This is turning into a week of firsts. Apart from it being our first visit to Raglan, which isn’t really news, and having our first New Zealand swim, which was a little chilly, it’s also the first time I’ve witnessed a live sea rescue. Oh, and the first time I’ve seen an Atomic coffee machine in action.
The rescue incident begins as many such incidents do, with a feeling of unreality, like one’s perceptions must be giving the wrong messages to the brain. After all, no-one on the beach seems to be taking any notice, or looking where I’m looking. I walk along the shore back towards our bach while the kite which has been floating on the water for five minutes or more, still floats, still drifts. I can just make out a figure in the water and I will them to pull the kite off the water, fly it in the wind and surf back to safety.
But it doesn’t happen. After ten minutes, the kite is still on the water, floating further from the shore, pulled out by the strong current that rips between two facing sandbars. No-one swims just here because people are occasionally dragged out to sea and drowned.
As wind is more or less guaranteed in this part of the world, kite surfing is very popular. But mostly, the surfers career to and fro on their tiny boards in the harbour. Some very experienced kite surfers do sometimes venture between the sandbars but only when there’s a strong south westerly that will blow them back to shore when they’re ready to return.
I now have to leave the beach to climb the hill to our bach and by the time I’ve washed the sand off my feet, fetched the binoculars and walked out onto the verandah, the kite is no longer visible. For a moment, I entertain the idea that it’s finally caught the wind and is scooting back to safety but, when I look around, there’s no sign of it. It’s only when I peer through the binoculars and search the mass of white horses boiling far out on the sandbar that I finally spot the kite, still floating, still drifting further and further away. Even then, it keeps disappearing from view, constantly swallowed by the waves, and popping up again. I think of the tiny figure in the water, hidden now somewhere behind the kite.
It’s then that I see two police officers standing on the beach, their binoculars also trained on that distant bobbing shape. It’s been out there now for about forty minutes and it’s another five minutes or so before two jet skis speed into view out of the bay and take the circuitous route between the sandbars. I’m so relieved. They skirt around the tumbling waves and I watch as they stop either side the kite and begin gathering up the equipment.
I wait until they start the return journey and are close enough for me to see a small figure safely sitting on the back of nearest one. I lower the binos gratefully. My arms are killing me! When the young woman is dropped ashore onto the beach below me, she seems none the worse for her experience. I even hear laughter, but surely she must have had a moment or two out there all alone.
The rest of our days pass very calmly with miles of beach for walking, running and swimming. The little town of Raglan, which is tucked into the harbour, has a great community feel to it and supplies us with all that we need. The simple life is the best, I think . . . Although we do, of course, have an Atomic coffee machine, an Italian, circa 1940s, hob heated expresso machine, which is as aesthetically appealing as it is effective. And we are staying in a very well organised, very comfortable bach with the best views we’re ever likely to have. So there’s another first. . . And possibly a last.
