I must be getting old :-)

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There I was anchored in West Bay, Rakino Island minding my own business, reading a good book & this ‘thing’ slides into the bay & almost anchors on the beach. At a guess 7>10 on board + a cat. Now that black box below the wind generator is a commercial (band) size speaker i.e. loud – VERY LOUD 😦

In the old days someone would have put a bullet thru it 😉

So folks if ‘Prickety Witch’ makes an appearance in your bay – might be time to move on or find the gun.

ps now if they had been playing Van Morrison , I wouldn’t have minded 🙂

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27 thoughts on “I must be getting old :-)”

  1. Pickety witch has new owners now so if your gonna shoot you be a good shot.. I’m not the sort to tolerate any poor marksmanship!

    That was 7 years ag0. Hopefully you have better taste in music and the volume its played at 🙂 Alan H

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  3. Had a similar experience last evening, there was a dreadful noise -I hesitate to call it music emanating from an old boat on the Milford hardstand covered with a big PVC cover. How the occupant was working with this racket is quite beyond me,
    Disturbed of Milford

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  8. Love that story!
    It is remarkably uncool to blast your fellow yachties with music they may not particularly like, at volumes which are offensive and at times when they would prefer sleep. It’s arrogant mind-gaming.
    Oddly enough, I have found that almost zero people at anchorages enjoy 1930s Duke Ellington as much as I do, so tend to keep the great music inside the cabin (where I am) and inaudible outside. I’m certain they would not understand (and might even object to) my taste in music imposed on them at the 1000 watts which Pickety Witch’s speaker would appear to be rated at.
    Who Van Morrison?

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  9. Hey All,

    I am the villain in question , Craig Koning.

    You are quite correct Murray, ‘Pickety Witch’ (the Author may need his eyes checked, there is no ‘r’) has done around 24,000 passage miles in total. She was a protest vessel against the Mururoa French Nuclear testing in 1995 and was build by Spencer himself. I have put about 1600nm off shore passage miles on her and have the logbooks going back to the ’70’s.

    I purchased ‘Pickety Witch’ in 2014 and captained her to Tonga. Over the following five months I had 8 different crew as we explored remote islands and gave away our hold full of charitable supplies. It was quite a mission living on such a small vessel and trying to conduct sampling work and keeping a schedule but we managed and had a great time doing so, until the engine died and I had to install a new one in Tonga (quite a mission for someone who in the past has been more academically inclined).

    Last year (2015 for those of you for whom time flies past so fast the years get mixed up) I took up a bunch of medical supplies and ran a medical training project in a remote island while captaining a 37 foot trimaran. No funding, ran myself broke which is why P.W. hasn’t got a nice new paint job this year.

    This year I will be returning to complete three more medical training projects. I also have a tentative Micronesia research project later in the year.

    All these things require funding. On this particular day at Rakino island I was courting some young chaps from San Fransisco, one of which might be able to fund one of the missions after selling his company for an undisclosed 9 figure sum.
    On this particular day I believe we played music on our departure and arrival only, considering we were picnicking on the beach.
    Also love Van Morrison!

    I am out on P.W. very often so please if you would like to come over for a yarn and a tea/coffee please do. I am a firm believer in the sea community, something I find lacking in Auckland area. In other Pacific Islands, the community coalesces around a radio net, such as in Vava’u on channel 26.
    North of B.O.I. I like to row to neighboured boats for a chat and in the mornings barter with home made bread.

    Thanks Jason for pointing out my role in helping in Great Barrier Island this year. I helped several boats re-anchor after midnight. It is difficult to gain ones bearings after a 90 degree wind shift and being rudely awoken at 1am by a power vessel hitting your vessel. Since I was out checking on the 10 or so friends boats I knew all the free anchor spots, I guided a few boats to such spots. I also made some sweet black tea and brought it around to all the captains on watch in the wind and rain at 3am. I’ll save the stories about boarding yachts to wake up the crew for another time.

    Anyway. Hope to meet you in person Alan and have a good laugh over a sunny beer mate.

    Cheers,

    Craig Koning

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  11. One night at Happy jack off Coromandel we shared a bay with a trawler. A similar boat with a good stereo arrived and ‘entertained’ us until 3 am. Shortly afterwards the trawler picked up their anchor and towed them several miles out to sea on their way to the fishing grounds. We celebrated with them the following evening.

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  14. Pickett Witch must have new owners – she used to be owned by a respectable looking mature couple and was berthed at Pine Harbour.

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  15. I am a Seenager. (Senior teenager)

    I have everything that I wanted as a teenager, only 60 years later.
    I don’t have to go to school or work.
    I get an allowance every month.
    I have my own pad.
    I don’t have a curfew.
    I have a driver’s license and my own car.

    I have ID that gets me into bars and the wine store. I like the wine store best.
    The people I hang around with are not scared of getting pregnant, they aren’t scared of anything, they have been blessed to live this long, why be scared
    And I don’t have acne.
    Life is Good! Also, you will feel much more intelligent after reading this, if you are a Seenager.

    Brains of older people are slow because they know so much. People do not decline mentally with age, it just takes them longer to recall facts because they have more information in their brains, scientists believe
    this also makes you hard of hearing as it puts pressure on your inner ear.

    Much like a computer struggles as the hard drive gets full, so too, do humans take longer to access information when their brains are full.

    Researchers say this slowing down process is not the same as cognitive decline. The human brain works slower in old age, said Dr. Michael Ramscar, but only because we have stored more information over time. The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more.

    Also, older people often go to another room to get something and when they get there, they stand there wondering what they came for. It is NOT a memory problem, it is nature’s way of making older people do more exercise.

    SO THERE!!

    I have more friends I should send this to, but right now I can’t remember their names. So, please forward this to your friends; they may be my friends, too.

    and finally,

    Happy 2016,
    Tom.

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  16. I think almost everyone has a story such as this. Ours was in North Harbor, just on dusk, a 40ish foot gin palace nosed in to almost on the beach, put the speakers out on the deck, wound up the stereo and went inside to play cards and drink. Went on till at least 3 or 4 am.
    Have since talked to a cop who said to call noise control, they have to deal with it; for which I guess the coast guard guys get the call. Have never been so close to cutting an anchor line!

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  19. Yep and some of those Spencer 30’s from the seventies have done some miles, witness Cameo and this one by the sound of it. I think Alan you may be judging them too harshly, it is a research vessel apparently -and they were researching you and other old boats reaction to loud modern noises, you may in fact feature in his next thesis.

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  20. Now just a minute there, sonny! C & W has a rightful place in the music world: it ain’t all somebody done somebody wrong songs. Seems we gotta take you to one side…… Anyway back to boats.

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  21. Everybody has a right to listen to their own choice of music, even (shudder) country & western.
    Nobody has the right to make anyone else listen to their choice of music.

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  24. BTW, Older ones: Pickety Witch was a Brit pop group in the ’70s. They had a big hit in “That Same Old Feeling” which was sung by pretty(?) blonde lead singer Polly Brown who had a massive head cold for the recording session hence the amazing nasal intonation. Just thought you’d like to know. If you didn’t, well don’t read this. Happy new year!

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  26. Yes, I hope some one can say something positive about the noisy jet ski that spent yesterday ruining every ones day by its antics and noise at Entico Bay in the Bay of Islands. We went for a walk on the Island but you could not get away from this sea going chainsaw.

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