John finally got to do what he wanted for the weekend so we chartered a 30 foot Nolex sailboat in the Bay of Islands for 2 days. Bay of Islands is about 3 hours north of Auckland. The area is called Bay of Islands as it is a bay with a bunch of islands. The area is well known for sailing. Eric and Martin (the Holland guys) were also back in Auckland this weekend so they joined us on the trip. As sailing always goes, there were hours of calm with moments of excitement. We started the trip on Saturday with an instructor. As we did not know the area at all, we thought it best to have someone along that was familiar with ocean sailing. The instructor (also named John) used to long haul deliver sailboats across the oceans. He was very knowledgeable and had some great stories. We dropped the instructor off late Saturday afternoon so John became the official skipper. We found a nice cove to anchor in for the night. Things went good until the wind came up quickly and blew the boat over the anchor line. When the boat went over the anchor line it caught on a steel ball on the keel and got hung up. John and the guys spent a bit trying to get the line free but he finally had to take a late night swim to get the line free.
Sunday was also a pleasant day for sailing. We ventured out into open waters briefly in search of dolphin until we had to reef the mainsail due to the winds picking up. The boat we chartered was set up with a huge mainsail. Overall, we had a very enjoyable weekend and enjoyed the time with Eric and Martin.
Here is a link to pictures from the weekend-
http://picasaweb.google.com/jandlmarshall/BayOfIslands2009_03_21?authkey=Gv1sRgCN6NsY6239OCHQ#
Work- Here is an article about the company that I work for that you might find interesting. Eagle Technology (who I work for) resells the Geographic Information Software (GIS) which is developed by ESRI (which is a US company). ESRI published an article about development work that Eagle did for the NZ Animal Health Board. The article gives you an idea of the type of work that Eagle does. http://www.esri.com/library/casestudies/new_zealand_animal_health_board.pdf
Monday, March 23, 2009
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3 comments:
Wow, looks like great fun! That's a bit bigger water than Saylorville. Be careful out there John!
Atta Boy to both of you for taking on the challenge in big water! Capt. Fealess.
I checked out your pics. Had to go check out the famous bathrooms more. We have famous bathrooms in Minnesota but they are known more for their toe-tapping incidents than their architectual aspects.
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