I started getting on top of a few things yesterday. First I researched and booked a hire car for the time after we’re on the hard and up until we reach the airport. I then did some research on generators. The one we have will be oversized once we have switched to diesel so it’s worth understanding what difference a smaller one would make. Dropping down to a 9.5kW unit would save 25%-30% in fuel consumption, halve the oil required and save 300lb in weight. So I gave the Onan dealer in Whangarei a call to price up a trade in / replacement. Chances are it won’t be worth doing but now is a good time to find out.
We really needed some exercise so just before lunch we headed out. We ate sushi in town and then headed off over to the other side of town to double check our booking with the car hire company. We were assured that things would be ok.
Not too far from that location was a walk through the Coronation Scenic Reserve overlooking the town from the north west. We decided to hit the trails there. It was a good work out as it was quite a climb to the ridge. We descended to a view point overlooking the town before climbing back up to the top of the ridge to follow the trail to it’s end.
At the end of the trail we arrived at the Whangarei Quarry Gardens. This was quite unexpected and a very pleasant surprise. This used to be an old quarry but now, mostly through volunteer effort, it has been turned into some tiered gardens with a small central lake. Some of the old quarry structures/remnants remain but they’ve been incorporated quite well into the gardens.
We eventually arrived back at the boat after having walked for three and half hours. We certainly got our exercise.
Back on the boat we ran into Dave Parr, our sail guy from last year, who was sizing up some work on our neighbours. We’d had a tie chaff through at the top of our main sail. He agreed to look at it and further agreed to replace the strap, plus a second similar one, with kevlar. Free of charge. Nice service.
When we checked into the marina I rented a shore power isolation box (for a $ a day) to bring mains power aboard without having to spend $$$$ to have the boat electrically certified. We have our local power rated batter charger we I can hook up to top up the batteries and we have a hot air blower for the mornings.
What this doesn’t give us is hot water. We can use the showers at the marina office but it’s a bit of a schlepp and it’s nice not to have to walk the dock after a shower. So I set about reconfiguring the mains wiring so that the hot water immersion tank could run off the inverter. Something I’ve meant to do for two years. The inverter is up to it and the battery bank is big enough. That done we were able to create hot water and shower aboard without having to run the generator. Nice.