Just Thoughts ...

A friend of mine mentioned this week that it looked like I would get my fill of beautiful beaches while we are here in New Zealand. I have thought a great deal about that this week and I think that I have an answer.  No, I will never get my fill of the beauties of the sand and the water and the blue sky. Nor will I ever get my fill of the grand mountaints that surround our home in Provo. I am sure I will always be watching for a stunning sunset and an amazing sunrise. I will always find a sense of awe in watching snow fall. They are all signs to me that we have a lovely Father in Heaven.

I think the ocean/bay and sand and sky bring us a renewal of our souls.  We deal all day with ill or sad missionaryes or transgression issues. There is a process required to gain the approvals for a missionary to go home and to authorize travel for them that makes our souls just ache. It brings us a sense of peace and calm as we walk along the water's edge.  Certainly all things testify of a Savior and of His love for us.

So the moral of the story, take time to enjoy that which is of God. Allow the beauties of the earth to calm, heal and renew your soul.

We love you!

Starfish

We walked the beach south of the gannets. We like this beach because it never has anyone on it.  As the other, the tide was way out and so lots of the sand and rocks were exposed.  There is a small cave there that you could walk into and come out 5 minutes later.  I don't like caves so I refrained from doing that.  This is what the beach looked like. There were lots of tide pools and big rocks that were exposed. They were all covered with some sort of very small crustations.  The sand was covered with mussel shells.  

We walked along here and actually got to another beach.  It could still be part of Muriwai beach. It is supposed to be 60 km long and I am not sure where they start measuring.  Then we started to see these neat starfish!

I looked them up and their description fit perfectly what I saw!

One of the hardiest starfish is the reef star, or pātangaroa, which flourishes on the exposed west coasts of both main islands. They are predators of mussels and use the suction feet underneath their arms to pry the mussel shells open. They can reach a span of 35 centimetres.

The life of the Gannet

There was great discussion last night at our senior missionary progressive dinner about the gannets. Some were saying that only the newly hatched birds will migrate to Australia and that the parents stay here just always. I thoughts that they all left but in the spring then only the mature adults return to bred again and that the new ones this year will not return for 4-5 years when they are old enough and mature enough to bred. I have researched it and cannot find any answer. Must not be doing the search correctly but I guess we can just wait 6 weeks and go see who is left.  Anyway, the parents are still there and they are often off fishing and just catching the breeze. Those with a little one have least one parent is still with them.

If I say so myself this is a great photo. You can see so many birds is different stages of their development.  So here goes.  In the upper left corner there is a ball of fluff. This baby bird is relatively newly hatched, it has no feathers and cannot stand up.  Right in the middle on the top is a totally white bird, standing with his beak pointed up. He is the next one in the development process.  Right below him you can see the black feathers under the fluff but he is still all fluffy.  Below him is one that is black underneath but still about 3/4ths fluffy. You cannot see his head because it is on the other side of his body and he is picking off the fluff.  Then to the left there are two birds with black wings. The lower one still has some fluff on his head while the other one doesn't. I think they must have staged this grouping just for us so I would not have to post 5-6 photos for you to see it all.  

I am amazed that at this point they are as big as the parent.  

This is the same bird but here he is exercising his one wing. They do not fly AT ALL until they leave on their maiden voyage for Australia.  Sometimes you would see them flapping both wings but then they would have trouble folding it back up. One would flap about 4 times and then quickly fold up the wings.  Or at least try. 

I did learn that the gannet does not have nostrial holes like say the kiwi. When they are flying and feeding they will fly over water, then do like a kamakazi dive into the water and spear a fish, eat it up and then fly away. They hit the  water at a speed of about a speed of 145 km.  If they had nostrial holes they would drownd from the force of the dive. I thought that was interesting.  

They are very loud and not very pleasant smelling but they are birds.   This is the beach that is south of the gannets. (The other beach on the previous post is north of the gannets).  If you look carefully you will see birds flying. They really just are catching the breeze and are glide on the currents. Such a fun bird to observe. 

Blue Bottte Jellyfish

We went walking on Monday at Muirwai beach. This is where the gannets are. It was almost low tide so there was much to see on the sand and we were able to see and experience things out of the ordinary. There will be several posts here about Monday at the beach.

We were first amazed at the width of the beach when the tide was out. This beach is on the west side of the north island so the water here is the Tasman Sea. It is much shallower than the Pacific side so the water here is more green while the Pacific is blue. The two flags in the middle of the photo mark where people are supposed to  swim and to the right of them you can see the lifeguard station. The flags are usually in the water.  You can also seem a small boat between the flags and the lifeguard station. That is the boat that the lifeguards use to rescue you. So a word to the wise. If you are going to need to be rescued be sure it is during high tide! When you walk on a beach this wide it is hard to lose your persepctive of where you are on the sand. You tend to wander around a bit instead of just being by the water's edge.

These people are taking a surf class from the club that is located right there.  See how shallow the water is?

As we walked this beach we began to see these funny blue things.  This is about the size of a fist. It looks like it should be full of air or water.

This next picture made it evident that it was probably a jellyfish with the blue tennicals streaming out behind it.  We saw probably a hundred of them dead on the beach. They just get stranded in the low tide and so they die.  There are actually two here. They are called blue bottle jellyfish.  They have a sting to them and will leave a welt on the skin. When they are first dead they can also sting you. I am glad I didn't think it was necessary to pick these up. 

To put things in perspective I found a picture of  on swimming in the water. Let's see if I have figured out anything about posting other things to a blog. 

How about that? It shows here. Wonder if it will when it is posted!?!

Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Today is a holiday here in New Zealand. In many ways it is THE holiday of all holidays!  It is Waitangi Day or the day that representatives of the British Crown and Maori Tribes signed a treaty. The treaty was to enable the British settlers and Maori people to live together in NZ under a common set of laws or agreements. The treaty aimed to protect the rights of Maori to keep their lands, forests, fisheries and treasures while handing over sovereignty to the English.

The document recognizes that Maori occupied NZ before British settlment, promises to protect Maori culture and to enable Maori to continue living in NZ as Maori, gives the crown the right to govern and establish laws in the interests of all New Zealanders and gives Maori the same rights and status as British citizens.

There were two copies of the document. One was in English and the other in Maori. Because of differences in language and semantics and all those kinds of things there is still great debate as to what the treaty really means. Not too long ago there was a question of water rights in the northern part of the island and Maori said that this treaty gave them the rights. It is still being debated.

It is interesting to me that they do not refer to the original settlers as "the Maori" but simply as "Maori". They are a beautiful people. A very proud people. They are different as well and are not Tongan or Samoan or Fijian but Maori and they will tell you that.

This history lesson can go on here. In 1975 The Waitangi Tribunal was established. This gives Maori a legal process for the investigation of the rights that they feel are being infringed upon by others. The tribunal will investigate (like the water rights issue I mentioned before) and then they make a recommendation on how the problem can and should be resolved. Side note: the inhabitants of NZ are either Maori or Pakeha (non-Maori).

When we went to Bay of Islands with Nate at Christmas time we tried to go to the museum that is built on the spot where this treaty was signed. It may be an important part of their history but they have bankers hours and were closed by 5 p.m. well before anyone that was enjoyiing the water and sand of the area to visit. So we were at the building but did not manage to get in.  Sorry, no photos to accompany this post.

Takapuna Event

During the spring and summer (and I suppose fall) the little city of Takapuna sponsors what they call "The Event" that takes place each Tuesday night. We were at the beach Tuesday night and did not realize that was why we could not find a parking place until we were there. But persist we did and we finally found a place to put the little auto we drive and walk down to the water. The event is really fun. They have it all set up like a race.

All the events go on at the same time but are staggered start time. They start with a swimming race.  There are two of them. 3000 meters (1.86 miles) and 5000 meters (3.1 miles). They have bouys in the ocean so you don't get lost. Most of them were wearing wet suits but a few braved it without. When they registered they were given a white swimming cap that they wore and when they came back in they gave them the cap back. That was how they knew if they were all in.  There was a lifeguard boat out in the water and you could see them picking up people all the time.  Only once did they come right back in immediately with whomever they rescued but then they went back out. 

These were some of the first that came in. They were fun to watch as they would dive over the waves as they came in and then kind of duck walk/run to get through the water. Then they would sprint up the boat dock and through the arches for their time.  In the distance here you can see the stand-up paddlers. 

They were all wearing orange lifevests.  They also had bouys to follow and they went out and then in and out and in again.  Not sure how far it was but they too would get their boards to the beach and then drop the paddle and run to the arch to get their time.  

The least exciting was the run. I am not sure how many ran but it had to be in the hundreds and they were all ages from very old to very young. Some dads were going slowly so they could keep with their kids but some of the kids, maybe 7-12 just took off and ran. It was to the south end and then back to the north end and then back to center. They all had on orange tank tops. I could see many of the grandkids out there just giving it their all to participate.

All is all it was fun to see. We walked for about an hour but then it got exciting and we just kind of stood and watched. Turned out well since Dad had to take a phone call or two during that time.  

Auckland Day

Last Monday, 28 January was Auckalnd Day. Everyone had told us that the harhour would be filled with sail boats and that we did not want to miss it. We made plans to go to the Anderson's apartment so we would have a bird's-eye view of the event. Elder and Sister Watson and Sister Hamula and her one son came. (They are in the area presidency.) We had a lovely breakfast of french toast, scrambled eggs, bacon and fruit. I think we can all say that that was the highlight of the day. Actually we were all a bit disappointed with the sails but what we did see was fun.

It started off with a tugboat race. I suppose you could ask the question: how exciting could that be but there were so many different tugs. Here are just a few pictures.

I loved this one. This was the very smallest one. I seem to think there was a story once about a tug boat maybe called Scuffy or somehting like that.  

There were several that looked just like this one.  And they were all the same size too.  The black thing on the top is a water hose. It spraying water for awhile later on in the day.  

This was the biggest of them all and by a large measure.  It was also the most decorated and seemed to have lots of people riding it as well.  Later on in the morning all the tugs were in demand to move out a large navy ship.  

But we had come for the sails so here are a few pictures of some of them.  

You can see the marina in the background. Now if all those boats had been out sailing it would have been a sight to behold. This is just a sampling of what we saw. I really liked the one right in the center.  

This one on the right was fun to watch. He would did wheelies in the water and you could see the wake he left behind, usually a perfect circle. You can just see a bit of it there.

This one just looked really interesting to me. It seems to have more sails than some of the others.  As we have watched people take their small boats or wind sails out of the water at Takapuna we have realized that to own a boat like this is a huge commitment. They can spend over a hour putting it all away and rolling up the sails etc.  Lovely to look at but to own?  Probably not!