From Gavin Barlow - Somewhere in the Pacific July 2003
Dear all,
Well, the message subject says it all !! To many of you that's exactly where you think we are : ' Lost out here in the Pacific ' !! Have they sailed off the edge ? You ask !!
Well , the answer is not exactly. MOST of the time I've known where we are & as far as I'm aware we haven't found the edge yet !! Been pretty close to it a few times but we never toppled over !!
Very embarrassing that our last ' Round Robin ' letter was written over a year ago from Tahiti. Apologies to those of you who have rightly criticised the lack of news from Scott-Free . Anyway here goes in an effort to catch up what has happened in the last year & roughly what might happen next year.
Leaving Tahiti was hard. The Society Islands have to be included as one of our favourite Island groups but we had to push on . The focus was now on New Zealand , some 3,000 sailing miles away. Having sailed about 5,000 nautical miles to get to Tahiti , 3,000 nm. didn't seem so
bad !!!
Susie & Derek Lintott joined us in Tahiti with the intention of sailing with us as far as Tonga . However we dawdled a bit in the Societies because it was so gorgeous that in fact they had to change their flights once we got to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands so that they had the chance to spend some time there rather than rush off to sea again after just a few days in Raro. Susie very pleased with that decision , I think !!
We loved the Cooks as well , in spite of the rather small & crowded harbour . One of the highlight was a three day trip to Aitutaki ( we flew !! ) , a relatively remote little Island about 150 miles NW of Rarotonga. Real honeymoon stuff - very appropriate for Susie & Derek who got married some 3 months earlier !
We pushed on again in early September to Tonga , stopping for several days at Niue - a small but sad little Island , 350 miles East of Tonga, which used to be part of the New Zealand Commonwealth & which is now independent & suffering accordingly . 26,000 of the original inhabitants now live in New Zealand & the population is now a mere 1,800 ! It's a pretty Island with some fascinating geographical features but the deserted villages ( you can't sell your house if you leave ) gave the place a sad & depressing feeling to it .
We finally reached Neiafu in the Vava'u Group of Islands in the North of Tonga. A wonderfully protected anchorage with relatively good facilities ashore . There must have been 100+ yachts in the anchorage . Two bars on the waterfront - The Mermaid & Ana's Cafe are famous venues for the ' yachties ' some of whom hang out there for weeks !!!!
Bill Dobson ( an Australian friend ) & my cousin Tamsi Blair joined us in Tonga to help us down to New Zealand . The seas North of New Zealand have a reputation for bad & unpredictable weather , so Sukey & I were very pleased they were with us. In fact it turned out to be a fairly normal but ( in our case ) slow passage which included being becalmed for 3 days 500 miles North of New Zealand. Like all our fellow sailors though we were hugely pleased to get into Opua in the Bay of Islands . The feeling of relief that you've actually arrived in New Zealand is indescribable !!
During our 7 month stay in NZ , we based Scott-Free at Ray Robert's yard in Whangarei , 50 miles or so South of Opua. we bought ourselves a car in the car auction in Whangarei ( pronounced locally as ' Fongeray ' & became to be known as : ' Fongerain ' !! And it certainly did a lot of that !! ) The car was a Subaru Legacy Estate which served us fantastically well over the time we were in NZ where we travelled from Cape Reinga on the Northernmost tip of North Island to Stewart Island , off the Southernmost tip of South Island & a good few places in between !!!
We were very lucky at Christmas . Tamsi's parents , Lizzie & James had managed through a ' friend of a friend ' to find a little " bach " ( NZ for a holiday home ) that we could rent right
