Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Category: Cruiser Connections

  • Russell

    We’ve escaped Opua. It’s a hard place to leave as there’s always a reason to stay an extra day. But that thinking gets you stuck and sooner or later you have move on or miss out. Before leaving we did one final provisioning – enough to last a couple of weeks so we can be flexible as we make our way to the Whangarei area.

    After lunch (pies) the weather looked grey and the were spots of rain. We almost thought “what’s the point of leaving today” before realizing we were close to failing to escape the Opua trap. We raised the anchor cleaning the mud off as we did so thankful we chose the deck/anchor wash option for Dignity. With light winds we motored the entire 4 miles to Russell. This was another good test of the new charger. The extra power was noticeable. It was cool to be able to see a digital confirmation of our net current flow and drive battery state.

    We found a spot between all the buoys to anchor in the bay in front of the small vacation town of Russell.

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    Leaving Ben aboard to continue his work Helen and I went ashore to explore the town. There was a well recommended museum which we didn’t enter as Helen had left her reading glasses behind. This worked out well for us as we were able to use the time to have a fun-filled hike around the area.

    We first climbed Maiki Hill to the north of the town where there were excellent views of the town and the Bay of Islands in general. We then scrambled down the side of the hill to the road that led north to Tapeka Point. We didn’t make it all the way to the point turning off to the western beach close by. Having seen a coastal trail marked on a map at the museum we had a go at returning via the coast. Personally I thought it was a lot of fun but it turned out to be quite a challenging section. The path was really only a low tide option and it was approaching high tide. That required a lot of scrambling over and around rocks and occasional wading. But we made it having the entire route to ourselves. We found a made path back to town towards the end which had us climbing up and down the hills again adding to our exercise.

    In town we bumped into the Larabecks (fiddler/music professor) and shared company over a beer by the shore. We soon had to return to the boat for dinner even though it still felt quite early. We’re still not used to the long hours of daylight as a result of our latitude and approaching summer.

  • Whangarei – first visit

    We had a good Sunday evening as we had curry with company. This time it was Steve from Curious along with his climbing companion, Terrier (sic). They had planned a helicopter drop off in the South Island but had to abandon this due to an infection Steve picked up before he sailed down from Fiji and developed nastily on the way down. He ended up over a week in hospital and is still on crutches.

    Today we drove down to Whangarei. Before heading down I dropped into Catermarine to learn that out charger had arrived. It was too big to lug to Whangarei and back so we left it there.

    In Whangarei we first filled our propane tanks. Most places here won’t fill without having tanks first certified and then won’t touch fiberglass tanks. This place filled both ours without question.

    Next I visited a couple of stores that might have stocked the float switch I need to fix the broken one in our shower drain. The first place was out of stock and the second didn’t carry them. At least we know the first place will have them some time so we’ll go back sometime.

    Next was the the Post Office and the Insurance office to sort out paperwork on the car which went by without too many hitches (ie my leaving my driving license in the PO).

    Next we met up with the Sea Misters for lunch at the wharf. Due to mistakes made by the server we ended up with an extra pizza and some free drinks. Not bad. And it tasted great so we’ll be back one day.

    In the afternoon we shopped for a bunch of stuff including walking boots, sleeping bags, sheets, pillows and other stuff (I think some of this was in the morning but I’m losing track already).

    We didn’t get back to Opua until after Catermarine closed so we were unable to pick up our charger. That will have to wait until the morning.

    The drive there an back was a lot of fun. New Zealand countryside continues to inspire. The only downer was the possibility I was caught on a police radar in a tricky spot where signage was particularly unclear. I’ve heard tickets are mailed so it will be a while before I know if we were tagged. I may even have been under the limit but have no idea.

  • Running around

    Did a lot of running around yesterday but on reflection I managed to complete nothing. To that end I’ll claim completion (forgot to mention the previous day) of my effort to permanently plumb in the washing machine waste.

    As part of the build of our enhanced rudder pins I removed my starboard flange and dropped it off so they could drill out a larger hole for the new pins. Hopefully these will be ready today.

    There also may be a day or two delay with our new car as the NZ registration paperwork seems to be slowing down delivery. Our charger should be on it’s way here within a day or two.

    We can now eat of the floor of the boat as Helen spent another day cleaning and sorting. Ben had a very productive session with a contact he has made in New York with respect to understanding more about starting work as an actuary including getting some hiring leads.

    During one of my runaround sessions I took the camera out for some pics of the place. Enjoy.

    Yesterday evening we dined with Ed/Cornelia from A Capella and Vickie/Steve from True Companions. We started off meeting up aboard Dignity for cocktails and starters before trudging all the way to the other end of Opua to True Companions for dinner and desert. Hardly needs to be said that we had a good time of it.

    Today we’re going to walk to Paihia and set up a local bank account and eat out for lunch. If our news rudder pins are ready when we return I’ll sort that out so we are free to move.

  • Passage to New Zealand – Day 1

    We’ve had an encouraging start to this passage. The winds, as predicted, did shift around enough for us to not only gain the rhumb line but to also let out the sails for a more comfortable ride. Overnight the swell, which always lags the wind, shifted too so we stopped crashing into the waves so much. All good. The wind forecasts are also coming in as good as we could hope for. We have pretty much a beam to close reach for the next few days in around and about 20 knots of wind which we will sail well in. The 7 day forecast even shows the stationary high in our way dissipating providing the hint that we may be able to sail all the way in.

    All the boats that left yesterday are sailing for either Whangarei or Opua (mostly the latter) so we’re all close by. We always had sails on the horizon around us and Kilkea in particular took station 2 miles off our port and stayed there overnight. this morning within spitting distance of us are Attitude, Blue Penguin, Boree, Illusion, Imagine, Kilkea, Tin Tin and Larabeck. Quite a crowd.

    Unfortunately, Sea Mist had to turn back. Outside of the reef at Tongatapu they noticed the stitching coming apart around the clew of their jib. They decided to turn back and effect repairs. We heard from them this morning. They have found a possible place to get it repaired. Our fingers are crossed that they can make it out in this weather window but it is tight. A low pressure system is chasing us down which will make things bumpier and wetter for them.

    We had a little problem with our job too but nothing serious. I noticed some more of the stitching for the sun strip had come undone. Fortunate this was close to the furler so I went forward and stitched it up leaving the sail out. It was a bit awkward as I caught a few waves as well as catching my finger with the needle a few times.

    More excitement came in the afternoon when we were briefly accompanied by some pilot whales. I rushed for my camera but they didn’t stay long enough to pose.

    Sailing to New Zealand is a bit like playing dodgems with the weather systems. Given that it’s getting colder we’ve elected to use a little diesel on the way to provide some comfort in terms of warmth and to avoid loss of speed due to regeneration. If we need to slow down we’ll regenerate but not unless we need to. Our sailing angle to the wind is screwing up the wind gen as the wind spilling of the main spins it around and we get no useful energy from it. That’s a pity as we’d do pretty well in these wind speeds.

    We’re currently managing to average just over 6 knots which puts us on an ETA for arrival next Thursday on the 8th. We’d always hoped to arrive before the weekend so this is a nice comfortable margin.

  • Last night out

    In the morning Helen and Ben took the water taxi into Nuku’alofa while I went ashore here to Big Mama’s for some internet and weather discussions. There weren’t too many people in Big Mama’s that morning so I was able to sort some paperwork out and get up to date with our tracks. One thing I didn’t manage to do was link some photo albums I’ve recently uploaded to their respective blogs. In the absence of this, the albums can of course be seen on our general photos page http://www.aboarddignity.com/photos.htm.

    In the afternoon I had planned to scrape the starboard hull. I decided to do some early parts replacement on the genset first. If we end up motoring the last day or two I want to minimise the possibility of any issues there. I therefore replaced the impeller as well as both fuel filters. Prior to replacing the fuel filters I ran the fuel pumps for about 20-30 minutes on each tank giving the fuel a bit of a polish on the old filters. While that was happening I replaced the impeller. This time two blades had broken off and I found three wedged in the ins and outs to the chamber holding the impeller. Once I’d changed out the fuel filters I again ran the fuel pump to purge out any air.

    When I started the genset to check it was ok it made a terrible noise and failed to start properly. It’s normal practice, when putting new fuel filters on, to fill them with fuel before putting them in place. I’ve always managed to get away with this as the priming action has got rid of the air. I checked the primary filter an no fuel had made it in there so with Ben’s help I filled it, screwed it back on, ran the fuel pump for a couple of minutes and retested. All was ok with the engine. Except for one thing. Sea water was squirting at high pressure from around the raw water pump housing the impeller I’d just changed.

    Nothing for it but to take the pump apart and inspect it all. Some of the water tight surfaces looked a bit grimy so I figured it needed a bit of a clean up before reassembly. As this was the first time for me to do something like this I called Stuart over from Imagine to offer any advice. I’m glad I did as he was able to advise me how to really clean up the salts that had built up on the shaft. I also found a pump rebuild kit I had as spares so a lot of the parts I replaced for new leaving cleaning up the old ones for a later date.

    With everything reassembled I fired up the genset and all was ok. Phew. Good news we did this as now I feel we have a more reliable genset.

    With all the extra time spent on the genset we’d run out of time to clean the starboard hull. Helen had bought a six pack of beer in the morning (I’d suggested 12) principally to have some for our arrival in New Zealand. These were soon quaffed to celebrate our improved generator before we cleaned up and headed ashore for our final night out. Quite a few folks showed up which was nice. We had plenty of beers and had one last meal. Ben and Ian ended up going back with our last bottle of nasty Tongan rum in exchange for more cava which was doing the rounds with the youngsters. He’ll be as agile as a sloth today I’m sure which will be fun because he’s supposed to help out with the hull cleaning.

    The weather picture looks slightly improved on yesterday. The winds look as though they’ll begin turning to the east a little earlier. No news on the stalled high at the other end. We’ll just have to take our chances with that when we are on the move. Today we’ll focus on getting the boat ready for passage so we can leave as soon as we want in the morning.