Our time in New Zealand was rapidly drawing to a close. But before we could sail north for another cruising season in the South Pacific, there were a couple of things left on our New Zealand to-do list. Little Dipper (our tender) needed some TLC, there w...
It's always awesome whenever we have guests come visit. And when those guests happen to be two lovely ladies, it's doubly awesome! Our friends Liz and Breena were on a New Zealand tour and joined us for an incredible week in the Bay of Islands.
The firs...
What’s this?! An Out Chasing Stars channel trailer?? Well, we figured after almost three years of making videos, it was about time!
Meet Amy and David. We’re a couple of modern day adventurers who sold everything, bought a boat and are sailing arou...
Back to the boat meant back to work and there was a lot to get done in order to prep Starry Horizons for another season of cruising. Our goal was to tackle as many projects by ourselves as we could. So we did big projects like new bottom paint and lots o...
This is it. The final part of our New Zealand road trip. Fortunately, we end things with a bang, visiting the Weta Workshop in Wellington and then continuing up north to have a romantic Valentine's Day dinner (Amy's choice!) with all our hobbit friends a...
The weather was getting a bit too cold for our liking, so rather than continuing south, we cut over to the east side of the South Island. First stop was in Christchurch where we got to see an awesome museum exhibit on the 75 year history of Air New Zealan...
Our New Zealand road trip continues as we take the ferry down to the South Island and explore along the north and west coasts. We do a bit of beginner level fishing (hoping our fishing mojo increases!), see some delicious looking pancake rocks, hike in th...
Rugby... A sport most Americans have heard of but know almost nothing about. We figured being in New Zealand would be the perfect time to fill in this major gap in our sporting knowledge.
First up was a stop at the New Zealand Rugby Museum in Palmerston...
As you may have heard, they did a lot of filming for Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, and one of the most iconic locations was Mt. Doom. So of course we had to go see it.
To get there, you have to hike what is known as the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. It...
With Starry Horizons safe and sound on the hard, we traveled back to the US for the holidays, visiting friends and family. We even ran into a few celebrities! ;)
Once we returned to New Zealand, we decided that it was time to explore a country by land. ...
After arriving in New Zealand, we spent a few days working on projects before setting out for Whangarei. We had a bit of time before our scheduled haul out so we elected to make a few stops along the way. The best of which was in Tutukaka harbour where w...
The time had finally come to leave Fiji and set sail down to New Zealand. This passage is notorious for being rough and it certainly didn't disappoint. For the first three days we bashed through big seas and strong winds which took a toll on both boat an...
Now that we were sans guests, we had a little bit more exploring of Fiji to do. We found the beautiful Navadra island, complete with the only inhabitants: rogue goats. We were completely mystified as to how they ended up there, and the goats themselves w...
We always love it when friends and family come to visit, and Fiji was a (relatively) easy spot for them to get to. This episode is when David's brother Thomas came for a stay aboard!
The Yasawa Group of Fiji was beckoning and we were glad to answer the c...
With our friend Kyle still aboard, we set sail down to an area of Fiji known as the Astrolab Reef. It wasn't a long sail, but Kyle proved to be just the good luck charm we needed to end our fishing drought as he reeled in a delicious mahi-mahi.
The Astro...
Our friend Kyle flew out from the US to come visit, and he came with quite an itinerary. The first part of his trip saw us exploring the largest island of Fiji: Viti Levu. We visited museums, learned the proper “Fijian Style” technique for diving off...
On the morning of October 9th, 2016 as we sailed within Fiji, we crossed over 178° 50.275E. That officially marked our arrival halfway around the world from La Rochelle, France! We were pretty proud of that accomplishment and still can't believe how luc...
On our passage from Tonga to Fiji we hooked a lot of marlin. Notice I didn't say we CAUGHT a lot of marlin. Over 3 days, we had 5 hook ups and lost all of them, along with 3 lures. Professional deep sea fishermen we are not. Watch, learn from our mistak...
In Tonga, we got to experience one of the most amazing things we've ever done in our lives: swim with humpback whales. We'd organized a tour with a local dive company (it's illegal to swim with them on your own) and got incredibly lucky as we found a moth...
After enjoying a great beach bonfire with other cruisers in Port Maurelle, Tonga, it was time to go explore more of the Vava'u group. We started out with a bit of on the water exploration via kayak and an amazing snorkel. But what really impressed us was...
It was a fairly short sail over to Tonga and after clearing into the country and taking care of the important essentials (like internet and ingredients for favorite drinks) we wasted no time in heading over to an anchorage called Port Maurelle. We had sev...
While we sailed across the Pacific, we heard about the Niue Whale Research Project. They were looking for volunteer boats to assist in their observations of humpback whales off the coast of Niue and we immediately knew we wanted to volunteer. Unfortunate...
Niue, nicknamed the Rock of Polynesia, was one of our favorite destinations. After arriving, we set out on a FULL day's drive completely around the island. I had to remember to drive on the wrong (aka the left) side of the road, but we managed to make it...
After our our 6ish day passage from French Polynesia, we found ourselves in the magical place known as Beveridge Reef. Well, being anchored in the middle of the Pacific all by ourselves was magical. Getting stung by a Man o' War jellyfish? That SUCKS!
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