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A Whangarei Christmas

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We headed to Town Basin Marina after we splashed.  It was no surprise to find that the Christmas cheer was in full swing!

We quickly put up a few lights and decorations.  Nothing compared to last year.  But I had to do something as I was judging the annual Christmas Boat Light extravaganza.  We did not have much time to do our full decorating, but we showed a little spirit.  if you recall, we won “Overall Best Boat” last year so I had a repuation to uphold.

The judges met for dinner at Local Talent, then headed to a cruiser’s boat called Rewa for drinks while we waited for sunset at 8:34pm!  Yes, it is summer here and the days are long!

Bribing the judges is strongly encouraged so we were gifted with lots of snacks, treats, and cocktails along the way.

Santa is played by Dave on the Rewa, Sharon is in the beautiful red dress next to santa.  The mayor of Whangarei is dressed in his royalty best and Matt was awarded Grinch of the year.

Santa asked that I be the bell ringer.  This was a really heavy and very loud bell.  After an hour everyone was tired of it but Santa insisted I keep ringing it – so ring I did.  That is until the mayor decided it was enough (around 10:30pm) and stuffed it with a shirt to quiet it down.

Lots of boats got into the holiday spirit with music, dancing, lights, and decorations.  It was a really great night!

A week before Christmas I finally got our decorations out.  It was killing me not being in the holiday spirit.  I feel so much better with them out.

Christmas Cookie Galor

I carried on the tradition of baking cookies for friends.  I used to do this with the ladies in our family when I was young and ever since I had my own kitchen I’ve carried out the tradition.  This year I went a little overboard with over 800 cookies (gingerbread, white mice, sugar cookies, peppermint bark), 3 batches of Toffee and 2 batches of caramel fudge!

I put together 12 gift boxes for cruising and local friends!

Myt friend Kara came over to help decorate the large sugar cookies which will be presented on Christmas day.  It was so much fun having her help to decorate – she brought her “A” game!

Of course we had the cookie monster there to help too.

There was some rose wine helping spur our creative side.

And the final product of 60 sugar cookies decorated in a rainbow of colors and designs.

A New Zealand Summer Sunrice from our dock at Town Basin Marina.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events normally.  But I moved this blog post ahead of the rest so that it coincided with the actual holiday season.

Christmas in Whangarei

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It’s Christmas in Whangarei!  The marina where we are staying is hosting a Christmas decorating contest and we just had to enter!  They had about 8 prizes ranging from Best overall to best small display, best local display, best international display and best display on the poles. 

For the first time ever, we decorate the outside of Sugar Shack.  Matt rigs a special platform for the light’s solar panels and hoists four 39 meter strands of light up the mast!  It is a gorgeous display at night, but unfortunately the bright lights on shore temper the colors.

Since, there was a competition, I took most of my holiday décor and put it in the cockpit.  I borrowed some garland and small Christmas pieces from the marina and gussied it all up.  I had two trees.  One tree was positioned on our electrical post and one in the cockpit.  Both lit up at night.

Cookie Baking Day

I spent 5 days baking hundreds of cookies.  I made gingerbread, white mice (Mexican sugar cookies), sugar cookies, chocolate candy canes with white chocolate frosting and peppermint shavings, and toffee.

Judges and Awards

The judges came by a week before Christmas. I was not past bribing them so I fed them homemade cookies and freshly chilled and spiced eggnog!  The judges are Kara (green shirt), the mayor of Whangarei (vest), couple with the bell and santa.  We invited a few friends over to be our supportive elves.  

We won a few prizes right on the spot.  Matt won a lovely Christmas apron and a beer belt and I got a beautiful pair of gloves with a fake ring and fur.

The awards were given a few nights later and guess what?  We won 2 prizes.  We won “Best overall” and Residence Choice.  This is what the judge said as she awarded our prize “”So the winner of this category not only start bribing us with cookies from November, they tinselled, they lit up, they dress up’d, they made Eggnog, they Baked even more cookie and got fully into the xmas spirit. Congrats to Christine and Matt from Sugar shack!”  We won a $20 bag of coins (for laundry and showers) and a $100 gift certificate!  Yeah

Christmas Eve on Sugar Shack

Sixteen of our cruiser friends were invited over for a Christmas Eve dinner.  We provided the pork tenderloin, eggnog, jello shots, white elephant, and christmas cookies.  Everyone else were asked to bring a special dish from their home country since we had Germans, Swiss, Lithuanian, and Swiss.

What a truly blessed day we had!  We started out with a traditional game of White Elephant where everyone was way too polite for my taste.

We quickly moved on to the eggnog and jello shots which livened up the game 😊

Santa even came and filled everyone’s stockings while everyone was enjoying the merriment (top left corner) and the goodies are shown in the bottom center photo).

It was an amazing way to celebrate Christmas with good friends, tasty food and lots of merriment.

Events from this blog took place on 24 December 2022.  Did you read about our Dutch Sinterklaas celebration in our last blog?

Herve, Valerie, Ariki, Alana

Taravai Christmas

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We arrived Gambier on the 12th of December and took a few days to regroup while anchored in Rikitea (main town of Mangareva).  We arrived the day after the supply ship came so we were able to stock up on fresh fruits and veg, replenish staples, and catch up on sleep.  As excited as we were about the fresh goods and sleep, we really did have an awesome Christmas in Taravai.

The winds dropped and the water was glassy.  We had stunning sunsets and sunrises.

Then as usually the case, we high tailed it out of the main, crowded anchorage and headed toward Tauna.

Tauna

This is a small motu on the South East side of Gambier.  It is known for its shallow sandy shelf and great winds which makes it an ideal spot for kiteboarders.  I do love to watch the kiters but it takes away from the beauty of this little slice of paradise so we tend to not visit this motu when it is crowded.  We got lucky with a few days of very little wind which meant we had the anchorage to ourselves for 4 days!

We rested, explored the motu, swam, and enjoyed the peace and quiet.  After we were well rested and caught up on a few boat repairs, we made the move to Taravai. 

We had super light winds coming from behind us so we put up the parasail and enjoyed a leisurely 3-hour sail.  If you zoom in the photo you can see our instrument showing 3.0kts of wind and our boat speed is 3.2kts (we had a little help from the current).

Parasail downwind run

Parasail downwind run

Taravai

As you know, Valerie, Herve and their two sons (Alan and Ariki) live on Taravai.  They are 4 of the 12 people that inhabit this island. They’ve become good friends of ours and we wanted to celebrate Christmas with them.  We arrived at Taravai Christmas week.  Everyone greeted us with huge hugs and warm smiles.

I spent several days preparing and baking Christmas cookies.  I made well over 600 cookies including gingerbread, sugar, peppermint, white mice, and toffee.  It was a labor of love, but it was fun to pass out bags of sweet treats to our cruiser and local friends.

We enjoyed several happy hours onshore with our friends and spent Christmas morning celebrating the holiday over blueberry muffins.  They are such generous and loving people!

Herve, Valerie, Ariki, Alana

Herve, Valerie, Ariki, Alana

Our Cruising Christmas card

Coral Spawning

In mid-December the coral spawn emitting a gazillion eggs.  Huge patches float and gather all over causing a pretty bad smell and really gross mess.  The wind blew trillions (at least that is what it seemed like) of these eggs to the shores of Taravai.  They leave a trail on the waterline of the boat as well.  Hopefully, some of these eggs actually make it to coral.

Coral Spawning

Coral Spawning

For some reason, there are lots and lots of jelly fish.  These are the non-stinging kind, but it still gives me the willies!

We see man beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  Love the top left photo with the blue shooting out of the mountain in Mangareva.  The cat’s name is Shasha and she is 5yrs young.

After our eventful passage to Gambier (see passage post), we truly enjoy our time in Gambier.   Events from this blog post occurred just before Christmas 2021.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind our adventures.