Last night we had a wonderful expat Thanksgiving at Lin and Larry Pardey’s place up on Kawau Island. Larry, originally from Canada, and Lin from the US, have cruised extensively all over the world, and now (when not cruising elsewhere) split their time between summers here in New Zealand and summers in the Pacific Northwest. (Hmmm, I _like_ that idea!) They have been an inspiration of mine for a simpler, more self-sufficient lifestyle ever since I read “The Self-Sufficient Sailor” many years ago. We met on Bainbridge this past summer (in the States) before we came down, when we bought them dinner in trade for hearing all about New Zealand.
Anyway, we were originally planning to go up in the morning and spend the day exploring the island, since it is an historic reserve with a historic mansion, walking trails, wallabies and kiwi birds. Alas, after a week of sunshine, we awoke to what could be a late November day back in the Northwest – cold, pouring rain, blowing winds. So, we had a nice lazy day inside – Cindy and Max put up some Christmas decorations, while I caught up on paperwork a bit – then we bought tickets to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire the next day, then headed up north an hours drive to Sandspit, where you catch a ferry or water taxi to Kawau.
Well, it was blowing spray over the road, and pretty impressive waves rolling into the shore! The water taxi was probably about 20+ feet (~7 meters), and it was quite a ride pounding our way for about 45 minutes through the waves as we crossed to Kawau! Once in the lee of the island, it was much more pleasant as we made one quick pickup in Schoolhouse Bay, then were dropped off at the Pardey’s wharf in North Cove.
Lin and Larry have remodeled an old bach (beach house) into a snug home, which for the evening fit probably close to 30 people along a long row of tables for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, replete with turkey (special order down here!), mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce! And plenty of wine and good conversation. The half of the guests that I managed to meet were all wonderful, and quite a few lived on Kawau either full time, or splitting their time between island life and city life. We met a couple other expat Americans, one with a farm (and boat yard?) up in the Bay of Islands, and one who left the high-tech boom in Silicon Valley to sail around the world, and ended up meeting his wife along the way, and now living on Kawau with a beautiful baby daughter. He works as one of two software developers for the Team New Zealand yacht, and unfortunetly I didn’t get to talk with him as much as I wanted to. Another couple had spent 8 years sailing around the world, and their daughter, now 20, is in her 3rd (or 4th?) year of medical school. We met a photographer who has two new books coming out, and has a son who has similar interests with Max, so we’re going to get them together at some point. And we met many others! I hope to get back up there in nicer weather, so we can explore the island more, and perhaps run into some of these people again!
We left a bit early (sorry to miss dessert!), but didn’t want to be too late as Max had his Japanese Sword class the next morning. We rode the water taxi back with a father and son who had come over earlier on the same taxi as us to visit someone else in North Cove taxi over – Turns out he’s an architect, so we enjoyed chatting about that a bit (since my father and grandfather were architects, and Max is interested in architecture!), and enjoying the incredibly smooth and fast ride back! (The wind had died down, and we were riding along with the waves.)
Many thanks to Lin and Larry for such a wonderful evening!
Excerpted from Lin and Larry’s page (You can just spot Max and us in the background):
“Whenever we are at our New Zealand home during November, our friends have come to expect an American Thanksgiving dinner. This year was no exception. We expected about 22 guests, but at the last moment another 6 showed up. The weather was horrible, storm force winds and rain so we all jammed in to the front room of my 600 square foot cottage and devoured two 18-pound turkeys. Couldn’t have been more fun.”
