Have you ever heard of a…

Pukeko?  No, it is not the sound a sneeze makes, or a dessert.  Pukekos are a two-foot tall, royal blue, New Zealand bird.  They consist of about one foot of leg and one foot of neck.  They have extremely large feet with long toes and have a large, bright red frontal shield on their foreheads.  A lot of Pukekos live in the swamps around Shakespear Park by Gulf Harbour Marina where we are moored.  They are very tame and will cautiously walk up to you, cock their heads, and stare intently until you give them food.  Then they will “jog” (I have no other way to explain it.) back into the bushes only to re-emerge when they want some more food, which would be in about ten seconds.  Soon, they start the whole process over again.  They are very comical creatures. 

 On the day we visited Shakespear Park we found a lot of Pukekos.  They were very friendly and were not shy at all in telling us that they wanted food.  We gave them some stale croissants we had with us, and some carrot peelings.  Molly threw a piece of apple for them to eat, and the Pukekos jumped back and just stared at her.  They were plainly saying, “You expect me to eat that?  How big do you think my beak is anyway?”  

Male Pukekos also seem to need a very big space bubble, because if another male gets too close they act like bantam roosters minus the spurs.  We saw two of these displays but, don’t worry, they only last about a minute and no one gets hurt.  We also saw a baby Pukeko; he was a very ugly duckling.  The tips of his baby wings did not even have fuzz on them, and he had feet as big as the adults.  He would hop around following the other Pukekos and begging them for some food.  Pukekos live in big family groups and every member of that group helps take care of the baby Pukekos from egg to adult.  Like they say, “It takes a village to raise a Pukeko!” 

Pukekos are so common that they are considered pests by the locals, even though they are the bird most remembered by visitors.  The Pukekos are very mischievous; they love to eat potatoes and kumara (a yam-like vegetable) out of farmers’ fields and they usually carry out these raids at night.  They also steal and eat other birds’ eggs.  On the other side of the coin, Pukekos nests get raided by Harrier hawks, rats, and stoats (rat-like rodents).    To take care of these problems, the Pukekos sometimes get into little groups to run the hawks away or they go on a ‘stoat hunt’.  When they go on a stoat hunt, the whole neighborhood of Pukekos get together in the middle of the night and chase all of the stoats away, screeching ‘blue’ murder.  If you sat in a field and watched them, though, you would not know that.  To humans they are friendly and inquisitive.  Their vocal range can go from demanding to scolding to begging for food and is surprisingly easy to understand.  They are also said to be very good pets if they are raised in a family.      

There are three other New Zealand birds that I want to mention; the Kiwi, Takahe, and Moa.  The Kiwi is a very well known New Zealand bird, mainly because New Zealanders are called Kiwis.  They are New Zealand’s national bird.  They are extremely endangered and there are a lot of research programs going on to help them.  Takahes are a close relative of the Pukekos.  They are short and fat, have lost the ability to fly, and have an iridescent green back instead of black; but other than that they are very similar.  Moas are a giant ostrich-like bird that is extinct.  They were about ten feet tall and weighed as much as an adult.  They were a food source for the Maoris (native New Zealanders) and were hunted to extinction by them.

I put a picture of what a Moa is supposed to look like in the media gallery under Pukekos, but that picture came from the internet.  I do not have a picture of a Takahe.  Please check out the Pukeko gallery!          ~ Jessie      

Question of the Week 

See if you can find the correct answer to this question!  We will continue to post questions along with the answer to the previous question! Have fun! 

What is the difference between centripetal force and centrifugal force?

SCALLOPS

 

This is a short story I wrote to the science class of  Oregon’s Jo Lane Middle School, where my Aunt Jane sometimes teaches.  There are a couple of pictures in the media gallery to go along with the story. 

I went diving for scallops with my dad recently and thought you might be interested in what it’s like, so here’s the inside story.  I hope you enjoy it! 

Scallops are bivalves, like clams, and they have a hard shell with two parts.  The top half is flat, and the bottom is curved, sort of like a shallow bowl.  The New Zealand scallops we caught can be many different blends of colors, including red, white, blue, yellow, pink, and brown, with a lot of unique patterns. 

They’re pretty easy to catch, especially when you are scuba diving, as long as you can find a group of them.  They live in sand at about 15 to 30 feet of water, and sometimes you have to search for a while before you find a good patch of scallops.  You’ve also got to have good eyesight, because they lay on the sea bed, with the flat side of their shell up, almost entirely covered in sand.  You can only really see a scallop-shaped outline on the bottom, but after I found one, I started noticing them everywhere!  And once you find them, all you have to do is pick them up out of the sand and put them in your bag.  If you let go of a scallop in mid-water, it will snap itself open and closed trying to get away from you, but they never get very far before they hit the bottom again!  It’s actually a bit pathetic.J 

When you find a scallop, you need to measure it to be sure it’s legal to keep.  In  New Zealand, the limit is 10 centimeters (4 inches) or larger.  Another regulation you need to follow here is that you can only keep 20 scallops per person, or the coast guard can confiscate your boat! 

When I’m done gathering scallops and taking a nice, hot shower, I need to clean my catch.  To do this, I slide a knife inside the scallop and cut through the muscle, which is what you eat.  That lets the shell open up so I can take the muscle out and cut away all the other parts.  The round, white part inside the scallop is the muscle.  Sometimes people also eat the orange part next to the muscle, but I don’t like it as much. 

The only reason to clean a scallop is to eat it, and to eat it, you’ll probably want to cook it.  They’re actually quite good straight from the shell, but that doesn’t appeal to everyone.  We prepare scallops by breading them and pan-frying them with a little butter for two minutes on each side.  Another way is to sauté them in butter and put them over pasta with cream sauce.  Trust me, it’s delicious!     Molly

FOR SAILORS ONLY III

 

After a year and a half in the warm tropical waters, the prospect of a haulout was making me nervous.  We had rubbed some of the paint off the keel in Newport Harbor, Oregon, gotten tangled up with a float at Cocos Island in Costa Rica, and have been in the mud numerous times in the shallow rivers and marinas in New Zealand.  With some of the bottom paint missing, I would dive and clean the bottom regularly, but the paint seemed soft and  I was not sure about  it holding up to the pressure washer at the boat yard. Luckily, the Pettit Trinidad we applied at the Anacortes yard held up very well.  Only the abused parts of the hull had any missing paint.

After a quick wet-sanding (two days!), and a new coat of paint, we are back in business.  I am looking forward to not having to do my weekly bottom-cleaning job.  While we were out of the water, I changed the thru-hull valve and added a scoop to the water maker inlet.  Now we can make water even when we are sailing over 7 knots.

I disassembled the Max prop, cleaned it, and inspected it for wear.  After over 1000 hours, it still looks new inside.  I reset the pitch from 22 degrees to 24 degrees to put a little more load on the engine.  We have been running the engine at about 2200 rpm for fuel economy and just haven’t been in that much of a hurry.  Now, max cruise rpm (3000) seems like a hectic pace.  At 2200 rpm in flat water, we were motoring at 7.5 knots.  The new prop setting should increase that to 7.6 or 7.7.  Doesn’t seem like much when you are on the freeway going 70 mph, but after 15,000 miles (nautical) it adds up.

With everyone pitching in, the entire boat is getting a good coat of wax, and all the shiny parts polished. The sun down here is intense, and when the clouds part and the sun comes through, anything darker than off-white gets so hot you can cook your dinner on it.  This is the first time we have had weather reports that include UV index, and the forecast is always “extreme”.  You can get burned to a crisp on a cloudy day, so skin cancer is the number one cause of death in New Zealand.  I think driving on the wrong side of the road is next.  So anyway, the gel coat needs all the protection it can get.  Applying the wax must be done on the cool cloudy days or early in the morning.  I noticed the dinghy is starting to get sun damage, so we have to cover it up when not in use.

The out-of-water work went so well that I jumped right into next set of  projects. We tore apart  the nav station and added a few electronics; an autopilot control head for the nav station, and a graphic display in the forward cabin. (This is so I can see the depth sounder and GPS position when I am asleep). We repaired the wind point/wind speed unit at the top of the mast. Jeanna is now happy, as the wind speed is her favorite instrument, as long as it stays below 20 knots.

With so many gadgets plugged in the onboard computer, we  ran out of USB ports, so we added yet another hub and reconfigured everything to run more smoothly and much faster. Skype is one of our latest additions. While we are in range of wifi, this saves a lot of money on overseas calls. Tomorrow I will load-test all the batteries. This requires disconnecting 12 batteries and testing each one individually. I know I have at least two bad batteries in the system; finding and replacing the bad ones will get us back to 100% of our storage capacity. While we are in the battery compartment, I am adding Blue Seas heavy-duty isolators to replace the duo-charge system that failed. This will allow us to automatically charge multiple battery banks with multiple alternators, without manually controlling the system.

I continue to add little up-grades and convenience items to the boat. I keep finding things I think I can make better.  One day it will sail itself, and I can just sit back and relax. Oh, wait – it already does that!  We are having a great time in New Zealand.  Although the water is not as warm as we are used to, it is loaded with good stuff to eat. With all the sheep to keep the grass mowed, the whole country looks like a golf course.

 I will be back home in Seattle for the boat show, January 25 thru February 4.  I have a big list of things to purchase while home.  To our disappointment, everything is very expensive here in New Zealand. I can’t buy 110 volt tools any where, and my number- one tool, the cordless drill motor, is getting fussy.

Stop by the boat show and say hi – I’d love to see you there!  Check out some new pictures in “For Sailors Only III” in the media gallery.      Jim

It’s finally warming up in New Zealand!

 

As you can see from the new pictures in the media gallery, we have been busy trying out the waters of the north island.  It is a little chilly, but we’ve managed to water ski, spinnaker fly, ride in the bosun’s chair while under sail, and kayak.  We’ve even done a little swimming!

We spent New Year’s Eve on a 100-foot custom sailboat named Dharma.  We were anchored with them and our friends on Azul for the weekend.  There were scallops (caught by Molly), mussels (caught by Jim), Kingfish and lamb.  The boat is elegant and understated; so many of the larger yachts are very gaudy and brassy.  Dharma looks like a true sailing yacht.

Ruby Slippers is being hauled out this afternoon.  We moved all our stuff into a condo for 4 days.  I was humming “Well, we’re moving on up, to the east side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky-y-y-y”, while carrying all our laundry and food to a lovely condo just a couple of blocks from the marina.  It’s actually been thrilling to use the dishwasher, do 100 loads of laundry (it seems), and take showers without turning off the water to soap up.  I’m sure the excitement will wear off soon, but for now, it’s the cat’s pajamas.  I’ve decided to take all our dishes and silverware, and run them through the dishwasher, just because I can.  Who says we don’t know how to have fun?

We are hoping that the haulout will be painless – just a pressure wash and quick bottom job; inspect all the thru hulls and fittings, change the zincs, buff and wax the hull, and back into the water.  I’m sure Jim would rather be running the Travelift himself; it will be hard for him to be at the mercy of strange, possibly inept boatyard personnel.

We are getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road, with the gear shift on the wrong side of our body.  It’s easier for me when there is traffic to follow.  Left to my own devices, I tend to wander over to the right.  I usually just whisper to myself, “Stay left, stay left,” and it has turned out okay, so far. We are planning a road trip to the south island as soon as we get our boat back in the water. All the locals say it is beautiful down there.  We have only used our tent a few times, and are looking forward to really breaking it in.

2008 will bring the Rard family back home, and back to life on land.  Mostly what I hear from cruisers who have ended their journey and are back home, is that their friends are just busy living their own life, and they weren’t all that interested in the cruising details.  That’s okay. Those who are curious have been following along on the website, and we will have our pictures and memories to sustain us.  I wish every sailor could have an opportunity to go to sea, even for a short time.  There are many lessons to be learned from nature, not the least being, it’s worth exploring!    ~Jeanna~