Opua: class of 2007; topless
Opua: class of 2007; topless
The cruising fleet, class of 2007, is arriving from the islands. Six boats were tied to the Q dock when I rowed past two mornings ago, and nine yesterday. And more boats arrived later each day. The marina is filling up. Boats are tied to the breakwater. Several have anchored near me, but fortunately not too near. The dinghy dock is more congested. Clusters of people on the shore, excited to be in a new place, relived to have a passage that many of them had been dreading for most of the year behind them.
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THE HAWKE OF TUONELA is no longer topless. Well partially.
Because it is a hassle to remove the mainsail, I leave it on the boom even while I’m gone. I do unbend the furling jib and store it in the cabin. And since I took the mainsail to the sailmaker last week, unexpectedly I have noticed its absence above my head when standing in the cockpit. The sail is not that big, but it was always there. Stepping into the cockpit is sort of like going into a room and finding the roof missing.
Two days ago I took the dodger in to have grommets installed in the aft corners so I can tie them down in heavy weather. Waves have hit the dodger hard enough to pull its lower edges from their tracks.
With the dodger gone as well, the sense of being roofless was even greater. However, that was a minor job--performed for free by the sailmaker. The dodger is again in place.
For more than twenty years I didn’t have dodgers on my boats. I don’t much like the way they look, and I don’t spend much time in the cockpit anyway. But I finally relented and had a minimal one put on RESURGAM in Auckland before sailing for Cape Horn in 1991. It is nice to be able to stick your head through the companionway to check out conditions without risking a wave in the face.
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While taking photos of the departing HMNZS CANTERBURY the other day, two darting terns caught my eye and I snapped a shot of them. Not until I downloaded the image did I see the fish in the beak that was the cause of their maneuvers--one trying to steal the catch of the other.
A guidebook to New Zealand seabirds identifies them, I think, as White-fronted terns, also known as Tara, though presumably not after the mansion in GONE WITH THE WIND.
Friday, November 2, 2007