13 March - 11 April 2023 New Zealand, Northern California, Netherlands, and Cergy FR Well, we are back aboard Moondance again. We are happy to have arrived and we recently heard that we have secured a mooring for next winter at the Port Arsenal in Paris. This means we will be away from Australia for about 18 months. We left Melbourne on the 13th of March, and it has been over 4 weeks of travel to get here. Moondance after being washed down Our first stop was New Zealand where we caught up with friends and family who we mostly hadn't seen in person since before COVID. We first spent time with our good friends Pete and Wendy who recently purchased a property in Stanmore Bay, about 40 minutes north of Auckland. This included an overnight trip on their yacht. We also visited Howard's brother Vince and his family in their new place in Matakana. Luckily their eldest Shinead, who is training for the police force, was home for the weekend. Vince’s wife Shannon is starting to sell flowers – mostly Dahlias - and asked me to take photos. She had some lovely blooms even though it is late in the season. Howard took a side trip – he flew to Wellington to see his son Chris and his family, and then borrowed a car and drove to Hawkes Bay to see his sister Hazel and her husband Mark, and then to Wanganui to catch up with old friends. In the meantime, Deb spent a couple of extra days with Pete and Wendy and then flew to San Francisco where she has many close friends from her days at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Deb stayed with Karen in Mountain View and Hilary in San Anselmo, both of whom shared a house with Deb back in Stanford days. She also went to a small brunch at Corinnes place. The main reason for going to the USA was to attend and help out at Deb's close friend Janet's wedding, so on Monday the 27th Deb went to Sandy’s place in Point Arena (about 3 hours north of San Francisco) where the wedding was to be held the following Sunday. Sandy is also one of the group of good friends who met at Stanford. Her house and garden are stunning. The same day as I went to Point Arena, Howard flew into San Francisco. Our good friends Junona and Bruce looked after Howard with hospitality that will be hard to match. On Friday Howard, the groom Peter and the other husbands drove up together to Point Arena to join Deb and the others. We jokingly called this Peter's Bachelor Party. That night, for the first time since business school, our group with husbands were together. It was a lovely evening. Eliza, Rachel, Sandy, Janet, Peter, Howard, Jim, Jen, Shawn Deb had a great week at Frogsong, spending time with great friends and helping out with the wedding preparations as well as on the day of the wedding. Helping did, of course, include taking photos of the wedding (most of which still need to be processed). On the Monday we returned to San Francisco and spent some time with Junona and Bruce and on our last day we visited Alcatraz, which is on a former prison on small island in San Francisco Bay. On Thursday 6th April Junona and Bruce kindly dropped us at the airport. Deb w Junona and Bruce We flew to the Netherlands in time for Easter. Firstly, we visited Leona and Jean-Marie in Lelystad. They have magnificent views over the harbour. Leona had arranged a special lunch for us on the Saturday. We thought we were going to a restaurant, but instead we went to a marina. There we were invited to lunch on Bob’s boat La Chouette. Bob’s new partner Carole, used to moor near us in Ieper and she and her then partner Barrie became good friends so we were delighted to see her after 3 and a half years, and it was great to see that she was so happy and settled with Bob (after Barrie died in an accident in Ieper Port duringa storm). We had a lovely lunch on board La Chouette catching up on all the news and just enjoying being back together again. What a lovely surprise Leona and Carole had arranged for us. From Lelystad we went down to Schiedam (near Rotterdam) where we had rented a Bed and Breakfast for 2 nights, and we visited with Ruud and Petra in Hoogvliet. On the Monday we also visited the lovely gardens at Keukenhof. On the 11th of April we finally caught the train to Paris, and picked up a hire car, arriving at the port in the afternoon. We were very happy with the state of the boat. Inside was dry, not very dusty and very few spiders (maybe the Conkers work!). Outside it needed a good wash, but otherwise Moondance was in good condition. We have a few jobs to do before we set off and we are expecting our mechanic to come and do some of these on Saturday. Foot Update Unfortunately, despite various visits and best efforts of a range of western health professionals (sports medicine, orthopaedic surgeon, physiotherapist and pediatrist) over the Australian summer, my foot was a lot worse, and I started to have the same problem in the other foot as well. We ended up hiring a wheelchair, and I was only leaving the house either in a wheelchair or a car. However luckily, I did finally find an acupuncturist-Chinese/Japanese medicine practitioner who did make some significant improvements (Thanks Rebecca). I only had 6 weeks with her before I left but was feeling quite optimistic. Of course, with travel etc I have used my feet a lot so have gone backwards a bit, but hopefully it will settle down and start improving again with the regime I have in place. Stay tuned. Moxa treatment
1 Comment
Karen Melchior
23/4/2023 07:16:18 am
Love the stories, Deb and Howard! The photos of bulbs and dahlias make me swoon! Many thanks for sharing your adventures with us! Hope your foot improves. xx oo
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