P&ME Odyssey

  Auckland New Zealand is known as the "City of the Sails".  One thrid of all households own a boat.  There are two harbors.  The city has hosted two America's Cup challenges and won the last one. Go Kiwis.                                                                  Docking this morning the ship was pointed directly downtown.  And this is not a working port, so we were free to come and go all day long.                                                                                 Ready for our last day.   Here is sailing boat for the morning, a 1995 America's Cup sail boat, with crew waiting for us - 30 newbie sailors.  It didn't look like we would fit...but we did. Captain Julia has been sailing and racing for years.  She knew what she was doing directing the 4 crew members, and the 30 of us.                                                                            Best excursion ever I loved it! Getting out of the harbor meant dodging ferries.  At one poi

 I try to select the best photo of the day to start the blog.  Here is a Maori warrier as they reenacted the ceremony checking out and then welcoming strangers to their land.  We traveled inland for about 1.5 hours to get to the Maori Center and Geothermal fields.  The crowd of about 100 was silent as this chief showed just how fierce and brave he was. The Mars' fog horn sounded most of the night, the fog was heavy.  I'm glad we have have seen only a few ships through our travels less to run into in the fog.... We docked this morning at 9:30 facing an extinct volcano Mt. Manganui.  This is a popular tourist area, it is Sunday and the beaches were bustling.  There were surfers, swimmers (NO jelly fish here - the waters are too cold), hikers (around the base or to the top of Mt. Manganui) and coffee drinkers.                                                        We are in the Bay of Plenty, named by James Cook.                                                        Our tour was