The population of New Zealand is about 5.2 million. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand while Auckland is the largest city with about 30% of the country’s population.
Auckland is known as the “City of Sails”. In 2017, when we sailed in Bermuda, we witnessed Team USA losing the America’s Cup to Team New Zealand. Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2021, Team New Zealand successfully defended the cup. The next race, the 37th America’s Cup is scheduled to take place between August and October 2024 Barcelona, Spain.
Westhaven Marina in Auckland, was nearly full but we managed to secure a slip. We had to stay in the marina for several reasons; (1) it was convenient to bringing our cats back from the pet quarantine facility, (2) we found a galvanize company to pickup and deliver the anchor and chains, and (3) many deliveries, including a “SpaceX Starlink Kit” for mobile internet access, were made to the marina address.
Installing Starlink was straightforward: connect the Starlink dish to the Starlink router, plug it in, find “Starlink Wifi” on the WiFi list, and rename it with a password. Our challenge was dealing with the 100V and 12V systems on the boat. We are currently using a “Travel Adapter” since New Zealand uses a “Three-Pin Adapter” (230V AC, 50HZ). We now have a WiFi connection on the boat almost anywhere on Earth.
After sailing in the Central America Zone for the last three years, we are noticing more rules and laws here. Marinas in New Zealand require marina liability insurance with coverage of NZ $5-10 million (about US $3-6 Million). To stay in a marina, we cancelled our US boat insurance (Liability US $500K Coverage) and purchased new insurance in New Zealand. Additionally, we hired a certified technician for an “Electrical Warrant of Fitness (EWOF)” inspection and obtained“ Test Tag” to connect to Marina Electricity. ***The current minimum wage in New Zealand is NZ$22.70 (about US $14) per hour in 2023.
Spring/Summer is here, flowers are blooming, and although New Zealand doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, we had a nice Thanksgiving Day by ourselves and enjoyed “Black Friday Shopping”.
Our future plan is to rent a campervan and explore New Zealand. However, I recently learned that we cannot drive through National Park and Reserved lands if we travel with our cats. We will be limited to places where Cats can accompany us.
In the meantime, I have been reading more information on the National Park Website (Department of Conservation) in New Zealand. If you are a woman, please read this very detailed information (https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/know-before-you-go/disposing-of-human-waste/menstruation-in-the-backcountry/).
