It started off kind of lazy, but turned into a bit of a work day. Since we had such nice weather, we decided it would be good to get some "dry weather" projects done. First on the list is the darn leaky chainplate that's been plaguing us across the Pacific. I most recently "fixed" it in NZ about a month ago and it popped open again on our passage. Leaked like a sieve. When I pulled the cover, it turns out the Sikaflex I used never really bonded to anything. It just scraped off both the metal and fiberglass parts. Today I took off the shrouds, cleaned out all the old gunk, Ann wiped it down with alcohol, I taped around it for glueing and then used a new product I'm trying called Bostik. It's a construction grade adhesive that has a bit more elasticity than the marine products. I used it on the other side forward lower shroud and it held on the crossing, so cross fingers that the sixth time's a charm on this one.

We also shlept water in five gallon jugs from shore to add to our tank, which is almost empty. 20 gallons worth. Over and back, over and back, each time having to pour each jug into the deck plate through a homemade funnel made from a plastic Gatorade bottle with the neck cut off. We needed to do this in the break between rainy days as the water system here is very suspect when there's been a lot of rain. Apparently the filtration system gets overwhelmed. Local knowledge is that when you flush the toilet if the FRESH water coming in is dirty/brown, don't drink from the faucet. Needless to say we waited for it to stop raining for two days, flushed and found clear water and even then have put some Clorox in the tank for added protection. Normally, we would use the water maker instead which filters the water as well as desalinates it, but without the engine, we don't have quite enough power to run it.

Lastly, in the category of the helpful cruising community, a big thanks to Bob and Linda on Bright Angel. We needed a new manifold gasket in order to put the engine back together (hopefully) tomorrow. A new one is on the way from New Zealand thanks to help from John and Lisa, but it won't make it here until the end of the week. Bright Angel's engine is very similar to ours and the gasket is exactly the same part number and they had a spare. Score! Thank you Bright Angel. Now we can rebuild everything when the parts come in tomorrow instead of having to wait another week. Yay!

We're about a week and counting.  Trying to leave next Thursday, 10/6 (or so) pending weather, and whether we have all our gear packed, stowed and ready to go.
Been working very hard this week. Ann's been cleaning and organizing down below in the cabin and I've been pulling cables and wire to get the two new solar panels and the 1000 watt voltage inverter running. Long story short, the panels are working (two Kyocera, 130 watt panels wired in parallel to double their amperage), a Blue Sky "duo" regulator (to run the panels and a water generator that we're waiting for from Hamilton Ferris). Spent waaayyy to long in the Lazarette wiring stuff, but the result is pretty cool. I took us "off the grid" four days ago. The refrigerator runs all night and pulls the batteries down, but the panels, one of which faces the morning sun, power the boat back up and by 9AM, the batteries are completely full again. Really fun to watch how self sufficient we are becoming.
Here's a couple pics of some of our work including the watermaker and THE LISTS! Everything at this point with only a week left is about lists.

We're winding down this season.  Doing some boat work, getting things set for us to leave for the States for six weeks.  Then we'll be back for another year of cruising, probably up into the Fijiian Archipeligo.

In the mean time, we've been touring in the car we bought and doing some hiking.  We'll do a lot more of both in February when we're back and the weather's better.  Right now it's late Spring down here and it's been a bit rainy/cloudy.

Today we closed with Doyle sails on new sails for Charisma.  She'll be right happy to have new clothes.  The old sails were 25 years old, way past due as the sailcloth and stitching deteriorate in the sun and we can no longer trust our lives to sails of that age on the open ocean.  If we were still in SF Bay, no worries-but out here you have to have some confidence that the sails can routinely withstand 40 knots of wind or more.  We already had a mainsail seam blow out and were lucky we didn't need it to finish that leg.

So, we're doing due diligence on cleaning up Charisma-checking that the bilge pump is working well, turning off the propane, closing the through hulls,  turning off the big electrical draws (like the fridge) and in general making ready to leave.  We have two more days, then Sunday we're heading to Aukland for a couple days before flying out on the 12th.  Looking forward to seeing everyone back home.

We'll be posting from time to time including a "what worked and what didn't" for those who will be following in our footsteps.  Then in February we'll get cranking back up again.

So, have a great holiday and new year and thanks very much to those of you who have been following our blog and commenting.  We're having fun and we hope you have been too!

Yay! We're finally here. Gnarly time getting here. 30 knot winds, made just getting out of our slip in Marsden an adventure. Also we're waaay upriver now. The last bit to get here the water depth went as low as 9 feet and that was at high tide. They are also building a new bridge that will eventually be a drawbridge, but for now it was a very narrow slot between two half bridges that we had to thread through. But we're here!

Tomorrow, we move from our nice "guest berth" in from of the marina office, down about 150 yards to a "piling mooring". In other words we will be tied between two pilings in a line with other boats along the bank of the river. The only way off the boat will be by dinghy. The good news is the dinghy dock is only about 30 yards away and our car is parked just up from that. But it will be a new adventure.

Left Tutukaka this morning for a little bay just inside Cape Breem (can't remember it's name), but after two tries in 20 plus knots of wind we couldn't get the anchor to set. First failure ever! So we went another 3 miles to Marsden Cove and are snug in a slip for the night (with showers!).

Nice day, sailed all the way, about 25 miles, in 20 knots on the nose. Really nice sailing. Still pinching ourselves that we're sailing down the coast of New Zealnd.

We might stay another day, but then we have about 7 miles up river to Whangerie where we'll stay a while.

We're sitting here looking at a beautiful, almost full moon, rise over the cliff on the other side of this little cove. The horizontal orange streaks of sunset are fading into the blue-soon to be indigo-of night. So peaceful.

Aretha is singing in the background and we just finished a grilled steak and sautéed mushroom dinner. Not bad.

I'm now seeing the glistening, glittering, silver stripe of moonlight reflecting off the water behind us.

The Gannets are diving all around us and Ann is searching the water for sight of a blue penguin. No sighting yet, but we'll let you know. She has seen a Kiwi, so she's one up on me so far (not including card games in which she is two up).

Tomorrow-a little cove just out side of Marsden, then up river to Whangerie on Thursday. That's where we'll stay until April. In the mean time, home for the holidays, then back to NZ for some boat work and then land cruising.

Well, that's the phonetic pronunciation for where we are. From here we go to Tootoocaca. OK, the actual spellings are; Whangamumu and Tutukaka.

Almost as amazing is the fact that my niece Missy has been to all these places before us! When I told Ann that Missy posted on the blog and asked what her first sentence was, Ann responded; "When I was in...". Ding, ding, ding, correct! Missy, you're a true world traveller.

So, we left Opua today at 1130. Sad to be gone, it was such a wonderful place. But we'll look forward to coming back in April as we head up towards Fiji. We sailed through the Bay of Islands and then out into the Pacific and around Cape Brett, then south to Whangamumu. Got in here around 1700. Dropped anchor in a lovely bay that looks somewhat like we're in a lake in the middle of Petaluma. There are beautiful green hills all around us, some with sheep and cows on them.

We also had a surprise greeting from some five black clad folks (head to toe, including helmets) in a "Protector" (a type of very high speed motorboat). Turns out they were Customs officials. We got interrogated. Very friendly, but they are seriously looking for something/someone as the questions were very pointed and in several cases sneaky. Ann asked if she could take a picture of them and to my surprise, they said OK, so we'll get that up in a few days. It had to do with the boat that drove up on the reef in Tonga with a bunch of cocaine and a dead body. We're guessing they are looking for whomever was supposed to meet that boat.

Finally we had some sun today. We suspended all boat work and went for a walk. Not just any walk. A 6 miler. We took the ferry boat from Opua to Okiato (across the bay a ways). We asked the ferry pilot how far to Russell, which is the little town on that side of the bay. His eyes got a little big and he said; "Oh mate, that's about 9 kilometers!". We said that was OK, we were out for a good walk.

He gave us a little map that made all the difference. It showed the trail system and we had a delightful walk (trek) across country. The path went through trees, hills and the most memorable parts were on a walkway built over the swampy land across the edges of some of the bays along the way. We were literally walking across the mangroves and saw all the wildlife of the area. At one point Ann even saw a Kiwi bird.

We didn't get into Russell until about 5 PM, so we stopped at a cute little spot for pizza and beer before continuing the journey. Once suitably fortified, we went looking for the ferry from Russell to Pahia. Found it and after a short wait crossed another bay over to Pahia where we called a country taxi for the ride back to Opua. It's about another 2 hour walk and we were running out of both light and strength. Having been on the boat so long, the 6 mile walk was about all we had in us for the day (full disclosure: actually Ann went for a morning walk with one of her friends and they were gone about an hour so I'm guessing they put in a couple more miles for the day) so the taxi looked pretty good!

A fun day. We'll leave this nice area on Monday, weather permitting, for Whangerie. The Black Dogs have already taken our car there, so it will be waiting for us there.

One of the things that is so fun about this cruising life is meeting so many great people. Tonight was typical. We went up to the cruisers club for a cocktail and to just see who was there. But once there we ran into about twenty of our good friends and three hours later finally stepped back outside with big smiles on our faces from the camaraderie of it all. So fun!

Then on the way back to Charisma ran into several other friends who have been out touring for a few days and had a nice chat on the dock with them.

Then...upon getting back to Charisma we found we had new neighbors. A new boat pulled in next to us and we're sitting in our respective cockpits-in the dark-chatting about who we are, where we've been, recommendations on places to go, etc, etc. Delightful people and we haven't even seen them yet. Just heard them. In the dark. Across the water between our two boats. We just know their names; Don and Priscilla.

This is the same reason it takes Ann about two hours to go up to the bathroom (or take a shower). She runs into folks we know, gets into a conversation ("where have you been, what have you been doing...") and two hours later she's back.

Cruising and making great friends. We're loving it.

Yup, we just had our Thanksgiving dinner, since we're a day ahead of you all. A really nice turkey and fixins dinner at the Opua Cruisers Club. We enjoyed good food, with good friends in a nice spot overlooking the marina. Would be nice to be home with family, but this comes a close second.

So happy turkey day to everybody! Enjoy.