Daily Photo – Murray’s Boat in Hamilton Bay

On the way to Aramoana I passed bays with the names Deborah, Hamilton, Dowling and Waipuna. Just like in Port Chalmers, there were more weathered boat sheds, wonky-looking garages, gravel driveways and vessels of various shapes and sizes at anchor. At one point I stopped to watch a lone dinghy drifting in a still, sheltered bay. There was something quintessentially Kiwi about it, a boat that had clearly surrendered to the elements but refused to actually sink. It sat there with the stoic, mossy dignity of an abandoned garden shed that had somehow wandered into the tide. One gets the sense that its owner, a man probably named Barry or Murray almost certainly has used it every weekend since the 1980s, at the same mooring line, with a devotion usually reserved for religious relics or a local sports team. It is a masterclass in our ‘she’ll be right’ attitude, a vessel held together by hope, algae, duct tape and the stubborn refusal to buy anything new while there is absolutely nothing wrong with the current one.