We had a quiet Christmas. Kiwis are not big on Christmas it appears. Christmas in Summer loses something, even for the locals. We love to experience holidays in different countries the way the locals do. Given that NZ is one of the only places in the world right now where they could celebrate as usual, we had high hopes. A little disappointing I have to say. No lights, no big celebrations, parades or festivals. Mall stores are not decorated or playing Christmas music. Christmas lights are wasted because it is not getting dark until about 10 pm. We visited some friends for a couple days and went to a holiday street market. So check and check. We are house sitting a cute little beagle, 2 cats and a cockatiel. So checks in the pet boxes. The beagle is very cute.
Our current housesit is in a nice suburb of Christchurch. It is very near the epicenter of Christchurch’s 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. Actually there are 3 things you are never too far from in New Zealand: 1. Water: the furthest you can be from a sea is about 3.5 hours. But if you are this far from the beach, you are very near a large lake. 2. Sheep. Unless you spend all your time in one of the three big cities in NZ, you will see sheep every day. 3. An earthquake. NZ is a very seismically active place. The two large earthquakes that devastated Christchurch in 2010 and 2011 are not the most recent NZ quakes, just the most infamous.
Near our housesit, there are blocks and blocks, actually miles and miles of greenspace that used to be homes. Thousands of homes are just gone, with no one rebuilding. The streets are crumbling, but still visible and accessible to joggers and dog walkers (i.e. me). Where homes used to be is still roughly apparent by the curb cuts in these streets for the driveways, and straight lines of shrubs. The street we are on is completely fine, but across the street – gone. Like California wildfires, earthquakes are selective with no visible reason as to why one family is spared, but another not. The empty space is called the “red zone”. Currently it is green and dense with ducks; nature is reclaiming this area at an astonishing rate. For more about this area: https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2019/09/christchurch-red-zone-to-green/
The whole time we have been here in NZ a news topic has been around the America’s Cup. When we were in Auckland in February we took a tourist cruise on one of the old America’s Cup boats. The current Team NZ boat was out on the water and cruised right by us (like we were standing dead in the water). The first thing I need to say about the current boats ….is they are no longer boats. They only touch the water at two little points; the whole hull is flying above the water a foot or three. They even have a crew member whose job is “flight controller”. My second observation is that the person that dreamed up these boats did so while sitting near a pond watching water striders. They definitely got the idea from those bugs. The boats look a lot like them. A hybrid of a water strider and a formula 1 race car. Formula 1 teams have been major consultants and partners to these teams.
There was some talk about canceling or postponing the races because of the pandemic. Getting the boats here and the teams through covid managed isolation has been an ordeal. The billionaires that own the boats did not get through managed isolation in time, and now there is no room in the program for them. They probably thought they could buy their way in. But No, NZ did not make an exception for them. They will be watching their boats on TV. The boat has a team of 11 aboard (5 sailors and 6 grinders). But the team is at least another 100 people strong, controlling and analyzing from land.
Well the race is going on. NZ is being a little cheeky flaunting that almost nowhere else in the world can host major events and gatherings right now. We watched the World Series Regata to start the process of the countdown to the America’s Cup. Four boats raced in matches of two over a couple days. This is probably the only time we will see Team New Zealand race until she defends the America’s Cup. The rest of the races are to select the challenger. USA has a boat (New York Yacht Club), Britain has a boat, and the official challenger is Italian (Luna Rossa). In the next month the challengers will race to see which boat will go against Team New Zealand for the America’s Cup race in March. It was a wild couple days of sport as we watched these teams try to wrestle these fast, fragile boats around the bay. They are clearly just finding their way. In the old days, the challenger to the cup had to travel (under its own sail) to the location of the holder to place the challenge. This would never be possible today; no way are these boats appropriate for the open oceans. If you can catch some coverage of the races, tune in. The earlier ones will probably be most entertaining. Right now, Team NZ looks without peer. But the other teams can improve quickly as they learn the ways of Auckland Bay and the wind, and dial in their boats.
Holiday cheer all around.