KEY POINTS:
For a moment last Saturday morning I glanced away from the fun and frolics on the water and the crowds lining the harbour entrance, and noticed where we live.
The sea was shimmering in the sunrise and the islands beyond Rangitoto were just emerging from the bluish haze of dawn. Motuihe looked inviting, Brown's, as always, sublime.
Behind me, on their balconies, many of the Queen Mary's passengers were getting their first sight of New Zealand.
They had become accustomed to waking up after three or four days at sea to find a new landscape closing in on them, but I doubt they had expected one so lovely so far south.
The sea had turned rough the previous day. Big swells had stomachs lurching even on that ship. This, the Captain had announced, could get worse as we approached the Southern Ocean.
By air or sea you go so far to reach New Zealand that new visitors seem surprised to find a city the size of Auckland sprawling around these volcanic hills and bays. They notice the temperature, pleasantly fresh after the tropics, the clear clean light and evident prosperity.
Beside me at the rail an Australian contemplated the scene and said, "They say New Zealand is the perfect size - big enough to be modern and small enough not to have a foreign policy."
What it does need, it occurred to me, is an annual maritime event worthy of the reception we were seeing. Auckland loves nothing more than to turn out, or sail out, for a voyager from the sea. It started with the Whitbread, continued with the America's Cup and now a supersized luxury liner can bring us out at dawn.
And again after dark. The roads to Devonport and other vantage points were clogged with people going to watch the monster depart.
During the day thousands had tried to see the ship tied up at a container wharf. The disappointed blamed Auckland's dismal waterfront amenities but it probably would have made no difference if the city did possess a cruise terminal with sufficient capacity and public access.
At Honolulu, where I boarded, Queen Mary 2 was berthed at an industrial wharf and a line of containers and wharf security guards kept sightseers a long way away.
At Sydney the ship went into Garden Island naval base. Blame Osama bin Laden or George W Bush, anything with a high profile now operates in fear and there is no sign of a solution.
But that should not deter a sailing impresario, if we can find one, from developing an event capable of bringing the crowds to the clifftops around this time every year. What could we do?
The America's Cup again? Team New Zealand parcelled up its two new racing hulls and put them on the aircraft to Valencia this week, and I didn't detect much public excitement. Perhaps the enthusiasm will return when racing starts but I suspect that even if we win again it wouldn't be the same.
It is deep ocean racing that appeals most in this part of the world and given our location, no wonder.
Take a globe, centre it on New Zealand and the hemisphere is almost entirely ocean. The ocean odysseys of Sir Peter Blake and Grant Dalton were the first to arouse Aucklanders from morning slumber and send thousands out to greet them coming in. And we would have gone on greeting them if the sponsors had not eventually wanted too much public subsidy.
They were European events anyway; this was merely the half-way mark, though the race regularly made a bigger splash here than it did at its finish line.
Auckland deserves to be the start/finish mark for a grand ocean contest of its own. What about a complete circuit of the southern ocean? Non-stop. An all-out charge in the roaring forties, right around Antarctica in our summer?
Imagine the fleet setting off at the gun from Orakei wharf. Imagine how we would watch the weather all along the route and follow their paths, especially those who dared sail farthest south. Think how the interest would mount when the leaders rounded Tasmania and began the run to North Cape.
And we know how they would be greeted, leaders and stragglers, when they sailed into the Rangitoto channel at the end of an adventure such as that.
The same race could be staged from Cape Town, Hobart, Sydney or South America. Auckland needs to get organised.
Or rather, yachting needs to get organised. It is disappointing that having held a prize like the America's Cup the sport has maintained no apparent momentum from it. Local yacht clubs may have received little direct benefit but they saw what can be done in Auckland.
There is no finer setting for sailing anywhere, no better natural grandstand, no greater ocean on the globe and no city keener to see what sails in.
