheet to determine what is needed.  I pull everything out of the cabinets, pantries, and drawers to check expiration dates, quality, and stock.

Once I have my list I show it to Matt, the chef to ensure he is happy with the new shopping list.  And off we go.

Big Box Stores

We are lucky enough to have one Costco in New Zealand.  The problem is that it is located in Auckland.  So, we borrow our friend’s car and make a big run to the “city.” Strangely enough, NZ Costco does not accept US Costco members so we have to join the NZ Costco.  While we are there, we also stop at Martha’s Backyard which has a lot of American items.  We also swing by the Dive Doctor to get compressor oil, and a few other stops.

We come back to empty the car and head back out again to Pak N Save.  This will be the first of many stops to the grocery store.  But since we have a car, we decide to get the heavy items (canned goods, water bottles, etc…)

Can you tell I love to bake?  We have (3) 5lb bags of flour (to go with the 15lbs we already have on the boat), 6lbs of white sugar, 6lbs of brown sugar, tons of granola bars, and 12 bags of baking chips (to go with the 4lbs onboard).

We purchased a lot of meats at Costco.  This requires us to unwrap each package and vacu-seal the meat.  Vacu-sealing the meat helps the meat last longer, prevents freezer burn, and helps us store the meat more efficiently.  But it does take a lot of effort.

While Matt is vacu-sealing the meat, I am marking each can with its ingredients, pealing off the labels, and wrapping the bottom of the can with painters tape.  We remove the labels because “weebles/bugs” like to hide in the glue.  We tape the bottom of the can as it prevents them from rusting.  It is all a process.

Matt re-packed 48 chicken boobs, 12 packs of bacon, and 6 packs of pork shoulder (future pulled port).  We later went back and got several racks of ribs, and meat and veggie patties.

More Provisions

We ordered our beer from Countdown (Woolworth) because they deliver.  I spoke to the super helpful liquor manager and he was able to procure Matt’s beer (never stored cold).  I then ordered our Allan Scot Rose and my Malibu pre-mixed drinks from Wine.central.com and they delivered.  Much easier for us.  This should last us awhile!

And two more large provision runs…

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind live events.  This blog post occurred in Mid-May.  We complete the final touches on Sugar Shack just before we splash.

Final Touches on Sugar Shack

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There were just a few more final touches that we wanted to make on our boat.  We still had a lot of canvas projects and we needed to replace our bathroom accessories in our two heads (bathrooms for my landlubber friends).  The bathroom accessory update is on the second half of this blog post – scroll all the way down.

Matt and I were so excited to buy a second hand LSZ1 Sailrite machine from our friend Chris.  But then fifty million projects took priority over our sewing projects and it sat for several months unused.  We finally broke it out to learn how to use it.  We decided to start with a vinyl cockpit table cover (to better protect the teak) and it was a good first attempt.  Then the sailrite sat for several more months as we focused on more important boat repairs and upgrades.  That was the final straw. We decided to ask Kim from Masterpieces in Canvas for some help with our canvas creations.

Here is a list of “final” projects:

  • (2) Cockpit table covers (1-vinyl for Matt’s work bench & 1-Salueda for guests)
  • (2) Aft cushions to go over line the bins and around the wenches on the transom
  • Redo our exterior cushion covers in a darker, vinyl fabric
  • (2) Sets of 3 pockets (mounted on the aft of the boat for storage)
  • (2) Recycle bags
  • (1) Remote wench control bag
  • Cover for our Man Over Board Horseshoe

These projects are not urgent and are not necessarily needed.  However, all of the pieces are old, ratty, and in need of a refresh or make over.

Transom Seating

Our transom spans across the back of the boat.  This is where we store our lines and where we have our working winches.  However, inevitably, we have people over and they always sit on the hard, uncomfortable fiberglass.  And if you sit over the line holders your rear end sinks into the holes.  We have wanted to add seat cushions here since we bought the boat – 13 years ago!

When we bought Sugar Shack in Turkey, we replaced all of the interior and exterior cushions.  We saved the outside foam (from the cushions) because we thought one day we might use them for the transom seating.  I will be honest, I thought we would use them a lot sooner than 13 years!  But here we are doing them now.

Matt cut the foam around the wenches, pad eyes, and stanchions.

Then we handed them off to Kim to cover.  This is more than a “final touch” and we are so excited to finally have this project done!

Cockpit Pockets

The boat came with these nifty pockets in the cockpit which collect all sorts of junk and treasures.  Spare lines, small tools, cleaning supplies, bungee, SUP fins, etc…

The stitching is coming out, the bungee is dead and they are just looking tired overall. Matt has wanted to design them a little differently so that the bungee can be more easily replaced.  

Additional Bags

We have several recycling bags where we put glass, plastic, aluminum, and cardboard.  In addition, we put smelly things that might stink up the house.  We also have a small bag that holds the main wench remote holder.  All functional, but need replacing.

The new recycle bags are just as big and wonderful.

Line Bags

We keep our main sheets inside two bags that hang off the life line off the transom.  They came with the boat, so they are at least 13+ years old.  The bags are functional, but too big for the space and we are often fidgeting with them.  Plus the fabric is torn and they are just ready to be replaced. 

We were going to ask Kim to remake them, but we ended up finding store bought ones Ronstan Line Tail Bags (large-RF3912) for a very reasonable price.  The final price with tax and shipping was $68 per bag.

The new line bags are smaller and far more functional.

Table Cloth Covers

We currently have a gray vinyl cover over our beautiful teak table.  It is our work cover that Matt uses when he works on projects and it gets super dirty.  We decided to make a dark vinyl cover and a nice salueda cover for when guests come over.  So, one will be a working cover and one an every day cover.  Kim made this awesome velcro piece underneath to keep the cover on during high winds.

Exterior Cushion Covers

We really do love the new light gray salueda exterior cushions.  However, they show dirt so easy and they do not clean as well as we had expected.  As people sit down, the back of their legs rub against the side panel and crease (seam where the top and side panel are sewn) leaving dirty marks that just don’t come out.  This just after a few months of use.  So, we decided to recover them in a dark gray vinyl that does not look or feel like vinyl!  We are hoping this will be our final recover project.

The new cushion covers turned our really nicely.  We are hoping we have better luck with these without “sticking” too much.  This is a nice touch to the boat and really looks classy.

More Sun Shades

We love, love, love our new cockpit enclosure.  However, we noticed that our sunshades needed to be expanded to cover the corner areas.  We have a giant sunshade off the transom and one for each side.  But there is a giant triangle of space between the side and the back that needed to be covered so we had Kim make us corner sun shades.  This should be the final “shade” project for the cockpit.

Man Over Board Cover

Our man over board cover was looking incredibly bad.  So bad that I did not even take a photo of it before it was tossed.  But we have a new one and it looks bright and bold!

Rail Protectors

As you know, I painstakingly varnished 90% of the exterior wood while we were on the hard.  So, when I saw our jib sheets rubbing on the cabin top hand rails I about flipped my lid.  I immediately went about making rail protectors so the jib sheets won’t ruin my varnish!

Just when you think you are done, you find more things to update and beautify.  Man we need to get out of New Zealand as it is costing us a fortune.  Well can’t really blame NZ as we’ve needed to do these updates for some time now.  We add a few more final touches to our beautiful home.

Bathroom Accessories

We have two heads (bathrooms).  In each head we have hooks, cup holders, toilet paper holders, dish holders, and towel racks.  None of these pieces were stainless steel and they have since turned green, spotted, pitted, and turned icky in general.

Matt and I searched all over New Zealand and the U.S. for 316 stainless bath accessories.  It is a lot harder than you think!  We found 304 and stainless plated but nothing else in NZ or the US.  Until we stumbled across Drench in the U.K.  We found all of the pieces we needed in 316 Stainless Steel. Hopefully these beauties will last us a life time!

And the new bath accessories in the port bathroom:

It appears starboard bath accessories are worse off than port which could be because we leave our escape hatch open and the salt air gets to these pieces more frequently.  Perhaps, maybe they are just 23 years old and tired?

And Starboard bath accessories:

These updates make me so very happy!  

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog took place during the the months of March and April.  We remove part of our standing rigging to do repairs – check it out here.