When we camped at the marina in Gulf Harbour, north of Auckland a few weeks ago I sat on the green and admired the sandstone fang jutting up out of the steel grey sea and the shimmering skyline of the city in the distance, across the bay. Little did I know that two short weeks later I’d be straddling the starboard edge of a cockpit bent hard over a winch.

Rhonda has been collecting our mail for several weeks. She and her family are Americans, but have been living in Gulf Harbour for the better part of a dozen years. We’ve only met just over 30 hours ago, but it feels like we’ve been friends for a very long time. Rhonda, very graciously, hosted a BBQ last night that included us and a couple of other traveling families: Ruth Anne and Bill and their boys are in the midst of a round the world year, and sadly flew out toward South America early this morning. Unbeknownst to me, our kids are already friends! They’re in the same Wandering Educators class and have been corresponding for the better part of a year. Theresa and Landon and their lovely boys are Canadian and will be in NZ for a few more weeks and we’re hoping to connect again.

There were ten tweens and teens in the house last night.

A prodigious number of sausages were consumed, a rousing game of Monopoly played and some rather serious debates about the physics of the fight between wizards ensued between the fifteen year old boys. It was one of those beautiful evenings where a whole room full of kids who live in the same, albeit weird, world collide and the parents have as much fun as the young people do.

We planned to camp in Rhonda and Jeff’s yard. Which the children are doing, but they’ve installed us in the spacious guest room in their basement and are insisting we stay the weekend so that the girls can make the most of the time. We were planning on getting out of their hair the moment our passports arrived back at the US embassy, but everyone is having too much fun.

This evening Rhonda and I went sailing.

And not just cruising around the bay, but racing. She belongs to a female race team that tears around Gulf Harbour every other Wednesday night. As fortune would have it, they were short one in their crew this evening, so I made the cut.

The race was a tight one. We didn’t make the most graceful start, but the boat, Raitea leaned over hard and pulled for the first orange buoy, quickly stretching ahead of both Glory Days and Euphoria. We had to tack at the last second before rounding the first buoy, which cost us some time, and we crept along across the wind on the second leg of the triangle-sausage course.

We were first round the second marker as well but then Glory Days tucked in behind us and scooped our wind passing us on the port side. The bigger, faster boat leapt out ahead as we jockeyed to put ourselves in their position and steal their wind instead.

We crossed the finish line with a 36 second lead, cinching first place just as the sun dipped below the jagged crest of the cliffs and lay in long, golden bands across the surface of the sea.

Charcoal coloured sea birds lifted off and touched down all around us and I took advantage of the slower pace of the post-win sailing to study the coast and realized that this is how my brother first saw New Zealand when he was making his coastal run up to Whangerai, where he moored his boat while he explored the island. I wished he could have been along for the sail, to tell me his stories and help me crank faster when my weight against the winch pulling out the last reef in the sail was barely enough to keep the sail creeping upward against the force of the wind. He’s got stronger arms that I do.

We sat on the deck and sipped bourbon and coke out of plastic glasses and watched the stars pull back the blue blanket and peer with shining eyes down upon our victory. Orion winked at me, as he always does, and I took a deep breath of cool, salt air and a snapshot of a moment I felt very privileged to share.