Stoked: An interview with the Rear Admiral (RA)

Q: This is just the latest escapade to be added to the growing list of ‘adventures’ that you have been roped into. Are you able to recap some of the more memorable?

RA: Do I have to! It’s a very long list and getting longer. But I will give it a go.

Let’s see, it started with another tandem – a double kayak. I was in the front seat on that though! Neither of us had been into boats so it was a bit of a gamble getting a kayak let alone a two seater. However, it was fun paddling around the rocky shorelines and we only had one boat to man-handle, a bit like this latest bike. The fun started to wane during a longish paddle from Sandspit to Martins Bay in the Mahurangi area. It was a great paddle out but, while having lunch, the wind sprung up and by the time we headed back the sea was sloshing into the kayak and I had visions of having to swim to shore. Then to make matters worse, the tide had gone out and we had to drag the heavy kayak a long way across the now exposed mud flats in order to get back to the campground that we had conveniently paddled away from that morning. Memorable, but not one of our more enjoyable outings. My enthusiasm for kayaks waned after that episode.

Then we went really big and purchased Agnes, our 33 foot 1910 designed Logan launch. I loved the boat and could have happily lived on it. He spoiled the experience by insisting that we leave the shelter of the marina to head to distant destinations that involved multi day trips (voyages) such as; Great Barrier Island, the Coromandel and Bay of Islands / Whangaroa areas. I suffer from motion sickness and did not think sailing over oceans with big waves (they are called swells – nothing swell about them) potentially had consequences. Surprisingly, being sea sick was reserved until we were ready to move on from Agnes. Small mercies.

Agnes was built in Whangarei and we lived in Auckland which meant that we had to sail ‘her'(seems all boats are female) back to Gulf Harbour. This was our very first offshore boat cruise. Fortunately, the kayak had taught him (the GOTF) some lessons and he invested time in getting his boatmasters ticket. We also both studied for and sat the radio operators exam. Just like the Tandem, communication was paramount, especially when you headed over the horizon. This was our first experience with planning multi-day trips so he got into studying maps (he said they were charts) and plotting our routes (apparently a course) and obsessing over weather forecasts (reading weather maps – huh why not charts?).

There were simply too many memorable moments on Agnes to recount here. Most were amazing, many amusing (usually for onlookers) and a few scary (for me and I suspect him as well). Let’s say that I was just a little worried when things got off to an ominous start on that first voyage from Whangarei to Whangaparaoa in the winter. As we came through the North Channel at Kawau Island I pointed to a squiggly feature on the map . He said it was a rock awash (just under the surface) which was dangerous and to be avoided but it was too late and we both watched in horror as the seabed on the sonar raced towards what apparently represented the boat’s hull. Fortunately, Agnes had a flat bottom (shallow draft) and we narrowly missed having our own Titanic moment on that first (maiden – I could never get my head around boating terms) voyage. He called these episodes “learning on the job”, I just wished that he would learn before the job was undertaken!

About 15 minutes later as we nestled into our intended anchorage in North Cove, the sun was sinking in the west making it hard to differentiate between the water and the mud. This time the seabed apparently ‘shelved’, basically went from sea to mudflats in the blink of an eye. I learnt all about boats having a reverse gear with that episode. Having narrowly avoided our second, albeit not as dramatic, Titanic moment, we then set about dropping (laying?? Sigh) the anchor. He controlled the anchor winch where the steering wheel was (helm – again sigh). The GOTF flicked the ON switch and the chain started rattling out. He hit the OFF switch after about 10 metres had clattered out but, shock horror, the chain kept rolling out. There were a few expletives (well a lot of them) as the other 50 meters of chain also clattered out. I heard him yell something about ‘the bitter end” (apparently this a bit of rope that hopefully links the chain to a fixing on the boat). Fortunately, the bitter end had been sorted. Of course, the reason that all of the chain was now sitting in the Kawau seabed mud meant that the only way to get it back up was for the GOTF to pull all 60 mud coated metres up with his bare hands. It was day one and there was an awful lot of learning going on. It was not an auspicious start. Fortunately things were not all bad but there was a lot of learning over the eight years that we had Agnes.

There were plenty of options to go hiking from some of the anchorages. The most ‘memorable’ hike was on Christmas day, 2010, over at Aotea / Great Barrier Island. I was happy to lounge around on the boat and enjoy our first Christmas ‘offshore’. But no, he wanted to scale Mt Hobson, the highest peak on the island (627m). We had acquired hiking boots (big mistake as they were too heavy) and threw these into our dingy (tender) along with our day packs and headed into the shore at the head of Kairara Bay. The walk up got steeper as we progressed and then near the summit we had to clamber up what seemed like ‘the stairway to heaven’, they went on forever. Going down the steps was going to be hell in the heavy boots. By the time we settled down for lunch on the wind blown summit, my knees were already painful and I was not travelling well. A suitably chastened GOTF studied the maps (apparently when on land they are maps!) and decided that we should take a longer but hopefully less taxing route down. Once underway it became clear that my knees were not in a happy place and they started objecting any downhill gradient. I found that the only way of achieving slightly less painful forward motion was to go backwards, particularly down the steeper slopes (much to the amusement of the numerous and noisy Kaka). What should have taken a little over an hour to descend took us nearly six hours. To make matters worse, we had no cell coverage. You guessed it, more learning! The boots were ditched for lighter walking shoes but not until we had both suffered the same issues while walking the Queen Charlotte Track later that year.

Then he decided that we should get folding bikes to carry on the boat so that we could explore more of the larger islands such as Waiheke. These tiny bikes were what got us (back in his case) into cycling. They were a silly idea for the boat given that some of our landings in our dinghy had been spectacular, especially a couple in modest surf on, you guessed it again, Waiheke. For the record, I had my first tumble off a bike on my very first ride on the little folder. Again, not an auspicious start.

Q: Sorry to interrupt but is there more? I am concerned that we may run out of page space?

RA: Oh yes, I haven’t really got started yet. We have all the biking memories. Like riding to hilltop villages in France, riding around Cornwall, one of the hilliest parts of the UK, riding folding bikes to Wellington from Rotorua, nearly dying of dehydration in Thailand, riding in the jungle in Cambodia and Laos, and riding through river deltas in Vietnam. These escapades eventually led to my retirement from cycling.

Q: Then why the ‘come back’?

RA: That is a very good question and since starting this interview I am having second thoughts about that, I had packed most of this less ‘memorable’ stuff away into my virtual attic but this interview is starting to traumatise me all over again. Mind you, he did say that it will be different this time! I know that is absolute cobblers so I made it quite clear that everything that goes wrong on the tandem is HIS fault! As a result he seems to be making more of an effort to learn before we are ‘on the job’. Time will tell.

A few snaps from some of those memorable rides – note that I am pushing the bike in most of the photos

Brief update on our upcoming ride

The bikes have been gathering dust due to less favourable weather and we have also been waiting for the outcome of a few health checks. The health front looks good but being winter, the weather may keep the bikes in the sheds more than they are out. Short answer, there is not much to update.