Just a link to a zip file with pictures from BMW Auckland Regatta. Our boat is sail number 1992.
Zip1
Zip2

I finished my VHF course!!! yey. I have had couple of really wonderful days for no reason at all. I just finished watching a fairy tail – StarDust. I rented it from iTunes. It was just so refreshing. Such a feel good story. It reminded me of a time when I was a little boy watching some of Slovak and Czech fairy tails. It also made me forget about the daily life of harsh reality, betrayal and work to pay the rent. It made me forget about things that we just do. How we move through our life forgetting about the simplest – yet the most powerful brains function. Our imagination. I have been reading a lot about the brain – I really started to miss “The Discover” and the “Scientific American” magazines. I tried to read them often back home in USA. Here they cost $15 per issue. Too much so I have prepaid “The Discover”to get them delivered from US. It is a scientific magazine but generally aimed at general (not as smart?) audience. I have also bought the Scientific American as a gift to my friend for Christmas. I also love to listen to NPR – Science Friday podcast. Just to keep up with what is going on in the world of science. Wow – I really went off for no reason. My point is that there is so much written about how the brain works, memory, feelings, subconsciousness, laughter, fear, depression or happiness. Lot of our brain development is dependent on thing we remember, traumatic events we have experienced, our perceptions of reality etc. We can learn anything by simple repetition. Thats is essentially how we live, how we survived since pre-historic era but how we evolve, well I think that is only because of our imagination. How does brain comes up with something it has never seen, heard, smell or thought of before. Simple fairy tail has reminded me of how much I used to love reading, how often I would just wonder about dreaming, how colorful my dreams used to be. Then somehow we all settle down when we get older. We all start assimilating to the society rules to survive. We give up our hopes and dreams for we all tell ourselves it is better to let go of the foolishness and impractical expectations.

There was another good movie called “Into the wild” about a boy or a young man going through his existentialist’s crisis. He is running away from the society into the wilderness of Alaska. There were so many similarities of what I was going through when I was just about the same age. The main one was the attraction to Alaska. I have not been swallowed by that impulse partially because by that time I have already met Julia and was able to overcome some of the intensity of not being able to assimilate. I have grown since and have been able to channel those feelings into different areas. Sailing is that passion now. If I could I would keep on sailing – for that gives me time to sit back, take time to reevaluate. But then I have to pay the rent, I have to do this or do that. There was another great movie you all should see. It was called “What the BLEEP do we know”. Again, just thinking about all this brings up memories of all of these movies. Another example of beautiful complex-simplicity (ha ha if that is not an oxymoron than I dont know what is) of our brain. Compare similarities, make assumptions.

OK I am pulling out of this craziness. As I said I had wonderful couple of days and partially because I just love my ferry rides from city to home that and the fact I have been working only 3 days and sailing 5). On a beautiful day – just like past friday I sit on top, watch local sailing rum races and totally relax. It is a great way to get rid of that working stress. The sun is slowly coming down and there is so much to look at in the bay. Couple of the fisherman in a small boat, the city fading into the light as it is becoming smaller, beautiful green islands around and so much more. It is watching the colors change, the city is so lit up by the sun going down that it all looks as one of those really old sepia picture. Then there is a little boy running around with his sister. Laughing, smiling and playing. Its so beautiful to look at their faces. The innocence and future. Their parents, young couple holding hands and smiling at each other. Then there is a chopper flying only about 3 meters from the water. It is a photo chopper that is taking pictures of an amazing old sail boat coming into the port of Auckland. If I turn around I can still see huge cruise ship that is docked in the port. I dont know If this makes any sense. The big container ship is coming into the port with couple of tug boats pushing it from the side. When we get closer to Half Moon bay I notice windsurfers and kite-surfers doing their thing. Simply put there is so much more of the good visual stimula and thats from a simple ride home on a ferry. My senses are awaken and I feel alive. Of course it is a friday evening too. That does not hurt either. I do miss someone to share all this with though.

Well I think I went overboard with all of this but I am off to Auckland Boat Show tomorrow and thats pretty cool too. I am going to be putting some of my cell phone pictures here. Not much of quality here – just snapshots from my day.

Wednesday (march5th2008 21:34) Update:
Just came back from the award dinner at the royal new zealand yacht squadron. We’ve had much nicer weather sunny and gusts of wind reaching up to 30 knots today. The racing was not going much better first 3 races but it picked up and we won the 4th race. yeah. now we can at least say we have beaten the guys who will be representing the amateur sailors in Dubai. It was great event 19 races in 5 days. I could not feel my hands after today but it will be an experiences that I will remember for a long time. Well, back to reality and back to work tomorrow. I am pretty fortunate to spend some time racing and hanging around the squadron. you really can not get into these events unless you are invited. I am beat, shower and bed for me is all I need right now.
Tuesday (march4th2008 21:00) Update:
Ok, so today it was disaster. Well, not disaster as something really bad happened but we just suck really bad. Nothing was going right for us. Issues, issues and issues. 6 races 4 of which we came in last. Ha Ha its funny – it was just not working today. On top of that it was poring rain all day long. I got to the RNZYS (Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron) headquarters at about 7:30 am. We got on the boat, set up the sails and off we went. We started to race about 10ish. Rain, rain, rain and this was boat that none of us had sailed before so all ropes were in different places. Have I mentioned that we really sucked today. Oh, well it was an awesome experience anyways. Everything was just happening so much faster. Great fun. We finished with all the races around 4pm, drenched and with our spirit broken. I got home around 5ish and took shower. Then I went out to my coast-guard meeting. We were supposed to go to NZ maritime simulator to learn rules of the road inside the simulator that is being used for training captains on huge container ships. You can pretty much load any port in the world and try to navigate using charts, plotter and radar. That got cancelled so we had nothing to do. Our seniors decided it is a good time to put 4 of us in survival suits and drop us off the boat so we get the feeling of buoyancy of these suits. I will hopefully have some pictures. Then we were practicing pulling people out of the water onto the boat. If you have never done that you must understand this is really difficult especially wearing heavy suits full of water. I was beat already because of the racing – so this in and out of water business was twice as hard. Then we were pulling ourselves on the boat using the strength in your arms. Just ridiculous I tell you. Especially if you were threading the water for 20-minutes prior that. Then left us there in the ocean alone so we can see how it looks when the boat is coming in from far away. So I am thinking ok I will be sleeping good tonight after all that.
Not done yet! Into the water last time and swim onto shore. Great! The shore is about 500 – 700 meters away its hard to tell when you are trying to keep the water out of your mouth. But all good now – eating my soup and doing my laundry (if you really cared to know). I am looking forward to tomorrow. Another full day of racing with the best amateur sailors in New Zealand? Its either that or working. Hmm…. thats an easy decision. After the race we are having formal dinner. It is kind of cool to be in the squadron where really awesome sailors used to be. Sailors such as Sir Peter Blake and others.

couple of today’s pictures.

Just a quick note. I took a day off to spend long weekend sailing with Stratocaster on BMW Auckland Regatta starting FEB 29th and going till Sunday the 2nd of March. It is big sailing even for all of amateur sailing. The winner in the category will be heading up to national regatta and the winner of national regatta will be representing New Zealand in the world cup regatta. There will be few really great boats out there and competition should be awesome. I think, weather permit it will be an event to remember. This is a nice link that lets you follow the race as it happens. There is weather and live cam. So if you bored at work click and see me waving really hard.

follow this link

OK so Saturday did not happened due to heavy weather. There was live band, dancing, beer and food at the Bucklands Beach Yacht Club today from about 6pm. Good fun – it was like time capsule to 80ties with the music…and to see room full of sailors dancing…well, that’s just priceless. Never in my life I have seen so many uncoordinated moves on the dance floor. Really, just too funny. The weather is suppose to improve tomorrow so we should get in few windward/leeward races. Next weekend I will be getting my VHF license and then there is the Auckland international boat show.
Great day on Sunday. two first places and one 3rd. Overall winner division C (divisions are based on handicaps of the boats, such as weight, length etc.) So that means we are off to tuesday and wednesday final races with the boats used for match racing (same boats, same class etc) and the winner of that will be heading out to Dubay to represent the New Zealand in world cup amateur sailing in april 08. We have crew of 8 and since these match race boats are raced with 5 crew I dont think I will make it since I am still the rookie on the boat. Never the less it is awesome experience and it was lots of fun.
RacePage http://www.rnzys.org.nz/ and some pictures here and here

Update:

OK so I will be sailing. I will be on the boat tomorrow and Wednesday.

One year ago on the 15th of February I landed here in Auckland. One year ago I was set to start my new life. I was excited and full of optimism. One year ago. Unbelievable!!! It is a new year to me. Time to sit down and reflect. Somehow – I am not so keen to do so. I have not written for a while – not that I have nothing to write about – its more like I have been waiting for something to happen. Maybe I am going to celebrate my new year in February from now on.

I have been doing some fun stuff since new year besides getting another speeding ticket etc. I went to Tongariro National Park for a Heli Hike tramping. Groups of us flew into the mountain region and started the hike down on the river bank. It was not very difficult but it let me experience a hike on which we crossed the river at least 50 times over 8 hours. Essentially walking in the river for period of time. The water was not very deep only knee high but it was fun because the weather was hot and river kept us cool. The wet boots were the perfect air conditioning system.

Then I sailed few more times racing overnight and went sailing with bunch of friends to Coromandel area (Te Kouma Harbour) and that was absolutely stunning. Everything that nice sailing gives. So much fun and laughter. I have posted some pics on my flicker. We arrived just as the sun was setting down and went for a swim, diving off of the sailboat into perfect water. We were swimming for a while and just having a fun. Then we ate and had some wine. Couple of us just lied on deck watching incredible amount of stars. I have seen at least 15 shooting starts – so many wishes, so little time. That is the most amazing about night sailing too. If the weather is great there is so many stars falling. It is so humbling to watch that speed, to feel the power of the wind, understand the strength of the ocean and be with absolute unity with the nature.

I have been racing on a Stratocaster (sailboat) finishing the Nexus Gold Cup Race first in the ORC division. Yeah baby! Here is the official page. Stratocaster is the blue boat on the left with the spinnaker being blow off to port side. I am there with the white hat. Oh well picture is too small. Never mind – this is really why I am doing sailing – to get my pictures out there It was a nice race but we did not have wind for few hours early in the morning. We started 19:30 and finish 13:40 next day. On the way up – that boat to the right of us was pushing us out of our course and since we are on the leeward side (the boat being covered up with a boat that is exposed to the wind directly – or as we say they are stealing out wind) we have the right of way and they should give way. They were unfortunately just a bunch of roughnecks and touched our spinnaker with their boom first time already at the start line. We could have protested and they could have been disqualified. The skipper decided to give them a pass and not to call protest. About 3 hours later they were coming close to us and kept on trying to bully us into giving them some space so they could stick to their course and not give us way. There was lot of shouting and swearing going around. We would not budge and they had to eventually jibe and change the course. The guys that I am sailing with are familiar with the Waiheke channel and we knew the reason why we did not want to change the course. So after the other boat turns away from us and we keep the course. Then about 45 minutes later they are about 500 meters from us (it is dark at this point and we can only see the navigational lights of other boats) we hear this “thum” deep sound of a boat hitting the rock. The Waiheke channel has few hidden surprises if you do not study your charts – well, these other boat that we had screaming shouting match with found one of those surprises. We were watching them (from far away at this point) and kind of just guessing it was them and what happened. We turn the radio to channel 16 – which is the emergency communication channel, to see if they require help. I guess they did not. We saw their steaming light come on (a light that boat is turns on at night when it is using the engine power) and watch them (or rather their light) to turn around and start heading back to Auckland. Later I have learned that they were taking on some water but nothing too serious. Iolanthe II – the boat I went to Port Villa with last year had hit the rock the race before on the other side of the channel. They just bounced off of it with no damage at all.

So thats what I am up to. Work is going great and I am starting to get hang of it. We are rewiring our whole rack mounted servers and switches and I actually spent a night fixing a server that went down. Since it was a fileServer I had to make sure that all the data were recovered ok. Long night it was. I will post the picture of before and after it looks when we finish.

Well the holidays are upon us. Time to reflect….(well no thank you for me – I will pass on reflection this year). Just came back from TiriTiri Matangi island where I spent the weekend hiking and being lazy in the sun. Got sunburned because I forgot to put the sunscreen on. My friend Nora has just finished her 3rd year working there studying and writing her theses on Whiteheads birds. Yeah – pretty funny stuff if you ask me but she is into it so well what can one do. I am only kidding – she might be reading this and I dont want to get in trouble. Ok but seriously, it was great. Away from civilization, air does not get any fresher and have met some great people too. We had few glasses of wine in the evening and I took some pictures again. I have not been taking pictures for quite a while. I have to catch up with that. I am going to spend Christmas days with my other friends, doing the whole presents and eating thing. I am going to stay in Auckland for most part of the holidays so I am going to work and that makes people happy because they can take time off. I think I am going to be one of the few people working in this crazy country over next couple of weeks. Basically everything slows down and nobody works.

I have been sailing couple of times since my last post. Two overnight races around Waiheke island. One race on Iolanthe II and one on Stratocaster. Last one while I was on Stratocaster the friends on Iolanthe II had some interesting moments. Jochen got hit in a face with a running backstay (support line for a mast) while they were jibing (changing the sail from one side to another while the wind is behind you) and then few hours before sunrise they hit the rock hidden under the water in the waiheke channel. Well the bottom part of the boat (keel) basically hit it and slid over it. Very lucky. Not much damage as far as they can say.

I have also completed 8 week BoatMaster course organized by the Coastguard and got my silly certificate. Thats right watch out silly boats, I can take you on now. That was quite a bit of memorization of all of the sea road rules, lights, buoys, sounds signals, fog signals, distress signals, navy alphabet, distress calls, reading weather maps, gps, basic radio, etc…

I am really excited about new year. I have some great plans and hope to have lots of fun.