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The speaker who preceded him was the Director of Electronic Programs at the Library of Congress , with an annual budget of US $ 50M ; then Ian got up to describe the New Zealand Digital Library project which he runs on an annual budget of NZ $ 0 or thereabouts ; actually he thought ( and plenty of others agreed ) that we came off rather well in the comparison . Music continued apace throughout the year . But the first was cancelled due to insufficient wind , so we-Ian and Graham , Sarah and Alex-were out there the next day for the first race . Approaching Auckland on our return , we called ahead to Pam 's brother Graham , only to learn the shocking news that a few days earlier Pam 's father Peter was taken suddenly ill and had in fact passed away that morning . Dad died this year ( as you 'll read later ) , blissfully unaware to the very end of the true awfulness of his jokes - - the ultimate fate of all dads ? We were duly amazed by the Phantom of the Opera , and afterwards we were blown away by martinis in the Redwood Room of the Clift Hotel - - which , following a tip-off by an ex-Californian with whom Ian played jazz in Hamilton , is now a must on every visit to San Francisco . Hobart , in particular , is a most attractive small city , with a mountain towering over it that you can drive up and look down from-not unlike Cape Town , in fact . Noam Chomsky , originally an American linguist who was Ian 's hero in his days of speech synthesis at Essex and now a leading left-wing intellectual in the US , came to Waikato to give an inspirational , and awe-inspiring , speech on the new world order . We rounded a navigation buoy just ahead of a Kiwi boat and hardened up into the wind , only to find that it was rounding the same buoy ( though not racing ) . ( We had received e-mail saying that Mary had died ; this disconcerted us because we could n't think of a Mary . Cows are extremely sacred , and freely wander the streets of Indian towns and cities , checking out the piles of garbage there . The traffic instantly backed up for miles ; the tunnel was quickly closed to all traffic ( both directions ) ; an emergency vehicle roared down towards them on the wrong side of the road and gave them a nerve-wracking bumper-to-bumper push , accelerating to 50 mph , out of the tunnel . We see the starting area out near Whangaparoa and can just make out two grey triangles moving like shark fins above the bumpy line of smaller craft . Island , with 120 other recorder players from throughout New Zealand . Her courses have , in the main , been great . When we first bought this place we looked at the horrible orange-yellow carpet fitted throughout the living and dining area , and said that it would be the first thing to go . Sailing under jib alone we made the rendezvous in Coromandel Harbour and picked up Michael and Rosaleen to take them round the corner for a night on the boat . On an adventurous day we left this haven and sailed north in blustery winds through dauntingly high seas , almost out of sight of land , alone in the vast Pacific seascape , to a tiny outcropping of islets called Mokohinau topped by a prominent lighthouse . In late January a colleague returned from holiday with a copy of a Guardian weekly freebie called the editor . " Christmas " letter out - - though Christmas is long past - - so that you 'll know we're still alive . Out past Mototapu and towards the Rakino channel . Yes , we do eat our sheep : Ginger 's family apparently thought that this was just a Christmas letter joke . Not having children we could go that much farther in each day hike , and despite our familiarity with the region we found a whole new world of places we had never before visited .