So, we didn’t get up until 1000 this morning. Turns out the passage took a bit more out of us than we thought. We’ve heard that from some others too. We’re pretty close to getting back up to speed though. Our final two days coming in were with little sleep. It’s often that way on the end of a passage as you get near a coastline. This was compounded with the fact that the weather was deteriorating a second time during the trip. We ended up in a second front the last day. Rain, wind gusting to 35 knots, etc. But at this point we were nearing the coast so we had to keep alert. Neither of us were able to get much sleep as there was a lot of traffic during the day and into the night. Big ships coming down the coast and intersecting with our course, so a lot of radar work watching them and deciding how best to avoid them. Not too easy since we were intersecting at a fairly narrow angle.

Customs in NZ was fun. The folks are really nice but they take everything. NZ is very careful about what they broadly term “bio-hazard”. This includes growth on the hull as well as anything that might be able to grow and compete with native plants and animals.

Customs itself was pretty easy, although at the end of the meeting the customs guy casually asked if we had any pepper spray or other such product. We did have some bear spray (since you don’t need a license in the States) and he said we’d have to give it up. It’s illegal here. So that was our first confiscation. Then he left and said quarantine would be by the boat soon. After about 20 minutes the quarantine guy came in and went through his list with us. He was very nice, but just held a garbage bag open as he went down the list; honey (“that’s Mexican honey, in the bag”), meat (“in the bag”), vegetables, bananas (“in the bag”), eggs, onions, garlic, ginger (“bag, bag, bag and bag”). Pretty much stripped us of anything fresh. Garbanzo beans, and popcorn were the grains that were taken. We had seen rice, lentils and such on the list but he didn’t ask for those. Funny how they manage to make it seem like such a nice experience while at the same time taking all your fresh stores. The Kiwis manage to do everything with a smile. It’s a very pleasant place with wonderful people. But the one stop check in (all on the Q – Quarantine Dock) was a nice change from roaming all over new ports looking for the necessary officials to check us into their country.

New Zealand looks just like Petaluma, only farther.