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.