You can never have enough...

[Jan]

Good afternoon from soggy Napier - once again the inner city seems to have dodged the bullet we have had nothing more than normal winter rain but the creek down the back is running high because the seas are so high .My brother has lived 25 years at Whirinaki beach and he has never seen the sea so rough or so high - his house is right on the beach but there is quite a steep slope to the actual sea you really puff climbing back up to his house - but it is crashing level with his front deck .The rivers out in the Esk Valley are holding thank goodness - my son with the sawmill in CHB is watching the river very carefully - the half a million remedial work from Gabrielle has just been completed
So sad to wake up this morning to find the 5hree fishermen had died - when they went out early in the morning the marine forecast where they were heading was OK but like so often happens conditions changed very quickly and the sea is not forgiving .My husband always had boats and normally was very careful until one day he made a really stupid decision- we camped at the beach from Labour weekend to Easter on the weekends and through the school holidays - the kids had a wonderful childhood no electricity fishing boating etc etc - my sisters and their families often joined us - one year when it was time to pack up my husband decided to go out and retrieve the crayfish pots - the sea was marginal tougher than he would normally go out - we were all down on the beach waiting for them to come in - her 4 children and mine - we saw them come towards the beach and my husband was rowing - we watched with horror as a wave caught the boat and tipped them out - my husband staggered up the beach and collapsed - we were running towards them but we were a considerable difference away - my oldest son reached the boat and flipped it over my BIL was caught underneath entangled in the ropes etc - we laughed afterwards as he ran like the devil was chasing him - his shorts had come off - so will leave it to your imagination - the motor had been in for a service and they hadn’t put oil in it so it seized .My BIL whose idea of a good holiday was sitting in his deck chair reading the herald never ventured out in the boat again .They were great friends he was diagnosed with terminal cancer the same time my husband was diagnosed - I wish I had recorded some of their conversations over the last six months of their lives .One very interesting one - which they thought I couldn’t hear was about me surviving on my own because I didn’t even know how to change a light bulb which was true - domestication was not my strong suit !