Opua, the Final Frontier

We made it to the customs dock at the Opua Marina at 06:00 Saturday morning, exactly when we had said we would! The last day was spent motor sailing in order to make sure we made it early. The wind was predicted to come around to the SE and that would have made it hard going to weather with big seas. Anyhow we made it fine with half a tank of diesel to spare. We cleaned up the boat, Jan cooked us an amazing meal with the last of our fresh meat and veggies. We had chicken and stir fry veggies for breakfast, it was awesome. Cathy pulled out all the questionable food for Biosecurity NZ to inspect and I got all the paperwork ready for Customs. Around 09:00 or so, a lady from Customs (Jo) came on board. She spent maybe 5 minutes with me as there was nothing left for her to do except collect the paperwork I had ready. She thanks us for being so well prepared and off she went. The downside is that we have to se Customs on Monday about importing Tarun to NZ. Oh well, we'll cross that bridge as we go. Next, Biosecurity NZ (Formerly Ministry of Agriculture and Forests) arrived to inspect the boat and make sure we weren't bringing any dangerous foodstuffs in. Helen and Daniela were very nice and when they saw all the food piled up on the salon table they were more than happy. We had everything ready for them, garbage bagged, food listed etc. It pays to make their life easy. They took the fresh food, including the eggs. They did NOT take any dairy products or pasta and the only rice they took was a small packet of wild rice we had brought from Canada. Again, they thanked us repeatedly for our preparation and gave us our clearance. We were free to go. Our marina berth was still occupied but they found another place for us so off we went with Tony waiting to grab our lines. We were tied up by 10:30. After getting squared away with the office we had showers on land (hot, loads of pressure and 4 minutes for a buck). Lunch on board then we piled into Jans' car and off to Pahia for a bit of shopping to replace fresh food and get some NZ cash. First stop was the polling booth though as it was Election Day yesterday. Cathy and I even managed to vote by special vote. The rest of the day was a bit of a blur. I figure I managed to sleep about 10 hours in the three days prior to getting to Opua so I was pretty tired
In total we travelled 11224 Nautical Miles from Victoria to Opua from August 2, 2007 to November 8, 2008. We're HOME!

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