I am now in Warkworth. About an hour north of Aukland on the East coast. This is SCUBA territory. Too bad I won't have time to enjoy it. The diving around here is some of New Zealand's best. More specifically, I am at the Mahurangi Institute and at the "hostel" they run nearby.
This has been a great experience so far and makes me glad that I have left Auckland. The locals here are so nice and friendly. Upon arrival I was supposed to call the manager of the hostel to pick me up from the bus. But, in my usual fashion, I decided that the walk would be nice. With my 2 big wheeled bags dragging behind me I started heading up the highway towards the Institute. Yes, there is a sidewalk, which in NZ is called a walking path, no matter where it is. As I rounded the turn onto Wilcotts Road there was a steep climb up to the road. When I got to the top, I stopped to catch my breath, those bags of mine total about 60-65Kg. A woman who was just pulling out of a drive at the top of the hill asw me struggling. She backed up to where I was and offered me a ride. I was glad to take it. The walk was longer than expected (the bus driver made it sound like it was close by) and the ground around here is all steep hills. She was a very nice lady by the name of Doreen and I will call her during the week to meet her and treat her to a coffee/tea outing.
Tim, the hostel manager, met us at the main building and directed us to the "girls' building" where I'm staying. The place is brilliant. Everything is brand, spanking new, clean and well maintained. Tim is doing a great job. He and his wife, Petra (Hungarian) and their brand nwe baby boy, Jaime, live in the bottom of the main house. That is also where the co-ed and couples rooms are along with the common and dining room. It costs $20 per day which includes self-catered breakfast and a hot cooked meal every evening. This evening was a tuna/past/cheese casarol and mixed veggies in cream sauce. Quite yummy. I had seconds. I passed on the ice cream for desert.
Each of the three houses has 8 double rooms and two full shower rooms. There is also a lounge and kitchen with TV in each house. Our house does not have a dish hookup yet so we only get 2 channels and they aer snowy... or so I am told.
There is free internet access (phoneline modem connection) in the common garage where the ping pong table and laundry are. That is where I am now. A young 18 year old girl from India, Suzanna, is sitting next to me. She is our 'house rep' this week. Suzanna is studying Marine Technology at the Institute and will be here until the end of the year. Her courses started in February.
I am the oldest person in the entire place. All of the other resident students are 16-25. The 28 year old was kicked out a few weeks ago following a rather rowdy party. Alcohol is now strictly forbidden in the hostel. Tim runs a very tight ship here. His son is only 12 weeks old and he wants this place to be nice and homey. There is actually a committee headed by the neighbour across the road to get rid of this place. That is why the owner and the Institute decided to get a nwe manager... to change the reputation of the hostel so that the neighbours will dissolve the committee and stop making the owner's life a living hell.
Anyway. After Tim gave me the tour and history of the hostel and I got settled, I took the 15 minute walk into the centre of town. Warkworth has a population of about 2500. I checked out the tourist Info office, got money to pay for my course and dropped into an arts and crafts gallery. The owner and I got to chatting (who? Me?) and she is a very pleasant lady. She has asked that next time I am in town, I should drop into the shop and we will have a coffee/tea together. This is much better. A town with friendly folks. Sally has a soon to be single brother of 55 who she thinks I might enjoy meeting. Maybe I will. Hey, who am I to turn down a perfectly good opportunity.
Then I was off to the Nwe World grocery store for, what else, groceries. A few supplies for lunches and the usual assortment of non-dairy, wheat and gluten free products. Walked back to the hostel. Took a bit longer with a load of groceries and mostly uphill... about 20-25 minutes. Met Suzanna then had a nap befoer supper.
Well, I will write more later. It is getting cold out here in the garage as the sun sets over my right shoulder.
Hello everyone. I am now on the Teece Farm near Mapua and Motueka picking apples. It is very hard work. Mike, the owner, picked me up at noon in Motueka and took me to the pickers' camp where I will be living for the next couple of weeks. The accommodation is very basic and not very clean (for those who know me best you know how big a challenge this will be for me - an outward bound experience of a different sort). Well, I am sharing a room with a very young 20something Czech guy. In fact there are 6 or 7 Czechs working there. There are a couple or three Kiwi and Aussie regular seasonal workers also. Everyone was a bit reserved at first and there is the language barier problem but they are all very nice and have made me feel welcome.
So, on Thursday afternoon after getting settled in I hike myself and a picking bag up the road to an apple patch where I found Red, who drives one of the forklift tractors that move the bins about and take the full bins to the shed. Red gave me a 10 minute picking lesson then went back to work and left me to it. I managed to fill a bin (about 1.5+ square metres) between 2:30 and 5:30. Not great but not bad for a first timer. At the end of the day I was exhausted from being up at 6:30 to get travelling, the bus ride, running all over Motueka to get stuff I'd need and the work. That night I fell into bed at 9:00 and was out cold at 9:05.
Up early Friday for my first full day's oicking. Managed to fill three bins in spite of being moved around twice (ARGH!) which lost me nearly an hour on the day. The patches are far apart and without a car I have to walk from one to the other. There are no toilets around either so if you have to go it is a long hike to the Teece's house, the camp or the yucky old outhouse that no one ever uses. I have had great bladder control while picking. Anyway, I started work at about 8:00 and finished at 5:30ish and managed to fill three full bins. We take a lunch with us to eat during the day. Friday I ate all my lunch, 2 sandwiches, a banana and some trail mix. Drank a 3 litre jug of water. Fell into bed early again and slept almost through the night (except for a sleepy walk down the veranda to the facility).
Saturday, another work day. Pretty much the same as Friday but only picked in one row all day. Filled three bins by 4:10. It would have been 4:20 but Tony (a regular seasonal worker) who was picking the same row from the other end had filled his bin and came by to help finish mine with another bag and a bit. That was such a nice thing for him to do. Then I was able to get a lift back to camp with him. Friday evening as I walked back from this same field I had to cross a field that the cattle (beef steer and a couple of bulls) had just been let out to. When they saw me crossing the field they all looked over and came running in me general direction. Curious buggers scared me into dshing across the field to the other gate. But I managed to avoid all of the meadow muffins (cow patties) and made it through the gate before they got to me.
Saturday night, last night, there wasa dance at the Lower Moutere (pronounce mootree) Hall and Mike and Janet, the bosses, paid the $20 per head ticket price for all the pickers. So we all went to the "Rock'n'Roll" dance. What a hoot!!
Yeah, it was a good dance/party. Much drinking and dancing and everyone having lots of fun. I pooped early. Too tired to party! That has never happened to me before. But the couple I rode to the hall with was leaving early because Lemka got sick from smoking a cigar and threw-up out in the parking lot. David came into the Hall and asked me if I wanted a ride home because they were leaving. I jumped at the opportunity. One of our Czech pickers, Pietra, had a baby... well his girlfriend had a baby, girls, 50 cm and 3.32 Kg... back in the Czech Republic at 6am our time yesterday. So we had an excuse to celebrate (not that we needed one) and he had a cigar and 2 bottles of sparkling wine (pretending to be champaign) so that with all that beer and vodka it made for lots of red, glassy eyeballs this morning. Anyway, I got to go home early because they were leaving. Thank God too. If I had stayed I would have done the most embarassing thing of falling asleep on the table.
Today everyone was having thier favourite hang-over cures for breakfast. For most of the guys this was beer and cigarettes. YUCK!! I was not hung-over because I did not drink much... just beer and only 6 from 4:30 through to 11:30. I had a polite sip of champer to toast Pietra and Suzanna (the baby) and when she was not looking I dumped the rest into Janet's glass next to me. I had no vodka and when urged to have a drag from the cigar as it went around the table I took only the tiniest of puffs. Even then it made me dizzy and sick for a couple of minutes. I don't know how Lemka, a non-smoker, was able to do it. No wonder she threw up.
There is a market in town today and as soon as I finish this I am out to it. It is just across the street here. David and Lemka drove me into town and they are off doing stuff while I do my stuff. I will meet them at the car at 3:00.
I have been talking to a couple of captains about going sailing at the beginning of May. I am going to change my flight to the end of September and then get out of the country (visa expires May 11) by sailing off on a boat headed north. Most will leave around early May either in the May 1st Tonga Rally or around it. The Tonga Rally is for boats going to Tonga, Fiji and Vanuatu (sp?). That would be a great way to spend the time and then work on finding a stew job after returning here (get another 3 month visitor's visa). There is one boat that is also offering a small pay on top of all expenses covered... for the right crew. I hope to get on it. Have also been in touch with one of the captains who contacted me in January but after I had made plans to meet John's boat in South. He just had work done to his boat and was planning to leave Auckland in another week but they screwed up some of the work and he says he will now be delayed and may lose part of his crew as a result. If the timing works out and a spot comes available I may join his boat in Auckland.
I am still hoping to get a job on Tiara but have not heard from the captain (sent resume, etc. to him last week) yet. This does not seem like a good thing. I had hoped to get a reply before this.
Many balls in the air... don't know which will land in my lap. Must run now.
Did I mention that this is a very pretty country. Just wait until you see the pics. I know you will all agree. May try posting photos next weekend. There are photos posted from my first 7 weeks in New Zealand.
OK, I am obviously not good at being unemployed with nothing to do. Have not had any luck with the job hunt and Auckland is getting to be a bore... so I'm going elsewhere.
On Sunday, March 28, I will leave to go north to Warkworth where I will be taking my STCW95 basic rtaining. I'll have the following weekend off and will head up to Opua to visit two sailing yachts up there. Both are potential ways to spend my time after my visa runs out here. Then after my rtaining is done, I wil;l head off south to the south island where there are many orchards and fruit farms in need of picker, packers and sorters. There are also easy to get temporary work visas for this work. The money is not much but the accommodation is cheap and I need something to get me busy. The worst part of this boredom is that I do not have the money to go out and do things I enjoy doing. Like the diving.
I will have to finish the Advanced Diving certification this week too.
Anyway. There it is in a nutshell. My newest plans. But they could end up changing too.
Finally finished the cross-stitch. It looks good. Today I must find something to keep it flat and pressed in. Now to finish that second painting...
The PC I was working on just did an old fashioned, but not unheard of or unusual, 'blue screen of death' to me. Luckily I was able to publish to the blog before having to restart the damn thing.
If you want to read up on the latest stupidity from the braindead bozos at Microsoft's henchmen company SCO, read this. ARGHH!! This just makes my blood boil. http://news.com.com/2100-1014-5168921.html?tag=nl
Of course, it never occurs to Billy boy and his pals that to truly compete in a fair market practices way (as if they would understand this concept) one must produce a good product. One that is equal to or better than the competition. Maybe they are having to attack Linux using underhanded, backdoor bully methods because Microsoft products are garbage. There, I have vented. Feels good. Everyone should protest against this sort of henchmen tactic if they want the freedom of choice in the marketplace. I would not be writing this if this internet hall had a Linux based system. Only MS Windoze (where do you want to blow today) crashes everytime you try to use it. Linux does not do this sort of thing, ever.
Anyway. It is now 7pm. I'm starving, getting headachy and tired. Must go eat second meal of the day. Please send news from home.
Hello everyone. Sorry it has been so long but there is not much to write about since my last entry. I continue the job search without much luck. I have enrolled at the Mahurangi Technical Institute to get my STCW95 Basic Training Certificate. This is a qualification that is getting more and more required for working on large yachts. It is also just a good thing to have. It stands for Standards of Training Certification and Watch Keeping for Seafarers and is endorced by International Yachtmaster Training Inc., the international body that sets the standards for seamanship training. Most Coast Guard organisations (if not all) have approved of this training.
I did mention alot of this in my last entry but now I know my dates. March 29 through April 6. The coarse is also approved and accredited by the NZQA (New Zealand Qualifications Authority) which overseea all the educational standards for the country. This may help to get me an extended visa or enhance my abilities to get a work visa. Time is running out
I am getting tired of Auckland. Getting bored here. Would rather be somewhere pretty. When in Warkworth I may look around there or even up in the north (closer to the equator too) for work and a place to live for awhile. It will be cheaper for rent out of the city too. Cheaper for everytrhing. It is soooo very expensive to live here, especially in Auckland.
The winter is starting to creep into the air. The temperatures drop down to 14C overnight now and we never get the expected highs of 22C during the day. Over this past weekend it never got above 18C. I don't have much in the line of cold weather clothing with me. I had been planning to be on a sailboat in the Indian Ocean where the temps are considerably higher right now. So there is another reason I need a job... to be on a boat closer to the equator... or to buy clothing to stay warm in. I prefer the yacht job idea myself.
I have been doing some arts and crafts too. Finished one painting last week and started another. About a week or so ago started on a counted cross-stitch project. For Christmas my friend Michele F. gave me a small one to keep me from getting bored on the boat during long passages/crossings. It may be small but it is complex with 28 different colours. You can see a picture by following this link http://www.sewandso.co.uk/cgi-bin/find/db.cgi?db=zoom&uid=&Prod_Code=3388&ww=on&do=search_results to "Ocean Friends" I am about 3/4 done... at least the hardest, most complex bits are done. Those being the bottom half of the picture. The upper half is about half done now too and the rest is pretty simple and straight forward. I hope to have it done in the next couple of days. I have become obsessed with completing it in fact. I am actually anxious to get back to the painting. I am trying a new technique with the acrylics and gloss medium. I quite like the affect. It all starts with laser prints of black&white digital photos.
This week has actually seen some progress. For starters I have been diving. Finally. Have 2 of 5 Advanced dives completed towards my Advanced Diver's Certification. Last Wednesday evening Dean (the instructor from DiveHQ) took me to Lake Pupuke (pronounced poopookay) on the North Shore of Auckland for some diving. His wife Alana, who has never done a minute of diving, was there to try diving out. I did my Navigation dive but the water was so murky that we lost the rope. Dean figured we ended my 'square' within 1-2m of the start point but with less than a metre of visibility we could not locate the rope. We laughed about that later. The important thing is that I did my nav dive and Dean signed it off. BUT, during that square navigation (this means that I use my compass to navigate a square pattern underwater) we swam through a 'thermal' where the temperature dropped from an uncomfortable 18-20C to an unbearable 12-13C. I would have said even icier but I was blinded by the sudden cold, litterally, as my mask began to fog up too. We searched around a circular pattern for the rope but I was freezing and signalled to Dean to surface. When we did we were about 8-10 metres away from the rope end and I was not warming up. We swam to shore using my compass at 5m.
Alana took her short dive. She is a nurse at the North Shore Hospital where she is hoping to start a new job working in the Hyperbaric Medicine Unit. She did not do well on the test for working inside the chamber. When subjected to even a small amount of pressure she was unable to equalize her ears. This is a very bad thing as the job involves being inside the pressurized chamber with a patient in order to administer medications and perform other nursing duties. That is why she decided to try diving. Dean thought that if she tried diving that it would be a more natural thing. As it turned out she still had a problem equalizing and said her right ear was sore. Not a good thing. When I saw her the next day it was feeling better but she is concerned. I think that if she tries it in a swimming pool a few times first she will find it easier. When a diver is first learning to dive they spend a lot of time in shallow water (ie: a pool) where they learn equalizing slowly and gradually get used to the sensation. So she should go the same route.
I was supposed to do a night dive too but the temperature had drop[ped drastically, I was freezing and the water was cold. Dean did not lok happy about spending more time in the frigid water either but he was wearing a thicker suit than I was and Alana was freezing too. So I decided not to freeze any further and it was difficult enough to see in the murky lake without adding the cover of darkness. Even with lamps (which would have been used for the night dive) I doubt we would have been able to find each other during the buddy seperation exercise. The cold was my real reason for not diving again though. As it was we were all freezing while getting the gear to the truck.
Both Dean and Alana, and for that matter, all the guys at the DiveHQ shop, are really nice and I enjoy time in their company. One of the guys, Terry, is still recovering from an accident he had a month ago. He was struck in the face by the boom of a tow truck turning a corner too tight. His jaw and cheek bones were smashed and he had to have extensive surgery to fix it up. Considering the damage and the fact that he now has a steel cheek, the scarring is not too bad, although his face is now far from symmetrical. He is still a nice looking young man though. He must have been a real cutie before the accident. I am certain he will be again. But the worst part is that until he gets the medical OK he is not allwed to do any diving. He is going to the doctor next week and hopes to get approval for a shallow dive.
I think he would benefit greatly from a cranio-sacral treatment. That whack must have knocked every bone in his skull around. Actually, he is lucky to be alive.
Back to me ;-)
So, I have decided to take the STCW95 Basic training at the Mahurangi Technical Institute in Warkworth. What is not yet final is dates. I had hoped to get into the course running from March 15-26 but it is apparently full suddenly. It was not on March 1-3 when I received info from and talked to various staff at the institute but when I tried signing up on the 4th, poof, full. So, unless the lady I spoke with Thursday can pull off a little magic, I will have to wait until March 29th to start the course which will end April 6th. I wanted to get that training to enhance my employability for the stewardess jobs. So this delay is also a delay in my ability to find a job. It is so frustrating.
It is the same thing with the diving. I now have 2 dives checked but it will be after March 22 before Dean is available again for check-out dives. Another certificate that once had is a plus to my employability. Especially if I decide to keep going towards an instructor certificate (extremely pricey and will need a job before I can do it).
I hope to know about the course by tomorrow afternoon. Fingers crossed.
Yesterday, I went diving with Dean, Christien (commercial diver at DiveHQ) and a couple doing their Open-Water Certification dives. I got Dean to sign me off on my boat dive. Christien and I dove around, I had the only compass so I got to practice navigation. But again my 3mm suit proved too thin for the cold water. It was only about 17C and in some places I was registering only 15C. So my dives were very short. The first was only 31 minutes and I returned to the boat with a nearly full tank (2100psi). We moved to another site during the 90 minute surface interval. The water was no warmer. Again 15-17C. This time I could only do two extremely short, shallow dives of 11 and 17 minutes. Returned to the boat with 1900psi. I hate wasting a full tank like that. So now I am loking at renting a variety of 'additional suits to enhance warmth. I'll try a 3-5mm shorty and a 3mm hoded vest. I think having a hood will be a great improvement. And gloves too will help lots. Hell... more money out. I am fast running out of money. NEED A JOB!!!
Well the diving on the weekend was chilly but much more scenic than the murky, dingy water of Lake Pupuke. We went to the resort town of Whangamata. The town has a winter population of 4000 and a summer population of 20,000. Many residents move out of twn for the summer and rent their houses out for enormous sums of money. The scenery on the drive there was out of this world. This is such a gorgeous country. We were heading south and east to the Bay of Plenty. In Whangamata we grabbed food at the bakery for lunch then drove to the docks where we hopped aboard a boat owned by Marty (a well-seasoned diver himself). He took us out to Mayor Island and to the area around it. The water was choppy, the winds gusty and the currents/surges strong. The sun was shining brightly and there were almost NO clouds in the sky. It was a gorgeous day. The diving would have been beautiful and fun if not for the cold. There was a large school of Yellow Tail makerel that we kept getting in the middle of. There were several large interesting fish (must get a fish book for this area) and though deep in the seaweed there were beautifully coloured rocks and corals. I will not dive again in just the 3mm suit, I will get/rent an additional layer of warmth.
During the STCW95 course there are a couple of days (the weekend) that I have off. I will use that time to take a bus up to Opua/Pahia. There is a 52ft sailing yacht up there that I am going to check out. If I do not have work before my visitors' visa runs out I may hop a boat for awhile. I have toleave then anyway. Or I may just give up a go back to Ottawa for a visit.
I have decided where I want my life to go now. A new career as a yacht stewardess and a career in diving. With the two skills, I can get work anywhere in the world. That is the plan.
CORRECTION: in my contact information I gave you the wrong country code for the mobile (cellphone). I was still thinking of South Africa which is 27.
The country code for New Zealand is 64. So to call me from outside New Zealand:
'dial' whatever prefix is required to make an overseas call (differs by country) then:
64 211 814 874
WOW! It has been too long since my last entry.
It has been a busy week full of job hunting, resume writing, web surfing, paper reading, etc., etc.
Had my SCUBA class on Thursday night for my Advanced Certification. Was supposed to be going on a weekend of diving to the Poor Knights Islands but the passing of Cyclone Ivy killed that trip. So Dean, the instructor, has agreed to take me to a nearby lake tonight for two of the required dive sign-offs: the navigation dive and another to be determined enroute. Them I will go out on several other dives with them over the next few weeks to get the other 3 required sign-offs. When I have the Advanced certificate I can start working towards an instructor's qualifications. Dive HQ is actually a commercial diving outfit and training facility for commercial divers so I picked the right place to get training. You never know I may even get the commercial diving bug. I've done stranger things in my life.
I have signed on with Camper & Nicholsons in Fort Lauderdale. They are a crew placement agency and as it turns out are currently representing the Captain and Chef of a yacht that I worked on last year. They have the same dream job in mind as I have... crew on a large sailing yacht. The big difference is that they have several years of yacht work experience whereas I am just getting started. So while they can now be choosie I must take whatever I can get. The agent that I had my interview with last Friday spoke with the chef and she says I got a great reference from her. YEAH!! With my great letter of recommendation from a captain plus this verbal reference I am feeling pretty good about my chances.
Of course it is my preference to get ona yacht here in New Zealand but if I must go elsewhere to get the job that will kick-start this new career, well... a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Right!?!
I mentioned that I had asurprise visit with a friend and her husband from Ottawa. Well, they returned from their tour of the North Island on Monday. We met up for another visit and supper on Monday evening. Val had her camera with her this time so I was able to see all their pics from their travels around Sydney and Melbourne, Australia as well as the pics from New Zealand. This has made my desire to travel this country very powerful. It was so nice to have visitors from home and company for a couple of meals. For some strange reason I am feeling more alone on this trip than any before this. Maybe I need a travelling companion now. Being on my own may be starting to wear a little thin. Hmmm!
They called me this Monday afternoon about 4pm just as I was having lunch (I have taken to having slunches [supper-lunch] lately) to invite me out to join them for Thai supper. So, I met them at the visitors' info centre at 6:00 and we took a walk around the harbour so that Val could get some pics then off to the WangThai restaurant for supper. It is an excellent restaurant and we all enjoyed it emmensely. We had a great time. And I got to see the photos... about 450 of them.
After supper I walked them back to their hotel (my bus stops right across the street from it) where we sat for awhile to watch some 'youth' ride a bungy thing that is set up across the street. It is called the Sky Screamer and is a cage with three seats inside. On the sides are attached giant bungy cords that are hanging from two steel towers, one each side. The cage is on a tie-down hook with a lever. The bungies are pulled up to the towers' tops and the lever is pulled to release the cage which shoots straight up then down then up... well you get the idea. The cage careens about out of control for about 5-10 seconds then just bounces around for about 2 minutes before it is lowered to the ground. $30/person, $15 to go a second time. I wouldn't pay more than $15 for the first ride and a second go should be less than half price. The really thrilling part lasts about 2-5 seconds.
Not much else to report. Hope to have more to write about soon as hanging about this city is getting to be a bore and I want to get out to see the countryside. This week I plan to sign up for training to get my basic STCW95 certification. Very pricey but can make all the difference in the world to getting the yacht job of my dreams. The courses are offered both here in Auckland and at a Technical Institute in Warkworth. It may be an opportunity tio get out of the big city. Warkworth is north of Auckland on the Kowhai Coast about halfway to the Bay of Island and Poor Knights' Islands.
Getting out of the city will probably also help this feeling of bored aloneness go away too. As long as I am travelling and seeing new stuff and doing something interesting I don't get that alone feeling.
Gotta go do more job search stuff. Have several calls to make this afternoon to get the forms I need for the courses, etc. Think I'll try having lunch before 4pm today too. Like maybe now at 1:00ish.