Russell: a slight change of scene
Russell: a slight change of scene
I managed to get the port cove stripe painted yesterday, and though the deck and interior still need to be done, THE HAWKE OF TUONELA now has two coats of paint from the bottom of her keel to the edge of her deck, so I powered the four miles north to Russell this morning in a flat calm, anchored and rowed ashore to shop and have lunch. Both shopping and lunch are better in Pahia two miles directly across the bay, but this is the better anchorage.
Russell was one of the early European settlements, a whaling port, and, briefly, New Zealand’s capital. Now it lives on tourism and vacation homes.
I land the dinghy on the beach, which is not sand, but small pebbles.
There is only one other boat at anchor--an 80’ or 90’ sloop--well beyond me. All the boats in the photograph are on moorings.
Sat on deck this afternoon, rocked by the wakes of day trip boats that collect and discharge passengers at the wharf, listened to music, applied dabs of sealant in the never-ending search for leaks around the mast and chainplates, drank some wine.
Now I’m going to read more about William Eaton. In an earlier entry I underestimated his achievement. He crossed not a hundred miles of desert, but five hundred.
He wrote: “The undertaking will be hazardous, but this is a world of adventure, in which little is expected without enterprise and perseverance, and not a great deal to be realized with them.”
By all accounts he was not an easy man to get along with.
Among the men with him was one Marine lieutenant and seven enlisted men. Their presence is the source of “to the shores of Tripoli” in The Marine Hymn.
Tomorrow I hope to go sailing.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006