We’ve been on the boat for over three years now and in that time we’ve hauled out three times. Once in Grenada before our first year was up and twice here in New Zealand, both times in the last 8 months. More strong feelings of deja vu and a sense, again, that we’ve never left.
The morning was not overly busy. With Sam now confirmed on the boat for next year I spent a lot of time researching our options for visiting the Solomons next year. The upshot of all that effort is by the end of the day I had our accommodation and flights booked. We’ll fly out of Fiji and spend 19 days in/around Honiara principally to observe the festival but no doubt we’ll find other things to do. We’ll be staying at one of the ‘rest houses’ close to the center of town. There’s a few of them run by various churches. The one we liked the most had been recently fully booked out by festival attendees/performers. The room we have booked is self contained but no doubt spartan. House rules are strict. We’re not allowed to spit on the blinds nor comfort each other. Oh well. How we’ll avoid spitting on the blinds for three weeks I’ll never know.
By midday I’d paid up our marina fees and we were ready to go. With help from Jeff from Subzero we slipped the lines. With little room between us, the bank and the boats around us I was able to spring off the dock, rotate and motor out from between the finger dock and the shore in a forward direction. By the time we reached the haul out ramp the boat that was in the way was just clearing out so we didn’t have to anchor to wait. Because we need access to the back of the boat come February we had to back into the dock. This went fine and soon we were tied to the dock with the truck bed beneath us waiting for the water to ebb.
New rules in the yard required us to disembark while the boat was pulled out. So after the ground crew had had their lunch we were taken the short distance ashore in a row boat. While the boat was taken out of the water we took a look around the yard to see if there were any boats we recognized. Some names were vaguely familiar but none were ones we knew well.
Once the boat was firmly on land we were allowed back aboard where we rested and I continued with my Solomons research. After a spray down we were eventually put into our allocated slot.
(The map as is available at time of publishing is older than the yard so it looks like we’re on rough ground. We’re not)
By the time we were settled it was late in the day so plans for removing batteries, etc. were postponed.
We have a bit of a busy day ahead of us. We need to meet with Peter, the works manager, to discuss work we need done to the boat. When we hauled earlier this year we’d planned to be in the water for two years and had the bottom painted accordingly. With this haul out we’d like to postpone that next one so we’re considering an extra layer of paint to keep us going. We’d also like to have the new props painted to prevent growth so that will need to be organized. Apart from that there’s not too much to do.
After that we’ll walk into Whangarei to pick up our hire car. We can then pick up the missing part from our rollock which has arrived. Then it’s back to the boat where we’ll pull the batteries and prep for the work in February.
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