Awesome week and weekend. I wanted to write but had little too much fun to stop and reflect. I just made a schnitzel with some lovely potatoes and I am sipping gin and tonic with lemon because the limes cost $19 a kilo – $9.50 a pound more or less (oh no … he is going to talk about what he drinks and eat…this blog is taking a huge dive). Anyways so I have been really busy with getting to know my work which is great and what makes it even better that I take ferry to work everyday and then walk about 40 minutes each way to get to the office. New Zealand is such a funny country. Things are so different here everything seems to not work the way it should but somehow it always works out at the end. Its like that cartoon “A je to”. (for those who don’t understand the reference – this is a czecho-slovakian cartoon about these two “handy” man who always manage to do the job with fairly “interesting” result. To put it more in daily terms – its like their broadband. It works, it is slow and expensive but it works. It works – just not everyday. People in here dont like to buy new stuff. They fix everything and there is a saying here that everything can be fixed with number 8 wire. Its not a bad thing but really not everything CAN be fixed with a wire.
I am really enjoying my ferry rides. I have some time to wake up while listening to my podcasts. On Thursday the captain said – if you look to your port side (I mean how great is it that he uses boating term when he talks to public? – Port is left by the way) you will see about 6 dolphins swimming by the boat. So everyone looks…its just too cute not to. There are bunch of great creatures and it was so much fun. It looked as if they were showing off. I think I heard them laughing too. Well I didn’t obviously (too much engine noise?) but it looked like if they could laugh they would.
Then on Friday the ferry was bit fuller than usual – so the Captain asks the passengers in the back to go into his cabin because the boat had a hard time getting on a plane (PLANING – A boat is said to be planning when it is essentially moving over the top of the water rather than through the water.) So about 25 of us went up to the cabin until the ferry hit the plane. I just cannot imagine something like that in the USA. Its so human here. Nobody really worries about anything too much. When ferry just leaves the dock and the captain sees someone who is running late he reverses and docks again so that person can jump on the boat (and I mean literally jump) I remember Julia telling me how buses on Waiheke island do not really follow their route when there are only few people on the bus. The driver simply takes them to their house. Just like a really big cheap cab. Try to ask the cab driver to drop you off in of front of your bus in New York City!

So there I had couple of great mornings. Then on Saturday there was another one of the sailing Gold Club race. So I have been going out with couple of boats altering between them. There are about 25 boats in the race and of course Stratocaster (the boat I was on this weekend) has to have a near collision with Iolanthe II (the boat I went to Vanuatu with). So this is nearly at the end of a 14 hour saling when we come close and it gets little hairy. Both crews are swearing at each other and I am sitting back thinking – oh shit why do two boat that I know the crews from have to nearly collide. Why it could not be some other boat. Life is just amazing. One could not make this up. So next week I am going to an Iolanthe II party and will have to explain what happened to everyone. It was not really a big deal – I think Iolanthe II got little scared and over reacted. We have placed ourselves into the perfect position between two boats and started to take advantage of that. We were ahead of them until we hit an area with no wind. We were at the place where it would usually take us about an half an hour to get to finish line but since there was no wind and the current was heading in opposite direction it took everyone 2.5 hours. Iolanthe II closed on us and overtook us but then we took lead back and were able to out maneuver them in the end. It was pretty great. It was exciting but boring. We were fighting with Iolanthe II to the end but it was all happening in a slow motion. Great day never the less.

I got call from my Coast Guard unit today and they ask me if I would like to get the Boat Master Certification. Duhh… so awesome. I am really happy that I am single and can do all of this stuff now. I am happy I can do what ever I want and not worry about anything else for now. I will be really busy. 3 days a week leave my house at 6:45am and come home about 10pm. Then racing on weekends. Just perfect. Hey uncle Bill… I am glad that magical Meg term has stuck around. Hope you are doing great too. Well as much as you can being that the winter is coming.

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