Sat, 19 July 2003
Greetings to Everyone --
We apologize for our lack of communication with many of you since mid-November last year. We are alive and well, recently returned back to Altair in Auckland where it is winter and a bit chilly. As some of you know, we returned home to Seattle mid-February as Paul's father was very ill. We were fortunate in that we arrived home while he was alive but sadly he passed away the end of February. It was so good to be close to family at this difficult time. We stayed for several months to help Paul's mother with all of the various things that needed to be taken care of and to spend some time with Suzette's parents in San Francisco fitting visits with friends in between. We also needed to sort out some of our own projects. We would have loved to have seen more people than we did, but at times circumstances over took us and it was like being caught up in a fast moving river. Some days we found it felt so very different to be back in the United States after an absence of two and a half years, and on other days it felt like we had never left.
We have been back on the boat for a week and are deeply involved with all of the boat projects that we left half completed in February. The chilly winter weather has convinced us to go out and get a heater which is making the boat both warmer and dryer. The weather has been pretty decent for winter with a number of beautiful sunny days (although cold temperature-wise), and other days with rain squalls coming through on a regular basis but so far no days of pouring rain all day. Yet.
As our flights on the way back stopped in Fiji, we decided to stop over for two nights and visited with friends out at Musket Cove, a nice resort that is very welcoming to cruising yachts. It was great to see so many of our cruising friends there plus it reminded us how wonderful cruising is and what it's all about. The stop over gave us motivation to get our projects completed quickly and to get out of town back to our crusing life. Plus it was a nice transition.
It has been good to be back in Auckland catching up with changes over the past five months. The Viaduct Basin area already looks different as one half of the America's Cup syndicate buildings have already be torn down to make way for other things. The remaining compounds (Team New Zealand out to Prada) are all being used for other boating related purposes. It does look a bit different to see some cruising boats on the hard in front of the race syndicate where once only sleek race boats stood. We have been fortunate enough to do a bit of sailing on Bunk Burnett's new Trans Pac 52 that has just been built in New Zealand (designed by Brett Bakewell-White and built by Lloyd Stevenson). The boat is currently in front of the old OneWorld base and it has been a real treat to sail on her. Plus fun to be out on the boat with both the designer and builder.
Our plan is to get all of our projects completed and look for a good weather window to head back out to the islands and the tropical warmth for a short cruising season. We hope to be off from New Zealand by the middle of August. The plan is to go to New Caledonia and Vanuatu (previously the New Herbidies) then on to Australia at the end of this year to sit out cyclone season. We plan to be in Australia for perhaps eight months, mainly on the East Coast (hopefully getting as far south as Sydney) then work our way back up the East Coast around the top to Darwin (perhaps) then off sometime in July across the Indian Ocean to South Africa arriving there by the end of the 2004. So for those of you keeping track of our progress on maps, you will start to see some major miles covered in 2004.
We have a new mailing address if you ever want to send us anything. A friend forwards our mail to us ever month or so.
Paul Baker / Suzette Connolly
2442 NW Market Street, #495
Seattle, WA 98107 USA
Please stay in touch -- hugs -- Suzette and Paul