Sad to see you go (for now).

The new, almost finished, drawbridge.

We had to leave by this weekend since they will be closing the bridge for five days starting Monday in order to put the drawbridge part in place.  Lots of other folks are scrambling to get out by the end of the week, so we opted to leave a little early and beat the rush.

We had a nice ride downriver and out to Marsden, which is just a half mile or so inside the bay from the ocean.  It was great to get Charisma back out and running.  I was a bit anxious at first, not having driven her in the six months we’ve been in New Zealand.  But by the end of the two hours it was back to business as usual.  I even managed to back her into the fuel dock to top the tank.  Backing is always a bit hit or miss on a full keel boat.  Went off nicely though.

As far as the top off, we got a bit of a surprise.  Charisma is supposed to have a 100 gallon fuel tank.  The previous owner expressed some scepticsm about that number, so I have in turn given it a healthy margin and planned as if she only held 75 gallons.  Imagine my surprise when upon filling up after completely emptying the tank when we cleaned it last week-when I found she actually only holds 70 gallons when topped off to the brim!  Wow. I’ve in fact had a couple times when I’ve used 65 or so gallons thinking I had a safe margin. Well, that’s why we carry an extra 10 gallons in jerry jugs.  They are my “just in case” plan for if our fuel economy changes or there’s a fuel leak or something. Looking in the log, I saw one post by the previous owner that they put in 69 gallons.  Talk about close calls.

At the dock in Marsden.

Under the category of “You’re never really ready to leave”-on the way downriver, we took the cover off the compass and found it mysteriously low in fluid.  There’s a bit of a bubble at the top.  I’m going to have to take it apart and fill it.  I imagine there’s a fill hole on the bottom, but since this is another project I’ve never done, we’ll see.  A boat-owner’s work is never done.

It's always something...

So…bottom line for now.  Looks like there might be a weather window opening up next Tuesday or so.  We’ll continue to track it, but it the low that’s coming across from Australia continues as advertised, we wait until it just passes over and leave with the southeast winds heading north.