Civilized
Our past month has been one of ease, at least by cruising standards. Being tied to a dock in the middle of a proper town has slowly pulled us into a very different rhythm of life than the one we had while bouncing from anchorage to anchorage around Great Barrier Island. Neither of us has much interest in heading back out into the shoulder-season weather that has been stomping across New Zealand lately. The constant parade of wind systems, rain squalls, and uncomfortable anchorages wore thin on us both, and Town Basin has offered a pretty convincing alternative. Easy access to groceries, restaurants, hardware stores, and fresh bakeries has a way of softening one’s resolve for rugged adventure. We have spent a frankly irresponsible amount of money eating out, but after months of anchoring in remote bays and cooking every meal aboard, neither of us feels particularly guilty about it.
One unexpected bonus of being here has been the number of hiking trails within walking distance of the marina. During our first couple weeks we got into a routine of heading out every other morning to explore another one. Ironically, we have probably hiked more while tied to a dock in town than we ever do anchored somewhere “wild.” Usually when we’re at anchor, every task seems to involve hauling something heavy uphill, rowing into chop, or scrambling over rocks, which somehow doesn’t leave much enthusiasm for recreational hiking afterward. Here, though, the trails start practically at the marina gates, and the exercise did both of us a world of good.
Eventually, however, we ran out of new trails and the project list began taking over our days. Once I shift into project-mode, my desire to spend even more energy hiking drops off a cliff. Besides, each project already comes bundled with plenty of walking. The marine stores are over a mile away, and no boat project in history has ever been completed in a single visit to the chandlery. Every task seems to require three additional trips because of one forgotten fitting, the wrong size hose clamp, or some mystery item you didn’t know existed until halfway through dismantling the original part.
One particularly exciting moment arrived at about four in the morning during a night of steady rain. I woke up convinced I smelled something electrical burning. Not strongly enough to panic, but enough to put me instantly on alert. I paused for a moment, exhaled, and prepared to take one more careful sniff before deciding whether I was imagining things or about to deal with an actual emergency. In the exact space between that exhale and inhale, Kerri somehow woke up, declared “I smell fire,” and launched herself out of bed in one seamless motion. It was like accidentally saying the word “walkie” within earshot of a sleeping Labrador. One second she was unconscious, the next she was fully operational and preparing for disaster. I never did get that second inhale.
Kerri immediately shut down the electrical system while we stumbled around in the dark sniffing every corner of the boat like a pair of deranged bloodhounds. Unable to pinpoint the source, we finally threw some clothes on, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and cautiously powered things back up section by section. Eventually the smell led us toward the port-side bookshelf area. I started unloading books, tools, and random boat junk while removing panels to inspect the wiring behind them. Naturally, after dismantling the area, the culprit turned out to be something far less dramatic: a tiny USB charging cable that had shorted internally and was quietly melting itself into oblivion. A fairly boring conclusion in the end, though at four in the morning, aboard a fiberglass boat full of wires and lithium batteries, it certainly didn’t feel boring at the time.
During these weeks in civilization, Kerri has been steadily grinding away at work while I’ve been sinking time into an app project I desperately wanted to finish before we leave for Fiji. It has been years since the project list aboard Meriwether slimmed down enough for me to spend meaningful time coding again, and I realized pretty quickly how much I had missed it. The downside of both of us disappearing behind laptops all day is that our social lives effectively evaporated. There were stretches where neither of us even stepped off the boat for days at a time. That is, until the ducks arrived.
More specifically: thirteen ducklings and one very patient mother duck started making rounds through the marina, and I immediately appointed myself their unofficial snack provider. What began as tossing a little oatmeal overboard turned into a full routine. Now the duck family swings by two or three times a day, and I happily abandon whatever coding problem I’m fighting with to go feed them. We burned through the entire oatmeal supply aboard in embarrassingly short order, forcing me to buy a full kilogram bag from the grocery store, which is now also nearly gone. Watching the ducklings grow over the past couple weeks has become one of the highlights of being here. I have an absolutely ridiculous soft spot for baby ducks. Tiny waddling puffballs are apparently my kryptonite.
At this point, we are ready for the upcoming passage. The projects are complete, the spare parts are onboard, and the provisioning will be handled when the time comes. Now everything depends on the weather. We are in no rush to leap at the first possible window because, truthfully, we are both comfortable here. Life tied to the dock has been easy, productive, and surprisingly enjoyable. Still, sooner or later, a promising forecast will appear in the forecast and seduce us into untying the dock lines, motoring back downriver, and pointing Meriwether out toward the open Pacific once again—this time with Fiji on the horizon.
