Splashing / launching went well. With the Tahina’s (including ex-crew Paul who we’d met in Kelefesia) and Sea Mist’s looking on we were trailered down the ramp into the water. We sat there while I went through my checklist. Of particular focus was all our through hulls, particularly the genset water exhaust. I’ve done a fair bit of plumbing in my time and I have to confess, as far as I can recall, I have yet to have a leak on a pipe connection. This was not the time to blaze new trails.
Everything worked fine. I gave the ok and lines were thrown aboard and we back out into the river. The tide was already ebbing but the river was flat. I don’t have any written records of past performance but our speed through the water was significantly better than we’ve ever seen before. One would hope so having had the bottom painted, the props tuned, the couplings changed and the motors realigned. This makes us all the more eager to see how things have improved with our new, larger headsail and roach improved main.
We edged into the marina as light was falling and tied off to the dock. I was not given permission to crack a beer until I’d connected up to the water supply. We dined lavishly on fried egg sandwiches and a glass of wine before heading to the showers. I took a brutal scrubbing brush to tackle the yard grime embedded into my feet. I think I’ll need to grow new skin before by feet fully return to their proper colour.
So does that mean we can now relax for a bit. Not really. Helen’s genetically encoded war on dirt is poised for full expression. With the infinite battalions of yard dust out of the picture a new balance can and will be obtained. I have one final round of shaft seal inspections to perform and then I have to put in place the final two batteries. We’ll transfer our the remaining diesel in our cans to the main tanks to give us the chance of deferring a fuel stop until we can buy duty free. There are other things to do. I’m just not thinking about them right now.
A little further ahead we plan to take the car up to Opua on Tuesday. The Tahina’s have offered us the use of their car for the day. The plan is we’ll drive to Opua in convoy with the Leu’s and return in the one car. On Wednesday we’ll head down the river and on Thursday perform sea trials with the new sails and perform checks on the water maker. From then on it’s either up the coast to the Bay of Islands or straight up to Fiji depending on the weather patterns. Ironically there’s a chance of a weather window to Fiji 3-4 days from now but that may be just a little too soon for us. I’ll be watching this one closely.
For now, here again is the photo album containing a snapshot of a subset of what we’ve been up to.