Features, Issue 41

When Sam met Jess on a ski field in Turkey, neither guessed they’d end up running a yacht-support business together in Vanuatu

“I KNEW IMMEDIATELY she was a perfect match,” says Sam Bell of the Californian language tutor he met at a 2005 New Year’s Eve party on a Turkish ski field a few hours south of Istanbul. “She was cute, nice to be around and liked boats.” Jess Patterson, on the other hand, took a little more convincing. “He was rougher around the edges than I was used to but I soon realized that rough around the edges meant he was always doing something cool.”

Jess was head of an English-language programme at a local Turkish university when she met the Plimmerton-born graduate of Auckland Unitec’s boat-building and marine-engineering course. At that time Sam was part of the engineering crew on a newly launched and revolutionary yacht, the 289-foot Maltese Falcon. Sam proposed in record time – six months – and Jess accepted, but within a few days Sam had departed aboard the Maltese Falcon for its maiden voyage in the Mediterranean.

The universe clearly had plans for this newly engaged couple. A crew member fell ill and guess who was called in as a replacement? Jess, with no previous sailing experience, joined the yacht in La Spezia in southern Italy and promptly went shopping for her engagement ring. “I was busy with the boat’s launch so she went out with some of the girls and found the ring she wanted,” says Sam.

The tiny dimensions of a crib on the Otago coastline are magnified by the manifold delights it offers its owners

“WE HAVE TO PUT that ladder across the steps,” explains Robert, “or the seals climb up and make a hell of a mess at the front door.” Bolshie seals with sloppy table manners, pods of orca cruising the coast and right whales passing by add to the teeming aquatica of Wickliffe Bay, a tidal inlet on Otago’s Peninsula. Perched on a steep kerchief of land overlooking the bay, as cute as those cheeks nana loved to pinch, is Wickliffe Cottage.

Robert Clark and Lyndall Frost decided on a simpler life 10 years ago, exchanging Auckland for Robert’s home town of Dunedin.

“Robert’s father was living here, and at 90 still in good health, so we decided to be closer in his remaining years,” says Lyndall. “We often remember him, always laughing.” Robert had left Dunedin at 17 and always yearned to come back, pulled by the memory of a childhood spent outdoors. “After the Sunday roast, Dad would take us for a walk on Victory Beach or over the hill to Sandfly Bay.”

Tiny Wickliffe Cottage teeters on the plump rump of the pulchritudinous Peninsula like a cup-cake on a pony. Lyndall opens the French doors off the powder-blue bedroom and the water below immediately bobs with a paddling of ducks. Mr Drake puts on a show of macho posturing. The ladies turn their backs; he’s trying too hard.