Strong German.

January 21-27th, 2008



Adding to the strife of walking the six km sopping wet trail with all of my heavy gear, was the growingly consistent grey and very humid weather. However, while on the walk it was not hard to imagine, despite the rather horrible weather, the potential beauty of Opua and the Bay of Islands. I looked forward to sailing for the first time so much that when I rounded the last bend before Opua and the picturesque Great Escape Yacht Charters (pictured below on a nicer day than when I first arrived) was revealed to me, I could hardly contain my excitement.

Great Escape Yacht Charters' dock.

When I first spoke to Great Escape about doing a five day learn to sail course, it was with one of the owners of the company who also happened to be Canadian. Before the conversation was over, the lady had mentioned that they may need some help with work on the dock. I had hoped that I might work on sailboats before I left for New Zealand, so the offer for work was somewhat of a dream come true. When I walked to the office on the dock and was greeted by an employee - a German named Tobias who enthusiastically greeted me and showed me to my unexpected new home, 'The Caravan... Of No Luxuries Aside From A Roof'. All amenities such as a shower and sink were located at the boathouse just down the driveway. Tobias has been living in the camper for months while working at Great Escape and was kind enough to let me stay with him for the week. Two people were required to do the five day learn to sail course, so I had to wait for someone else to show interest in order to go out for some lessons. Fortunately for Thursday and Friday, someone else was interested taking lessons with me. While I waited for lessons to begin, I hung out on the dock learning a little bit about placing boats on moorings, but mostly just reading. A six year old boy named Leo was on the docks on Wednesday and asked me to help him fish. I am not a fisherman but I thought I'd try help him with what limited knowledge I have, expecting not to catch anything. Fishing here in NZ is much different from Victoria, however, in that when one puts a line in, one usually catches a fish. I wasn't aware of the success rate while fishing here in NZ, so I casually dropped the line in water. Soon after got a bite and pulled out a 6" snapper. Of course, I was completely unprepared to catch anything, so I had nothing to remove the hook with. I felt horrible for the poor thing. I needed to put the fish out of its misery, so I asked Tobias to grab a bludgeoning tool. One violent strike with an old tiller on the fishes head ended its struggle. I only hope the 6 year old I was 'teaching' was less traumatized by the event than I.

'The Caravan... Of No Luxuries Aside From A Roof'

When fine weather finally arrived in Opua, I walked up to a lookout tower to take some photos and felt inspired to make a new mini-vid with hopes of torturing those unwise enough to view it. My Momma wanted me in the video, so I had to block half of the beautiful view to appease her. I'm sorry for that. Feel free to forward your complaints to her.

Video #2

Looking towards Opua in the Bay of Islands.

Tobias Hartmann sitting with the first complete dinner I have ever prepared for another soul (aside from my dog) inside the caravan. Yes, I was so proud that I took a photo.

Now that you have met Tobias, I'll share a quick anecdote. I thought while spending so much time with a German dude I might as well try learning to speak some of his language. At one point during one of our improvised lessons, he stopped me and said that I pronounce everything I say in German like Adolf Hitler. At first, I was offended but the I realised that much of my exposure to the German language previous to this trip has been video footage of Hitler. Tobias and I had a good laugh after the realisation. I've since learned to tone it down a little when trying to speak German.

The last two days spent at Great Escape before I headed of to scuba diving were spent on the water. It was an amazingly free feeling for me switching off the motor and moving under sail for the first time. I became immediately hooked on sailing. I now have grandiose ideas of sailing the world sometime in the future.

One of the boats I sailed on during the learn to sail course.

If you look closely you can see the racing boats going in the opposite direction to our boat. We joked about racing in the regatta, but we didn't even make it to the start line before the race was over.