Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Opua: more joy; first passage; orange; name


        Reports keep coming in:

        Here in New Zealand, Zane’s joy-in was a ‘mast-in’:  final stepping of the unstayed carbon fiber mast on his junk-rigged OCEAN PARTIZAN.
        In England Chris, who recently sold his boat, did a hill climb in a 1930’s Model A Ford.
        Above California’s Morro Bay, Lynn, a delivery captain, looked out to sea.
        In eastern Canada where water is still solid not liquid, Matt, helped drive a freight train—not his usual job.
        In England Bill cooked and with Roger sailed and powered in the Bristol Channel.
        In Australia Pat, whose boat is on the hard preparatory for anti-fouling, and Randall made a wonderful bird feeder.  I hope the birds appreciate the design and craftsmanship.  And Pat still found time to drive 240 kilometers/150 miles to sail on the 30.5 meter/100’ SOUTH PASSAGE training ship.

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        I have written here before about Dan who I met in San Diego’s Quivira Basin after he bought COYOTE, a Medalist 32.  Dan is an Australian former submariner.  He and Ashley sailed south to Mexico late last year and have just left on their first ocean passage, heading for the Marquesas Islands, a distance of about 3,000 nautical miles.
        I’ll be following their progress on their Yellowbrick tracking page.
        I wish them a fine and uneventful sail.
        Beautiful islands are ahead.

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        The threads stripped on my JetBoil stove.  At first I thought it was the threads on the gas canister, but when I couldn’t connect a second canister, the source of the problem was certain.
        Even on GANNET I try to have back-ups and have a tiny burner by a company named MSR.  It screws directly onto the gas canister and heats water quickly.  In port when GANNET is steady, no problem.  However, it would require close attention at sea.
        I googled and found JetBoil stoves available here in NZ and placed an order on the Internet.  I received a response that black is not in stock, only red and camouflage.  I chose red.  It arrived today and is really tomato orange.  So garish I almost like it.

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        I like the name GANNET.  But if I had not spent time in Opua in the past, the little Moore would have another name.  Lamentably there are no gannets here now.  I believe I have already paraphrased Villon, ‘Where are the gannets of yesteryear?’
        Based on today’s residents, I would be sailing TERN or SEA GULL or SHAG.  
        I miss gannets.