Sunday, March 23, 2008

Tom and Merrie are here




Tom and Merrie are here. They got a thorough briefing on the boat. Tom learned how to drive the boat in and out of the slip, then we decided to travel north to Mahurangi Harbour, we tried to fish for red snapper, which everyone says are easy to catch, but have only caught some shakers so far.
We walked on beautiful Kauwau Island from School House Bay where we overnighted last night aboard the 4-star HMS Caprice to Mansion House... a lovely walk through a New Zealand forest of ferns and firs.
Then we sailed with the main and spinnaker sails flying... we were screaming across the Hauraki Gulf back to Bayswater Marina... and the boat was perfectly flat..

We are sitting across from the Auckland cityscape enjoying a glass of New Zealand wine and anticipating and Easter dinner of roast New Zealand lamb, cauliflower, butternut squash followed by a rousing game of up and down gin! Life is good...

Cheers to all of you!
Merrie, Tom, Carol and Dan
The motley crew of Caprice!
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About Me

1291 Sanderling Island, Pt. Richmond, CA 94801, United States
Dan and Carol Seifers

Crazy

Crazy Caprice, or what

Like is so good to us. At 65, after 15 years of retirement, my wife, Carol and I have everything one could want Good health (for old folks), loving children ( one son and his wife Jenny is marvelous), wonderful grandchildren (one age 6 and one age 4, who have a remarkable ability to totally exhaust us in about 4 - 6 hours), a good home. Wonderful friends. What more could one want?

Then we were casually cruising in the Delta ( area between Sacramento and San Francisco) last summer with the Richmond Yacht Club Cruising Group. Life was serene, life was comfortable, and then it happened - WHAM - we saw a cruising catamaran tied up at the Rio Vista marina with a sign in the window which listed its adventures. Starting in Australia, across to New Zealand, up to Tahiti, over to Hawaii and on the the West Coast. What an adventure!!! That’s when Carol started thinking about the possibility of buying a new boat (we already had a Gemini 34’ cruising catamaran - life was good). Then sailing in Sydney basin for a few months, then either shipping it to California or sailing it across the South Pacific to California. Is she CRAZY?

That started our CRAZY file.

Over the next few months, she started feeding me articles about Australia, New Zealand, and multihulls. She even subscribed to Multihull magazine and would place various articles about sailing in the South Pacific under my nose while I was reading the morning paper.
She became obcessed. A devil (Tasmanian?) had her. Then around Christmas time, the bug really bit me. We were perfectly happy with our boat, but the idea of getting a new one (with all the new toys) and visiting “down under” seemed very appealling. A friend loaned me all his books on New Zealand and Australia, and the more read, the more I becaume enthralled with the idea