Our sailing experience near Auckland is one of the best. There are many islands and well-protected anchorages wherever we did a day sailing. No loud music played on neighboring boats and most of the places were quiet, with only the sound of pure nature.
We were mostly by ourselves. It made me think a lot about “Purpose of Life”. My recent conclusion is that “Life is to be happy” and “Happiness comes from progress”.
My problem in New Zealand is to remember and pronounce its island names written in Maori language. For the last seven weeks, we sailed from Auckland to Rangitoto, Waiheke, Rotoroa Island, Coromandel Harbor, Waimate Island, the Great Barrier Island, and now in Whangarei Bay.
“Maori are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand. Maori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_people)
“The modern Maori alphabet has 15 letters. Two of these are digraphs (character pairs). Maori alphabets are A, E, H, I, K, M, N, O, P, R, T, U, W, Ng, Wh.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_language) It doesn’t use alphabets “b, c, d, f, g, j, l, q, s, v, x, y, z”. Not having an alphabet “S” is a problem. A tour guide told us they make a plural word by repeating the same word.
We have a haul-out scheduled for the boat maintenance and improvement. We also plan to travel by a camper van after haul-out. Once the boat work is complete, we will need to leave New Zealand as our six-month visa will expire in May.
