georgebackhus on December 18th, 2003

Christmas in New Zealand is more social than commercial, just the way I like it. One would have to look pretty hard to find a Christmas tree lot around here, as the Christmas tree of choice down here is the pohutakawa, a relative of the bottle brush, which blossoms in a crimson red each season [...]

Continue reading about Christmas in New Zealand

georgebackhus on January 6th, 2003

 
Twin Island Bay, Port Fitzroy

The favored overseas holiday destination of many Auckland “boaties” is Great Barrier Island. Just 50 miles by water from Auckland City, “The Barrier” is a different world from mainland New Zealand, and you don’t even need your passport to visit. Once again, we made what has become our annual visit for [...]

Continue reading about Great Barrier Island: Holidays at “The Barrier”

georgebackhus on November 8th, 2002

November 08, 2002
The Coastal Classic

 

 
The start of the race in Auckland.

2000-odd sailors, 228 yachts, 120 miles of New Zealand coastline, a 3-day weekend and one big party. This is the annual NZ Multihull Yacht Club’s Coastal Classic race from Auckland to the town of Russell in the beautiful Bay of Islands.
We entered last [...]

Continue reading about The Coastal Classic: Auckland to Russell

georgebackhus on September 21st, 2002

September 15, 2002
Bula!
Here we are once again, sitting on a beautiful South Pacific Island (in this case, Malolo Lailai, Fiji), preparing to sail to New Zealand for the summer/cyclone season/America’s Cup. We had planned to leave this morning, but a very nasty and fast moving low pressure system that eluded most of the weather prognosticators [...]

Continue reading about Passage Logs: Musket Cove, Fiji to Auckland