Today I went sailing off the coast of Coromandel Town with Tri Sail Charters. It was a very great time and a totally new Christmas experience for me. Sailing on Christmas Eve?!?! Unheard of! On board the boat was me, Tony (the skipper/owner), and a German family (mother, father, and 18 yr. old son). We left about 9:30 am and got back around 6:00 pm. Here's a video I made when we were waiting to leave the harbor. I have other videos from the day but it's gonna take ma while to get them all onto youtube so I'll post them throughout the next day or 2.
Here are some photos from today:
A cool volcanic rock formation.
Island where Gannets (look kinda like a sea gull) live. It's white on top because it's covered in poo.
Rock formation inside Elephant Cove where we stopped for lunch.
Another rock formation in Elephant Cove.
Cool rocks.
More cool rocks.
A mussel farm.
A family celebrating Christmas by camping and fishing on the beach - and no, they're not camping inside an ice house on top of a lake and ice fishing.
Look how far east I am!
The boat sails.
Overall, the ride was really great. It was cold during the morning hours so I was wearing a fall/winter jacket over my track jacket - you can likely see this in some of the later videos. In the afternoon, however, the sun came out and it was quite nice. I didn't get too motion sick at any point throughout the day - granted I did take 2 Dramamine but still - so that was good. As long as I stayed above the water I was fine. If I went down below in the boat it was terrible in the rocky waves but I only went down for short periods - use the bathroom, reapply sunscreen, etc.
The boat we were on was built by Tony, the owner/skipper. It took him 4 years working mostly full time on the project. I couldn't believe it! It looks like a boat you would find at a boat store (is that what places that sell boats are called?). I know people can built wooden boats and such but I'd never heard of anyone building their own fiber glass boat. Crazy and really cool!
The family that was on the boat lived in Germany but the parents were from other countries - the father from Russia, Siberia to be exact, and the wife from Kazakstan. It's crazy that I was just writing about the Trans-Siberian Express like yesterday and then I meet someone from Siberia. When the wife told me she was from Kazakstan she then started to describe where it was ("It is a former Soviet Union country....") I really wanted to be like "Yeah, I know Kazakstan. I've seen Borat." but then I didn't know if that would be offensive or not. I'm not sure how people from Kazakstan feel about Borat. I mean it's pretty amazing the one person pretty much single-handedly put an entire country on the map. Without Sasha Cohen I'm pretty sure almost no one in America would have ever heard of Kazakstan let alone know where in the world it is - even remotely. The family was nice though and we had a good time. I tried to stay out of their way as much as possible since it was really their trip, I was just tagging along.
We didn't see any dolphins or whales on the trip today which was too bad but we did see little penguins. They were too far away and too small to get a picture of but it was cool to see them in the wild. I didn't know they had penguins in New Zealand so that was cool. I don't think I've ever seen penguins in the wild before. I can't think of any time I ever would have had the opportunity before today.
Let's see.... what else.... It was just as hard for the German family to believe that it was Christmas as it is for me. It's just so hard when it's warm, with long days, and the A/C on inside, not the heat.
Tonight we're just chilling at the cafe. Tomorrow we're going to go to the beach. I'm sure I'll get some good photos and videos then.
Merry Christmas to you all back home! I hope you are all having a great holiday season and feel free to e-mail a photo of your Christmas Tree if you'd like - I'm always up for seeing what's going on back home.
Best!
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