That got our attention!  We’re back on Charisma after a wonderful holiday back in the States with Family and Friends.  Today, we were sitting on the boat in the Town Basin at Whangarie and a friend came over and knocked on the hull:  “Ahoy Charisma!”  We shouted back and climbed the companionway ladder to say hi and saw Tom from “Tanga” who said that there was a huge earthquake in/around Vanuatu (an 8.0 as of this writing although it will likely get downgraded over time) and there’s a tsunami alert for most of the South Pacific.  Wow, talk about getting our attention.  After a bit of chat, we went back down below straight to the internet and found….mixed results.  NOAA cancelled the alert, but the local Civil Defense authorities didn’t.  Anyway, long story short, as we’re sitting here an hour after it was supposed to hit New Zealand, we’re still floating without a care.

Got us back into the swing of cruising though.  So, with this blog, hopefully we’ll kick back into the habit of charting out what we’re doing and where we’re going.
Tomorrow, we go out “on the hard”.  Not our favorite thing.  Basically we’re getting hauled out in a local boatyard to get the bottom painted with antifouling paint.  You have to do this at least once every other year or so to keep the crud from growing on the bottom of the boat.  That’s the main reason we’re hauling, but we spent much of this afternoon planning the other projects we’re going to work on while we’re in the boat yard.  Everything from pulling all the anchor chain out onto the ground for inspection, to varnishing all the woodwork (a much bigger task than it sounds-this alone will be a week or more of solid work), to sewing some new covers for worn out cushions a version-2 of our bimini, etc.  Not the least project (which is on Ann’s list) is cleaning and waxing the hull!

So, at least two weeks of work where we’ll be living on Charisma in the boat yard.  Not the most fun thing since to leave the boat, you basically climb down a six foot ladder, but hey, this is an adventure.  We’re going to make it fun.  Ann already did some planning and announced that we will be eating meals in the lovely park next door to the marina.  Trees, views onto the river, grass and picnic tables.  I announced that we’ll be eating pizza in town at least two nights a week.  Beer, pizza, Rugby on the TV.  So, we’ll have some entertainment.  Stay tuned.  I’m still going to write up what went right during the last year and what we could do better; a perspective of our sailing experience over the last year.  I just have to get back into the writing groove and get inspired a little.  Is anybody reading this, and/or interesting in that?  Please let me know.