Bill and Margaret McIndoe think more people should ''get off their butt and go adventuring''. The octogenarian Dunedin yachties talk to Bruce Munro about almost four decades of wild seas, beautiful islands and living life ''first-hand''.
The doorbell is not answered quickly.
It raises the possibility that this is in fact not the main front door; that somewhere inside the sprawling four-storey house which was once a Shacklock-owned crib re-envisioned by architect Ted McCoy, a couple in their ninth decade are being forced to slowly, painfully descend stairs to a little-used door.
The firm handshake and bright eyes of the man who opens the door belies all concocted assumptions.
Yes, he is 86 years old.
But the enthusiastic greeting, tanned skin and sprightly step as Bill McIndoe leads the way upstairs to the main living area shout of an active man in full command of physical and mental faculties.
He introduces his wife, Margaret. She is quieter, but no less welcoming, and wears an air of thoughtfulness and equanimity.
They sit at the far end of the room, beyond the kitchen table, one on each side of the expansive window that looks out across painterly Careys Bay, Port Chalmers.
The waters of Otago Harbour appear a broad, shimmering, liquid road leading directly from this second-storey window to an oceanic highway of limitless possibilities a mere nine nautical miles away.
No wonder it draws them.
Towards the lower left corner of this living artwork, a sea-going yacht christened Avanti is moored at a jetty.
It is less than a week since the McIndoes completed an eight-week journey aboard the 39-foot (11.9m) Cavalier keeler, a trip that could have ended in disaster.
They had departed Otago Harbour on January 2, as they try to every year, bound for the top of the South Island.
The next several weeks were spent cruising the Marlborough Sounds and Tasman Bay.
One morning they would be greeted by a glorious dawn chorus ringing out from native bush on pest-free Adele Island as the yacht bobbed on crystal-clear waters.
Another day they would be enjoying a stunning sunset and a few drinks with fellow yachties on their vessel, surrounded by pine-clad hills deep inside Kenepuru Sound.
Near the end of last month, they were busy with last-minute preparations for the Picton to Dunedin homeward leg.
In the hubbub of refuelling, saying farewells and casting off the mooring ropes, it was not noticed that the fuel cap had not been replaced.
Soon after they left Tory Channel, the wind freshened to a 40-knot ''real old northerly Cook Strait blow, with big following seas'', Mr McIndoe recalls.
''We were going fast, carrying too much canvas, and the leeward-side deck was swept with water exiting out over the stern,'' he says.
Perhaps as much as five litres of seawater poured down the filler pipe into the fuel tank.
A few hours later, when Mr McIndoe started the engine, it ran for five minutes, slowed, faltered and failed.
The damage had been done.
The wind was too strong to turn back, so they pushed onward in the dark.
With gale-force winds and waves breaking all around, Mr McIndoe struggled to set sails suited to heavy seas and no engine.
''Carrying the main and foresail, the boat was out of control. I tried a heavily reefed main only, as I often do with the engine, but she kept broaching [slewing sideways to the waves, risking being rolled].''
He furled the mainsail and re-hoisted a small reefed genoa sail, ''and that solved the problem''.
Mrs McIndoe then took over the watch, while Mr McIndoe got some sleep.
It was 4am, and just the latest in a long list of adventures the couple have shared, spanning 39 years and 57,000NM (nautical miles).
• For Mr McIndoe, the sea has had an allure since his earliest days.
He was born in Dunedin in 1928. He and his siblings grew up stalwart members of the nearby St Clair Surf Life Saving Club.
When he was 16 years old he built his own boat, a 7-foot (2.1m) P Class (Tauranga) sailing dinghy.
''My father was at the war. He was a prisoner of war, captured at Crete. So, if you wanted a boat, you built it yourself.
''All the famous New Zealand yachtsmen are P Class kids. They say the P Class has all the faults of any boat of its size ever designed. So, if you can sail a P Class, you can sail anything.''
A year later, Mr McIndoe joined the Royal New Zealand Navy.
He trained as an officer at Dartmouth, England, served in various theatres including the Korean War, and retired as a lieutenant in 1954.
He then did an adult apprenticeship in the family printing business, John McIndoe Ltd, where he worked until retiring as director and chief executive of the company in the late 1980s.
Mrs McIndoe was born in Wellington, in 1930, but shifted to rural New South Wales, Australia, with her family when she was 9 years old.
Her father owned a boat-building yard, but she, although not afraid of the water, did not do much sailing.
She attended Sydney University and trained as a doctor. The next 20 years were spent working as a specialist anaesthetist in Hobart, Tasmania.
Looking for a change, she retrained in psychiatry and then moved to Dunedin in 1976. Mrs McIndoe worked for the district health board as a psychiatrist until she retired in 2011, aged 80.
They met on Stewart Island just a week after she arrived in New Zealand. Both were divorced, her with two sons and him with a daughter.
Mr McIndoe was visiting the island aboard his Westerly 25-foot (7.6m) yacht Caravelle.
''It's a magical place. Maori understand this quite clearly,'' Mr McIndoe says.
''Love-wise, it was a magical place for us.''
They married two years later.
Almost four decades of sailing together have slipped past their bow; the past 33 years aboard Avanti.
''It [Cavalier class] was designed by a very well-known New Zealand yacht designer, Bob Salthouse.
''We considered his designs just suited us perfectly. They are suited to people who want to go cruising and who want to go long distances, either up the coast or trans-ocean.''
The couple's journeys have included five trips to Stewart Island; two to Fiordland - ''that's a real adventure''; circumnavigations of each of the North and South Islands; a two-year tour of Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Australia's Queensland coast just after Mr McIndoe retired in 1988; and, seven years later, a nine-month sojourn taking in Tonga and Fiji again.
''If you can sail the New Zealand coast, you can sail anywhere,'' Mr McIndoe says.
Mr and Mrs McIndoe each have their own domain when sailing and their own reasons for so much messing about in boats.
''Margaret spends her day cooking, and me fixing the boat,'' Mr McIndoe says with a laugh.
They both take turns on watch when sailing at night.
An extra crew member has been added a couple of times, but they prefer it when it is ''just the two of us''.
''We don't irritate each other. That's very important, because you're living in very close quarters,'' Mr McIndoe says.
''Margaret has tremendous courage and is cool under pressure,'' he adds with obvious affection.
Mrs McIndoe admits she does not have ''the bug'' for sailing to the same extent as her husband.
For her the reward is in the people met and the places explored.
Cruising the islands was a definite highlight, she says.
''The lovely weather, the beautiful beaches, friendly people and each island nation so different,'' Mrs McIndoe says.
Not so for Mr McIndoe.
''Let's be honest, sailing among the coral was dangerous,'' he says.
''It's not very well charted. I wonder why people want to when the Australian coast is well charted and has the same climate.''
It highlights their different motivations.
His payback is from the act of sailing itself.
''I like to be on the water, being driven by the wind, the master of your own destiny,'' he says.
''A good sail offshore beats bungy jumping for a thrill.''
But both agree it has given them a lot.
''It develops steadfastness and courage, reliability and knowledge of the sea,'' Mr McIndoe says.
''You get to know each other and rely on each other,'' Mrs McIndoe adds.
• Courage and co-operation were critical virtues aboard Avanti a fortnight ago.
Having survived the gale off the east coast of the South Island without an engine, a calm morning presented a different worry. Several days of little wind were forecast.
It would take an irritatingly long time to reach home.
But the worry was that without the engine, the solar cell-powered battery hooked up to the self-steering system could run out of juice.
''Then, between Margaret and I, we would have to be at the wheel 24 hours a day, for who knows how many days,'' Mr McIndoe said.
Fortunately, enough sunshine kept the battery from emptying during the ensuing five days as they crept down the coast.
One windless night, Mr McIndoe saw a large container vessel about 3NM seaward and heading north.
''It gave me an uncomfortable feeling when I realised that if we were in her path and we were not sighted, there was no way of moving Avanti out of her way.''
When another storm threatened, they altered course to shelter in Oamaru Harbour.
It had taken six days to get there from Picton.
At Oamaru they found help to pump out and dispose of 195 litres of contaminated fuel, clean and refill the tank, and get the engine going again.
At first light on the morning of March 9, they slipped their mooring and headed through Oamaru Harbour's dredged channel out to the open sea.
At 3.15pm, they secured Avanti to their Carey's Bay wharf and walked home for a cup of tea.
This was intended to be the McIndoes' second-to-last voyage. But, then again, they have designated each of the past six trips the penultimate voyage.
Extended family do get worried about them going to sea.
''Yes, they do. But then they get over it.''
In their 87th and 85th years, they themselves do not think they are necessarily too old for this sort of carry-on.
But neither have they decided there will be a next time.
''We are not committed to anything. It depends on our frame of mind, our health, the state of the boat, and the weather.''
Whether they stop now or keep going a little longer, the McIndoes would like to see more people getting off the couch, switching off screens, and having some of the challenging but exhilarating experiences they have enjoyed through the years.
''We think more people should get off their butt and go adventuring,'' Mr McIndoe says.
''Yes,'' Mrs McIndoe adds, ''To gain first-hand living.''
