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We started the morning fully unloading the car. This enabled me to load the main table top and take it round to the upholsters to have it traced onto the new fabric. After that I drove to the New World to collect some more bottles of Merlot that passed our previous day’s tasting and to pick up a couple of Chardonnays to prime the tasting pipeline.
After parking the car in the free but further away car park I returned to the boat to get on with some online stuff I needed to catch up on. Helen was progressing with the dark arts of cleaning and sorting out the boat.
One thing I hadn’t mentioned in our blog from two days ago is that we had received some mail while we were away. Two pieces in fact. One was a speeding ticket from the morning we took the boys to the airport and one was a final reminder as we’d passed the due date. So my next chore was to walk into town and to pay off the fine. I was able to pay by Eftpos using my local NZ debit card so with a quick wave of plastic the fine was paid for.
Back at the marina office I checked for our second expected parcel from the US, the one containing our new camera, some accessories and a few other sundry items. It wasn’t there but I did find more mail. I was worried it might be another speeding ticket but it turned out to be a note from customs. I gave them a call and soon it was all agreed that this was personal items for a foreign boat in transit. They were all very polite as usual which is great compared to some of the officials we’ve had to deal with in the past. I emailed them a copy of our Temporary Import Form and that, theoretically, should ease it out of their system.
By lunch we were ravenous as we’d both skipped breakfast. In the afternoon we discovered our first ‘real’ problem – more of a bloody annoyance. I’d left a printer ink cartridge out on the side and it had obviously leaked all over the DVD case it was sitting on and the gel-coat surface beneath. They were both badly stained. The DVD case we couldn’t care about but the surface was a problem. We borrowed some On/Off from Steve on True Companions which made some difference. We’ll try applying it routinely for the next few days to see what we can accomplish. We are having some exterior gel-coat fixes done so maybe we can scrape this off and have new gel-coat applied inside too. Bugger the bother and cost.
The most memorable point of the day came around 3pm. This was my underwater excursion to check and scrape the props. It took me nearly an hour to find all the gear that we’d last used many months ago. 3pm was a good time as the tide had been coming in for 4 hours. The water was still murky but I felt it may be cleaner than an outbound tide with all the liveaboards and fishing boats upstream of us. Also, being nearer high tide there was less chance of kicking up the bottom silt. Finally, at 3pm the sun was still reasonably high to help with the poor visibility.
With Helen keeping and eye out for problems and to assist I lowered by self into the water with my tank on. It wasn’t as cold as I feared but the visibility was less than a foot. I could not even see the rudders from the back step. I carefully made my way forward not wanting to rub against the barnacle encrusted hull. Once I found the rudder I was able to follow it to the prop. It was a mess. There was aboard a cm of barnacle on each face of each blade and a whole mess at the hub. Because we’d been turning the props a lot of the barnacles had been washout out of their shells but were still encrusted onto the props. It took a lot of effort to scrape them all off. Worse still, the gunk coming off the props reduced the visibility further making the whole job trying, particularly as I was also trying to avoid getting my skin scraped off on the barnacle invested surroundings. In the end I came out of the ordeal with barely a scratch. Glad to be connected to shore water I showered for a long time to rid myself of the river ooze.
The boat behind us, Endless, was due to leave to dock at 4pm. Bryan and Jodon from El Regalo were helping out. I shared our experience with them in case they ran into similar difficulties. Forewarned they too found very little action from their props. At one point, when they’d reached the main river they looked like they were having difficulty maneuvering the boat but they managed it. I’ve shared our experience with many others now so folks can take appropriate action.
Once all cleaned up and the excitement over I headed over to Sea Mist to borrow a disk drive with some files on. I was plied with a couple of beers for my trouble (how can I complain). On leaving I ran into Bert on Boree and had a chat with him. It feels like we’ve fallen right back into our old groove.
Dinner was refried left over Chinese from the night before which always tastes better than it sounds. We finished the evening chatting with Rob and Ruth on Albatross III just the other side of the dock from us. Both our boats are work in progress so it ended up with each of us sitting on our own decks and chatting across the divide.
We headed up along the Whanganui River as far as we could. We stopped a few times to take pictures, to see a couple of Maraes and see an old church. Although it was nice, none of it could really compare to the stunning scenery we’d left behind in the south island. We carried on driving north discussing options of where to stay the night. Over lunch we tabled the option of going all the way back to Whangarei and giving ourselves more time to prepare for haulout. The idea had it’s appeal. We’d been too long on the road. It was a lot of driving. We made it to Auckland just as rush hour was developing so we squeezed through the traffic without too much delay. We made it back to Whangarei before 7pm.
As luck would have it we ran into Amy and Dan from Division II who’d been keeping an eye on Dignity. They were on their way back to their boat and offered us a ride. That saved us the bother of using one of the marina hard dinghies. We’d only brought our cool box along to put into the fridge. Upon entering the boat we felt home. Better still, the boat smelt brand new. We hadn’t really cleaned up before leaving and, in the back of our minds, wondered if things would be ok. Everything seems fine.
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We didn’t stop too long. We lowered the dinghy which was a little flaccid and headed to shore to go out and eat. Most of the boats on the dock have done a shuffle since we left. Many of the folks we knew there have left the area. The boats now on the dock are mostly unknown to us. On the way back from town we met Steve and Vickie from True Companions. It was nice to stop and chat to old friends for a while.
Sleep came quickly as we were exhausted. Now we have to work out what to do with today. Right now I don’t want to do much but I suspect we’ll get busy.
We’re hoping to be out of here by Wednesday. Our ferry to the south island is the following Monday and we’d like to take our time getting down to Wellington. We’ve also had a gracious invitation from some NZers near Napier to stay with them on Friday and Saturday which we’re aiming to make. So. There’s no time to rest. This is going to be one of those project list blogs …..
First order of the day was to remove the sails before the possibility of the wind picking up. The jib is always easy and this we accomplished first. Removing the mainsail requires removing the reefs and the battons, sliding off the sail cars and lowering the lazy bag before heaving the sail off the boom. Both sails had to be folded which is not so hard to do on the foredeck. They’re now bagged up and ready to be collected by the sailmaker today.
Between us (either collectively or separate) for the rest of the day we accomplished the following other items :
- Chased an erroneous bank charge down
- Talked to Tom on Emily Grace about his experiences aggregating items in the US to be sent to NZ
- Learned that our car battery should be here on Monday (today)
- Went to a local store to buy plastic boxes for putting all our loose items in for camping. Also bought tubing for creating an easy delivery system for topping up house batteries.
- Packed plastic boxes with items for camping
- Partially packed car (including moving car twice)
- Removed oven and inspected interior in anticipation for future improvement
- Installed diversion valve on water maker output line to make filling external vessels simpler
- Installed new hose connections at dock tap to make removal of pressure limiter simpler
- Changed filters on water maker
- Filled 2 x 5 gallon containers of water from dock via water maker making huge supply of very good battery water
- Went to top up house batteries only to discover they don’t need topping up (but was pleased with all the prep work as I intended to do it anyway)
- Fixed burst hose (unplanned)
Along the way we bumped into a few of the cruisers still here: Frank from Tahina, Dan from Division II, Tom & Kim from Emily Grace (already mentioned), Dave from Leu Cat and Steve & Vicky from True Companions. Each meeting involved a bit of a chat and a catch up so I feel relieved we accomplished as much as we did.
In the evening we received a brief Facebook message from Sam to say they’d arrived safely with no hiccups on the flights. The boat feels quite empty. We keep expecting to see Ben in the corner where he made his home. But he’s not there.
We still have more to do today and tomorrow. I’ll bore you with the detail on the next blog.
by steve, on December 28th, 2010 ( Boree, Emily Grace, Jackster, Leu Cat, Marquesa, New Zealand, Paleides, Sea Mist, True Companions) Last of the camping gear is purchased and most is stuffed in the car. And boy is that car packed. It’s ideal for the two of us. We always knew it would be a squeeze for four but we hadn’t anticipated going camping with four. The boys will be sitting in the back with quite a bit of gear. And Sam still wants to take his guitar. Final compression testing soon.
Yesterday evening we had a little soiree. Now that we’re all in civilization the notion of having drinks and nibbles for folks aboard seems to have been forgotten. So it was a nice change to have a bunch of folks aboard. We ended up with the folks from Leu Cat, Sea Mist, Paleides, Jackster, True Companions, Emily Grace, Marequesa and Boree. The rain, which had been falling all day, dried out so we had a great evening.
It’s approaching 7:30am. Folks are still asleep aboard. Ben and Sam went out on the town with Ian from Sea Mist so may end being a little groggy when woken. I’ll give them until 8. Then we’ll stuff the last few things in the car, test we can all fit in, then back to the boat to move it over the river and leave it on the pilings. Hopefully we’ll be away by 10.
Happy Holidays to one and all.
Xmas Eve was a rush of last minute shopping. Our tiny tree suddenly ended up with a few presents underneath and around – more than we’ve seen in a few years due to our anticipated visitors.
The evening was spent in fine company. Squeezing the Jacksters (making six adults in all) into our tiny car we headed off to a nearby hotel to have an Xmas Eve meal with the local community, ie our Pacific cruising friends all here in Whangarei. At the table were Sea Mist (thanks for organising this John), Boree, Emily Grace, True Companions, Leu Cat, Jacksters and us. A riotous assembly. Food and company were both good.
As the Jacksters were nearby they joined us for a night cap back on Dignity. Helen impressed us all by (with just two glasses of wine in her) fell in the water getting aboard. It wasn’t really cold but the water was less than clear so she was out and into the shower in a hurry.
So now it’s Xmas and quite late in the morning at that (8 – if I can call that late). Being in NZ we get to celebrate Xmas a little earlier than the rest of the year. So here’s wishing everyone a very pleasant day wherever you are, whatever you’re doing.
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