Addendum

Thinking is now ramping up for our passage to New Zealand and boat projects once we arrive.

I am now listening to the Rag of the Air net each morning. Yesterday I announced Dignity to the net and let them know we’d be joining their role call soon once we start heading south to New Zealand. For the last week or two I’ve been downloading wind forecasts down to New Zealand to get a sense of the weather patterns relating what we see with the various forecasts we’re also receiving. One great source of information is Bob McDavitt’s weekly weathergram which comes out on Sundays. This morning it sets a tentative weather window opening up for arrival in New Zealand after the 13th of November. For us that would mean leaving Nuku’alofa this coming Friday. If the forecasts nearer the time support this we may well leave south at the end of this week following the rhumb line to Opua. We’d take a look at his next weathergram and carry on if this supports that timetable. If not we could divert to Minerva Reef and wait it out.

For the last few weeks I’ve kept a couple of pages open in my notebook to record things to do/projects that come to mind. These range from trivial things like getting new dive torches to getting a better outboard for the dinghy and a new helm seat (the current one is not as comfortable as we’d like). The idea being is that we want to make the best of Sam’s visit to us to bring stuff from the US. Some things we may sort out in Opua (like the outboard and dinghy wheels) and some we need to get in front of (like ordering parts) in January in Whangarei even though we may not do them until March / April.

Mentally this is all a gear change. We’re going to spend a bit of money on Dignity in New Zealand and get busy again. It’s a great place to get things done. We’ve traveled nine and half thousand nautical miles since our last period of project work back in Grenada a year ago and we’ve got another thousand ahead of us. As this will still be our home for the next few years it’s time for a few home improvements and a good spring clean.