Lots of Fishing

The past couple of weeks in New Zealand have not produced very good weather for Dave. While the weather may not be the best, the fishing has been better. Dave was out fishing on a day charter last week and caught two striped marlins. One was around 200 pounds and the other about 250 pounds. The customers, along with Dave, were very excited. This weekend Dave is in the Truckers and Loggers Tournament with 4 customers. They are hopping to catch stripped marlin and maybe even a blue marlin. They will be out for 4 days and return on Sunday. We will hope for the best!

Dave's out fishing and Jill's in Florida

Jill has made it safely back to the US and spent the week with her parents. The flights went well, but she almost missed the second flight due to a delay on the first. She arrived home safely, but missing one piece of luggage, which the airline delivered the next day. The week back with family has been really enjoyable. Jess and Roger flew down from Boston and Aunt Sandy and Morgan drove up from Melbourne. Jenn and Ben were able to go out to Hilliard for the day on Saturday, so with the exception of Jacq we had a small family reunion. While Jill is almost acclimated back to the states, she did drive on the wrong side of the road today. Oops. Just a little more time and everything will be second nature again. Dave arrived back to the dock in New Zealand on Thursday after being out for 5 days. The trip went well, but they didn't make it to The Three Kings as planned. The two couples on board didn't want to get rocked around to much on the boat, so because of the weather they decided to stay in the bay area. They did do some snapper fishing and king fishing and caught some of each. Dave had a great time with the charter and with Barnaby (the captain) and Miranda (the other deck hand). He heads back out on Friday for a couple more days in the bay area. A few more weeks of fishing and that will wrap up Dave's time in New Zealand. In one months time Dave will be back in Key West.

Jill's Heading Home

This last week has flown by for us. We have been busy visiting with everyone and saying goodbye to Jill. Tuesday we cooked dinner at Barnaby and Miranda's house and stayed up late into the night having a good ol' time. Dave and I were the chefs, since Barnaby is on crutches from his wakeboarding experience with us last week. We grilled steaks, had a yummy dinner, drank a few beverages, spent a bit of time in the hot tub, and let loose. It was a great night, but we were certainly hurting the next day. On Wednesday night we had dinner upstairs with our landlords. Gill cooked a wonderful meal of lancashire hotpot, with additional sides of green beans and cauliflower covered in cheese sauce. It was a super delicious english meal which consists of lamb covered in sliced potatoes with veggies all in one pot cooked slowly over several hours. Then for desert we had a wonderful pavlova which Gill also made. Thursday we spent the day cleaning, packing, and running errands. Then we went out to dinner, just the two of us, at PureTastes. It was a very nice final dinner for us together. We did their tasting menu, which is multiple courses of small portions. Yum! Now, it is Friday morning and in just a few short hours we will be driving to Auckland to the airport. We are both going to miss each other terribly for the next month, but Dave will be so busy fishing and Jill will be so busy visiting family and getting settled back into life, that time should fly by. Dave has a very busy fishing schedule, with several multi day trips, which he is very excited about. He leaves first thing Saturday morning to head to The Three Kings for 5 days on the water. Bon Voyage Jill!

Just a Saturday in NZ

We started Saturday off by heading into town first thing in the morning to rent a boat for a few hours to get out on the water. But, because of the predicted storm, the rental company had taken all of their boats out of the water. Bummer. Even though the weather was forecasted to be really crappy, it was a pretty nice day other than a bit of wind. We went to the beach for a couple of hours and then decided to go rock fishing with our friend Dan, who works the local kayak/hobie cat rental place. We got all of our supplies and headed across the bay via vehicle ferry from Opua to

Russell. We drove thru some backroads and crossed over to the coast to Taupiri Bay. We found a great spot close to a small beach to park the car where we didn't have to far to walk to the water. Dan and Dave went out in the kayak to find a good rock to fish from. Dave returned to the beach to pick Jill up along with the rest of the gear we needed to bring out to the rocks. Our spot wasn't to far from land, so it was perfect to have the kayak to maneuver around rocks and cross the small amount of ocean. We set up shop and started fishing. All three of us had a really great time out on the rocks. The scenery was beautiful. The weather was cooperating fairly well (few spots of light rain passed us). We had great company. And we caught a few fish! Both Dave and Dan both lost several nice running fish by break offs on the rocks, but they were good sports about it. We had Dan's contour video recorder with us, so of course we were goofing off and making some good shots for the camera. We ended the day with a few

snappers to take home, and we also threw back an eel, a small king fish, and a couple small snappers. The paddle back to the beach was amazing, the tide was low so we crept thru some really shallow passages over and between huge rocks. The water was so super clear. The sun was down, so in the dim light the water was beautiful. We packed the car up and started back home. On our hour drive thru the back roads, we were keeping our eyes open for possums. In New Zealand possums are an introduced species, and are a huge threat to many of New Zealand's flightless birds. Because there are no real predators in the country like there are in the states, the possums multiple like crazy creating a huge problem for many birds. It is very common when out hiking to see many traps set out for animals such as possums by the Department of Conservation to reduce the number of possums. So, every kiwi (New Zealander) is always ready and willing to hit possums with their cars to get rid of them. In fact, they really try hard to run them over when they see them in the road. On our drive home Saturday night we were able to reduce the possum population by two. We actually pulled over and plucked the fur from the bodies of the possums because it is extremely valuable for making clothing. Keep in mind these possums are not like the ones in the states. There fur is super soft and is mixed with merino wool to make very nice, expensive jackets, sweaters, scarves, etc. I know this may sound a little harsh, but its all in the experience of living in New Zealand. New Zealanders do not like possums, even though the ones here are pretty cute. So that was our fun-filled Saturday night in New Zealand!

Leap Day

Wednesday Feb 29th we went out with Barnaby and Miranda on their boat for a bit of fun. Barnaby is the captain on Libertas (the 60 ft boat Dave is working on for the remainder of his time here), and his wife Miranda is the first mate. We have really enjoyed getting to know them and spending time with them, as they share most of the same passions as we do. We drove the boat by the owner of Libertas' property, which was beautiful. One of the caretakers was there and offered for us to take his car and tour the property. It was a treat to be able to go on this immaculate couple hundred acres of professionally manicured waterfront property with multimillion dollar homes. After wiping the drool from our chins, we continued on our boating adventure by doing a bit of fishing around the black rocks. Then we beach hopped for a bit on a couple different islands. We drove into a nice protected bay and the boys did some wakeboarding before continuing on home. We had a really fun day out on the boat, except Barns really hurt his knee wakeboarding and had to limp off the boat with Dave's help. Hopefully he isn't hurt to bad. After returning home, we went over to our neighbors Di and Davids'

house for a dinner party with our landlords and other neighbors. Di and David are from England, so they treated us to a spectacular homemade english dinner of roast beef and yorkshire pudding. We, of course, enjoyed several bottles of wine along with our dinner and delicious desert. It was a great Leap Day!