O called to tell you all his new phone number - dial 011 64 21 047 6849 from the US and say hi from all of us.

Michael and Samantha - Amy and DT say hi! Click on 'Shout Out' below to enter a comment.
Also - I have put a link to DT's Website (also on the left).

Currently we are in Bay of Islands in the north part of the North Isl. Its nice large bay with numerous islands and rolling hills. Little development/rural. It is their warmer region, but its not that warm. But very nice.

In a few days, we are sailing for Nelson (5 day sail down Tasman Bay) on the north part of South Island. This is a summer resort are with one town of say 50K people. Lots of sandy forest lined beaches with mountains in close by on the horizon. sort of like Cape Cod and the New Hampshire mountains within 5 miles of each other. very outdoorsy / Nat Park / Maine Forest type surroundings. This is where we will settle for about 12 months. Decided to get a small rental house so all can experience a land life again. school starts Jan 28 here in the Southern Hemishpere. everyone happy and excited with new twist.

syscottfree@yahoo.com goes to land only and size not much of a problem.

Oreon [landlubber]

For those folk trying to contact the Scotts, click on either of the Scott mail links above or enter syscottfree@yahoo.com (or click on Traynor mail to contact David to get the Iridium Satelite phone email address for instant access!) You will need to remove the nospam_ characters from the email if you click the link!

Hello from Scott Free. Currently on a road trip to Nelson on NZ's South Island. We are exploring sites to move the boat to and put our anchor down for awhile. The boat is still in Opua, Bay of Islands on the top of NZ's North Island. This place is also nice, but not near as warm as the tropics we have lived in the last 2 years. It is taking a little getting use to.

Nelson is great and beautiful. Somewhat like Cambridge and San Fransisco's hills in one spot on the ocean. Very neat and nice. So we are playing tourist, etc.

This is first visit to this Online blog stuff. Still trying to figure it out [but it looks just perfect]. More later... O.

Being kind hearted souls, The Traynors have built this online Captain's log for the intrepid Scotts... and it meets all of Oreon's needs (low bandwidth, cost and intellect)!

So if you would like to offer some advice about how to circumnavigate the globe or have some handy tips on remote schooling and bilge pump repair, or just want to add to the overall claustrophic cheer the good ship Scott Free, you've come to the right place. To post your own stuff here just email David to get invited... or you can just click on 'Shout Out' at the end of each post and add your comments to the blog. If you would rather have some rusty English humour, click here

Happy New Year!

Scott Free Update - Nov 23 - Dangerous waters!
As I write, we are anchored in a place called Minerva Reef South (35 01S, 174 19E). Last week we were at the North Reef. These places are circles of coral, reef like, that are underwater at high tide but show 1-2 ft of coral at low. Others where there is no land. These reefs/atolls are 300 miles from anywhere [sound of wind in the rigging and howls from the crew]. Essentially, we are safely anchored behind the reef in mid ocean. We arrived here about 6 days ago, as a break in our 8-10 day passage from Tonga to NZ. We are safely anchored in 60 feet of sandy bottom. Snorkeling and lobstering in relatively pristine reefs, little visited by anyone other than the occasional yacht.

However, … 3 evenings ago, [jaws music] we received a garbled distress message on the VHF. To make a long story short, SY Pneuma, a boat that had left Minerva Reef North earlier in the day bound for NZ, had sailed into/ONTO South Reef in the late afternoon. Apparently they had made a careless navigation mistake, and had not noticed that the south reef was only 20 mi away and pretty much on their planned course. While scary for all, within short order the waves had picked the boat up and deposited firmly on the reef in 2 ft of water (at low tide). The crew was shaken but unharmed. The boat however could not be removed or refloated.

Scott Free quickly left in the dark to assist, [Bugle rally] with two other boaters. In the meantime, the wives stayed behind and worked the long and short distance radios like skilled radio pro's organizing every thing and others. They were successful in raising other boats sailing ahead, which turned around to assist. Ultimately, two other boats, one being our friends on Kela , also diverted and arrived soon after to assist. Though it was about mid nite, all were able to safely anchor outside the reef and take dinghies thru the regular (and safe) pass to the lagoon near the wreck. They worked several hours helping the crew remove valuables from the wreck, returning about 6 am.

Scott free returned the next nite, 24 hrs later, to N Reef, leaving the other 2 boats at S Reef, reuniting the men with their crews. We returned to S Reef 2 mornings later, and assisted with the salvage effort. Mainly, removing equipment and hardware that might have resale value. Sadly, [violins] they had chosen not to have insurance. So it's a sad tale, but happily no one was hurt. I think we all were vividly reminded of the need to take proper precautions and planning, and once again reminded of the value of proper watch standing, even though you can go days with out seeing anything or any one.

All is well on Scott Free [sounds of sword fighting and lots of Arrrghhhs]. We had a great time in Tonga. It was beautiful with great friendly people [sound of drinks and glasses] . We might come back when we leave NZ. We however are psyched to get onto the next phase of our journey, NZ. Only trouble is it's supposed to be an invigorating 6-9 day sail, … and it happens to be COLD there still (not happy words to us folks who have grown accustomed to 80 deg temps.) But out come the fuzzies and we will be ready. We think we might be at sea for T-Day, so we are thinking of having it a few days early here or when we arrive. We will be thinking of all of you at that time, especially. In the meantime, since we are here we intend to do some more skin diving and lobstering in these little visited/pristine waters of S Reef. … Maybe the menu and the order of the day will be lobster, with jellied cranberries, instead of Turkey.

Out for now. Happy Thanksgiving to all! We love and miss you.
Love, Scott Free/o

11/24 - Happy to rept the lobsters ARE big and plentiful (Ed, I will put your name on a couple), and the forecasted winds too light to sail for a couple days. So maybe we will reprovision the freezer with "bug tails". O.

The Captain the his crustycrew were spotted in the Panama canal - photos to come.....