Christmas Eve in Palmerston North

Well, we are thoroughly landlocked for Christmas.  We are at least an hour from the coast at our friends Penny and Spencer’s house.  We had a good visit with Jan and Tony and even managed to get our for a sail for a day on Monday.  It was an early start because of the tide and the bar.  We left the dock around 07:15 and despite the fact that Tony made us leave REALLY early to make sure we had lots of water over the bar, we still touched the bottom on the way over the bar.  That really confirmed our decision that if we end up in Wellington working we will NOT be in Mana but rather we will take the boat over to Seaview in Wellington harbour.  We talked to them last week and they were really quite nice and said that there would be no problem with availability etc.  It’s across the harbour from the city but it’s not too bad a drive.  We lived a bit further around the bay in 1997/98 in York Bay.  We left Tuesday morning and went to Porirua to get the tires checked and balanced.  The car was vibrating pretty good at between 80 and 100 km/hr.  It turned out that all the tires were a different make and one of the rear tires had a separated belt.  To top it all off, the tires were the wrong size.  So, new tires and then off to Palmerston North.  The plan is to head back to Opua on the 26^th.  The parts are all there for the motor so I can get it back together and hopefully not need many (or any) other parts.  The weather is typical for this time of year, a couple of days of sun followed by a few days of cold and rain.  Should be right by tomorrow for the traditional Christmas BBQ.

Wind, Rain and Christmas

What can I say, we’re in Wellington and it’s blowing 40-50 knots with rain, ahhhhhh home!!  We had planned to try and sail to the South Island over the weekend but alas, the weather, she no play nice no more.  Other than that, we took 3 days to drive here from Opua, something like a new record for me.  Normally I would drive it in one day.  WE stopped in Auckland the first night and had a great evening with Tony, Helen, Sarah and Jonathon.  We haven’t seen them for nearly 5 years and other than maybe a few more grey hairs, tony looked about the same, Helen looked exactly the same.  The kids on the other hand have grown up.  Sarah enters University next term and Jonathan is into racing bicycles, road and velodrome.  Needless to say, we had lots of catching up to do.  We stopped the second night in Taurangi at a cheap motel.  It rained.  We drove through rain, wind, sun, rain, wind, and sun then got to Wellington.  The weather hasn't been too bad except for the wind, blowing 25-35 in the marina pretty much since we got here.  Had a good meeting with  a recruiter, we’ll see how that plays out in the new year.  Other than that, a quiet week.  Drove around the east side of the harbour and checked out the marina and rates.  If we come to Wellington because of work, we will keep the boat at Seaview Marina in Wellington Harbour.  No bar to contend with and good sailing around the harbour. 

Land Criusing

We still haven’t got a working motor.  The parts supplier for the motor expects everything to be in Opua next week so hopefully it all shows up and when we get back here on the 27^th I can bolt it all together.  We haul out to bottom paint on the 30^th so an engine would be nice.  On the bright side, the remaining engine bits have all been cleaned and the engine painted with T29 School Bus Yellow Super Enamel spray paint.  It looks great.  The alternator has been rebuilt and is ready, the rest of the boat is together complete with new Wind, Depth/Log instruments (replaced for the 3^rd time under warranty), a new antiglare coating on the Chart Plotter.  That one was my fault, I got carried away cleaning one day and used the wrong rag to wipe off the screen, it had Windex on it, a DEFINITE NO-NO.  Anyways all we need is a motor.  We had a Treasures of the Bilge sale yesterday and we got rid of lots of stuff from the boat.  I dug out the 40 meters of spare chain and spare 45 CQR anchor, sold that,  chopped 40 meters of chain of the bow (left 60 meters) and sold that, dug out the 6 year old laptop, sold that,  took out the 110volt battery charger, sold that, rounded up every bit of spare junk we didn’t need and sold it!  All in all, the boat is riding back to her designed water line and I’m looking to forward to sailing here with all the extra weight removed.  The only other thing we did was get the front brakes serviced on the car.  I was expecting to only have to replace the disk pads but like always, we had a choice to either turn the rotors or replace them.  As the price difference was not great between the two options, we put new rotors on.  The car is like new.  I spent an hour this morning cleaning the inside, for the first time!!

It’s beginning to look like Christmas around here (NZ style that is).  The Pohutukawa trees are in bloom (red of course) and people are loading up their boats for the annual Christmas/summer holiday cruise.  We leave tomorrow for Wellington, by car, and hopefully some good career contacts.  I have one meeting lined up and hopefully another will materialize by weeks end.  With any luck will sail over to the Queen Charlotte Sounds with Jan and Tony for a few days anyways before heading to Palmerston North for Christmas with Penny, Spencer, Jake, Harry and Ned.  The plan is a traditional Kiwi Christmas BBQ, should be fun.

Chapter 3 Life in New Zealand Begins

We are beginning to settle in and I’m at least getting serious about job hunting. We took a long drive last weekend over to the west coast, down to Dargaville, over to Whangerie and then back to Opua. A lovely day on the coast and through the Kauri forest. That was pretty much the high point of the week. We took the car in for service, not too bad, only needs front brake pads, not bad for a 10 year old used car! The big issue turned out to the boat engine. I started Wednesday by changing fuel filters. That led to replacing the alternator belt which led to removing the alternator to get the bearings replaced which led to draining the cooling system and finding out that most of it needs to be replaced due to corrosion. Fun, fun, fun.
Like I said I have also been serious about getting a job, especially now that we need to spend a heap of cash on the engine. The down side of job hunting in NZ is that 99% of organisations go through recruiting agencies. Some are good, most are not. The more I look, the more likely it seems that we will end up in Wellington. Essentially, the choice boils down to Auckland or Wellington and at this point we choose Wellington. We are planning a road trip there in just over a week. The plan is meet up with some old colleagues and friends and then spend Christmas in Palmerston North with Penny and family. Back here before the 30th as we have to haul out and do the bottom paint etc then we will see where we end up. If something comes up in Wellington we will sail south, doing it in day hops as much as possible.