Go!

And we're off!

Malachi has spent the past three months in Whangarei where we've enjoyed being with lots of friends and where we've done lots of fun things. But, alas, the time has come to bid farewell, to the land of the long white cloud. We will miss all of our cruising buddies who will be continuing on to Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and beyond. We hope you'll look us up next time you're in Vancouver, we would love to see you all again.

We've had the great pleasure of having Meridian rafted to us for the past couple of days. Meridian is Malachi's twin and we've been trying to catch up since Mazatlan! Here we are side by side in the town basin marina. We've totally enjoyed meeting up with John and Nancy and family and are sorry not to have had more time together sooner. Don't the boats look awesome together!



Eitan from Mintaka flew home with his mom on Tuesday. His dad is sailing the boat back to the US with crew. The girls really enjoyed meeting Eitan and will miss him and all of the other great kids here in Whangarei.


Eitan, Kyle Maya, Jenny, Jocelyn, Jaryd

We will be sailing north east to French Polynesia where we'll visit Tubai, in the Australs and Tahiti in the Societies. We should be there in time to celebrate Jocelyn's 17th birthday on the 26th.

So as we throw off the bowlines and sail away from the safe harbour, we'll leave you with a few slang kiwi words and phrases - g'day mates!

Cheers - a friendly way to say good-bye or can also mean thank-you
Boot – car trunk
Chilly Bin – a cooler, also called an esky as in “Eskimo” brand coolers
Chips – french fries
Cinema - movie theatre
Crisps – potato chips
Dairy - any convenience store, like 7-11
Dear - expensive
Dearer - more expensive
Diddle yourself - cheat yourself
Dun and dusted - all done, complete
Flash - very fancy and posh
Fringe – those are bangs, like hair over your forehead
Good as gold - means 'perfect!'
Handle - a mug. Otherwise it’s a glass which is smaller with no handle.
Hire - In NZ one doesn’t “rent” a car or canoe. You “hire” them.
How ya’ going?- is used instead of “How are you doing?”
Jandals - flip-flops
Judder Bars – speed bumps
Mixer - a faucet with both hot and cold water, highly uncommon here. Almost always a sink has the dreaded individual spout at each end of the sink. When washing your hands you freeze your left hand while scalding your right. The spouts barely hang over the lip of the sink making it almost impossible to wash dishes.
Nappies - diapers
Owl-Lou-Mini-Um - this how they pronounce aluminum
Scroggin - Trail mix
Serviette - table napkins. A “napkin” in NZ is a feminine product.
Sweet As… - means emphatically I agree or very cool, also used as a fragment not a sentence
Tea – Dinner
Tramping – hiking
Whitewear – these are appliances like washer, dryer, refrigerator, dishwasher, etc.