Another Week Dirfts By

We started the week with another visit to Tony and Helen’s bach in Whangaemu Bay.  We went up Monday morning and came back Tuesday afternoon.  We got to sleep inside this time, but we were prepared wit the tent anyways.  Not much done other than walking on the beach, taking a long kayak tour with Tony on Tuesday and eating well.  They a re a truly wonderful family and we always have a great time with them.  We had hoped to get them out sailing with us in the Bay of Islands but that was not to be as we had not received the parts we needed to complete the refurb on the cooling system.  By Thursday, I was getting nervous about the parts, so back up to Seapower.  Chris called Lust and Blundell in Auckland and they said, yes, they had the parts and would be sent to be received Friday.  Well, no parts Friday morning, so back up to Seapower just before noon.  No worries, they get deliveries all day.  By 14:00, still no parts so Chris calls Auckland and they say, no we did not get the parts and nothing was sent.  They had plain out lied to her on Thursday.  It turns out the parts haven’t even been shipped from the Netherlands much less made it to NZ.  Well, I was less than impressed with Lusty and Blundell.  We have to vacate our berth here this week and need a running motor.  Well Chris’s husband Bruce, the mechanic, offered to build up a hose for us from parts.  Well between the two of us, we cobbled together a few pieces and made a hose to go from the fresh water pump to the heat exchanger that also allowed me to have the thermostat back in the system.  I got it installed, resealed the leaking filler cap fitting and started the motor up.  It seemed OK but after about half an hour, I was still getting a small leak around the filler cap.  Saturday morning, I took the fitting off again and managed to find a way to seal it up properly and got the system leak free, or so I thought.  I started the motor, and noticed an exhaust smell inside the boat.  So, back into the engine compartment to find that two of the hose clamps for the exhaust hose were loose.  OK, I tightened them up and all was fine.   While I was doing that, I noticed the shear pin connected the propeller shaft to the transmission was half way out of the coupler.  It turned out the pin had broken in half somehow.  After a couple of hours of patient work, I got the old pin completely removed.  It would have literally left us stranded and caused considerable damage had we left the dock with it in that condition.  The shaft would have pulled out of the coupling and slide back.  The prop would have hit the back side of the aperture under the boat and probably wrecked the prop and would have definitely gouged a chunk out.  Luckily, once again, we dodged a bullet and it will be fixed before we leave.  Now that the pin is out, I run the engine again to make sure the exhaust is OK and no other leaks have appeared.  It all looks good until I see a small drop of antifreeze on top of the new coolant tank.  I’m looking around and can’t figure out where it came from and I’m thinking, maybe I spilled a drop when I was topping off the overflow bottle.  SoI wipe it up and as I watch, I see coolant seeping VERY slowly out of the top of the new tank, the new aluminium tank.  It turns out that there is a very, very small hole, a fault in the manufacture, in the top of the tank and it weeps coolant.  It will be K until we get to Auckland but now, I have to persuade Lusty and Blundell to get it replaced for free along with the necessary gaskets etc.  Should be great fun.  I really hope I don’t find any more problems with the boat.  In addition to the boat stuff, we have been dealing with government bureaucracy this week.  Wednesday, I decided to call Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ) to see what was happening with our 2^nd required appointment that we needed to attend in order to get an unemployment benefit.  The fun started when I called the 0800 number using our cell phone.  The government in its infinite wisdom, does not allow cell phones to call the 0800 number.  It is only useable from landlines.  If calling from a cell phone, you have to call the local number, which means that we pay for the call.  It seems strange to me that the number provided to people who are collecting unemployment benefits, sickness benefits, etc, costs those people money to call.  In NZ it is a calling party pays system.  I managed to get hold of the person who presented the first seminar and her story was that they were really busy and have been unable to reschedule appointments.  My story to her was that all we had was an appointment booked fro Feb. 2^nd , no particular time, just Feb. 2^nd.  As we were going to Kerikeri that day anyways to get groceries, I said I would just go to WINZ and get a time confirmed.  Around 10:00 am, I get a call from the WINZ office in Kerikeri, asking us if we can be there before 11:00 and we could get the application completed.  We made it by 10:45.  We went through the paperwork, answered all the questions and I got to stare in disbelief when I was asked to provide proof of my Inland Revenue tax number that I had provided on the form.  I politely informed our case worker that they had given me the number off their computer system a couple of weeks ago.  No way was that sufficient for them, I needed to provide them with something on IRD Letterhead with my tax number on it.  OK, I remembered seeing something in our files from IRD that I had kept on the boat since 1996.  When I got back to the boat I managed to find the piece of paper that proved that the number WINZ gave me was in fact the correct one, bizarre.  Near the end of our interview Wednesday, our case worked, Hori, told us that we would see the first of the payments into our account Thursday morning.  He was also having problems with his system and couldn’t print out our service agreements, the agreements we had to sign saying that we would actively look for work and how often we had to check in with WINZ and prove we were looking for work.  He said he would mail them to us, I told him we were moving to Auckland next week, to look for work, and he said OK, he would print them out and leave them with reception and we could come back to Kerikeri and sign them Thursday of Friday.  We went back Friday and stood around an almost deserted office (midmorning) and finally someone came out and asked us what we wanted.  Told them the short story about having to sign our service agreements (and drop off proof of the IRD number).  The lady who was asking the questions, went way, copied the IRD number and when she came back, I asked about the service agreements and also what had happened to the money that was supposed to be paid into out account (still not received Friday) .  She went away again, found Hori, had a quick discussion with him, came back to us and said that they were really busy and quite behind so she had no idea when we would see any money.  She also said that Hori would mail us the service agreements next week for us to sign and send back.  I politely (I was trying HARD to remain polite by this time) informed the nice lady that we would not receive our mail as we were moving to Auckland next week.  She snapped back with “You know you have to tell us when you move to which I responded, politely, that we had already informed Hori of this.  She snapped back with “So when are you moving?  I politely replied that it depended on the weather as we live on our boat and were sailing our HOME to Auckland.  She snapped back (she was really not very pleasant) with “So, what type of work do you do?” to which I politely responded that I was an IT and Telecommunications Project Manager and that I thought I would have a better chance at finding work in Auckland, rather than in Kereikeri.  She agreed that was probably true.  So off she went back to speak to Hori, and came back and said, well, you need to call us when you have an address in Auckland so we can mail out the service agreement to you.  To which, I politely replied, that we would certainly do so.  We then politely left.

Bay of Islands Sailing Week

I’m recovering from the last week’s hectic schedule helping out with the regatta they have here every January.  I found out last Monday they were looking for volunteers at the cruising club to help out cooking breakfast Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for the event.  I stuck my hand up and ended up in the kitchen at 06:00 with 6/7 other people preparing a full cooked breakfast for about 100 people a day.  It was great fun.  We each had our jobs to do and we all got stuck into it really well.  I worked with a lady named Jane, and between the two of us we prepared scrambled eggs and beans.  We had three other guys on bacon, sausage and hash browns, three people serving plates and Carla, our German lady washing dishes.  Heidi was on toast out in the club and Graham (commodore) and his wife as well as Murray (past commodore) and another gent who’s name I didn’t get, provided support and cleanup throughout the morning rush.  All in all we averaged about 100 breakfasts a day for three days.  We did the eggs, a dozen at a time, in the microwave.  They were great!  So that took care of the mornings on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.   I also decided to help out in the evenings tending bar under the big marquee they put up on the pier.  David, the bar manager was great to work with.  He’s organised the bar for the past 6 years and has a great system down pat.  We had a trailer the size of a horse trailer that was actually a cold store.  That held all the beer, around 300 dozen or so.  There were 7 cases of rum, maybe 20 cases of mix (coke, sprite, ginger ale etc.) and wine.  They have a purpose built bar that they use year to year and with a staff of 6-8 of us, we poured drinks and served beer from 4-10 Tuesday and Wednesday night.  Thursday we hired one of the old car ferries and loaded up the chiller trailer, a generator, an old dinghy full of beer and ice, and headed out to a small island for an after race beach party,  The ferry was able to pull up to the beach and drop his ramp so people could get on and off.  We set up the bar on the ferry, there was a catering company doing lamb sandwiches, and we had a band playing for a few hours as well.  The party went from around 15:00 to 19:00 then we pulled up the ramp, backed off the beach and headed back to Opua.  It was a great time.  The sailors were pretty impressed with the whole thing.  We had loads of compliments from everyone.  Friday was the big finish with prize giving etc. We closed the bar about 23:00 and sent the last remaining die-hards out.  It was a great week and everyone was pretty well behaved, at least in the marquee, not too sure how they were outside of it.  All I know is that I had a great time volunteering, got a couple of new shirts and met a lot of really great people.

Another Exciting Blog Entry

It’s been two weeks since I published anything to the blog, mostly because not much is happening.  The days are an endless round of internet job searching followed by follow-up phone calls, some of which amazingly enough even get returned.   Not much happening on the job front yet but is it is still early days and things are not really moving much.  I am classed an academic here due to the fact that I have been training project managers and managers how to do their jobs.   It seems that most recruiters subscribe to the “those that can’t do teach” scenario.  It’s all BS but what can you do.  Words don’t change their minds and it is difficult to get past them (the recruiters that is).  We are working on that however.  We have decided to move to Auckland and concentrate our job search there.  We have a berth reserved for January 7^th for three months.  The price is a bit higher than here but not too bad.  If at all possible we would like to stay in Auckland rather than Wellington, mostly due to weather.  Of course, as soon as we get settled in Auckland we I will likely get a job in Wellington but that’s life!

We did start the process of getting an unemployment insurance benefit while we are looking.  It’s not much but it will offset most of our costs.  The only problem is that some bright spark a few years ago decided that it would be better if people did not talk to counsellors individually but rather they (we) need to sit in on two information sessions before the benefit is granted.  The process, at this point, looks to take 4-6 weeks.  Oh well, red tape abounds everywhere and we are at least fortunate enough to have a little aside to tide us over for a wee while longer.  On the boat front, we are still waiting for parts for the motor.  The Vetus dealer in Auckland who everything must go through is not the best company in the world to deal with.  I wasn’t impressed with them 9 years ago when I was refitting Loon Echo, and surprisingly, I\m still not impressed.  The parts MAY be here this coming week.  Other than that we struggle on with the usual readjustment stress about ripping our lives up and restarting them.  Some days are good, others we just get through.

A Lovely Day

Don’t really know why I’m writing the blog tonight other than the fact we had a really pleasant day.  We started off with a nice cooked breakfast and then after a few minor chores (washing rags, after all, you have to BUY rags now) we headed to Kerikeri to go for a walk.  The idea was to walk from the Stone Store to rainbow falls, an hour and half return walk, so the guide said.  Well, we got to the Stone House and couldn’t find a parking spot, so we drove to Rainbow falls and walked from that end.  It took about 50 minutes at a brisk pace to get to the Stone House.  The walk followed the Kerikeri river and meandered through woods and under the new bypass bridge.  It was a beautiful day and a great walk.  By the time we got back to rainbow falls, we both felt we had earned the sandwich I had carried in the pack!  We washed the car on the way back to Opua and by the time we got back, we had time to prepare for dinner guests.  We had invited Tom and Dawn from Warm Rain, Geoff and Kathy from Bold Spirit and David and Linda from Toketie over for a summer BBQ.  The weather was perfect, light winds, blue skies and not too hot.  It was a BYOM.  David and Linda couldn’t stay, they are in the middle of repainting the interior of their boat but did take an hour off and brought over a appetizer to share.  We ended up having a wonderful evening, and got to know people a bit better.  It was a celebration of our getting back into the water after the haul out. 

It’s days like today that we really appreciate being here.  Not that you can’t go for walks anywhere you are but somehow it seems better in NZ, at least to us.  The trails are not too manicured and there aren’t an abundance of safety rails etc.  It is on your on good judgement not to fall over the bank etc. and no warning signs other than those that are absolutely necessary, i.e “Do not enter when the river is in flood”.  We are also getting a lot of entertainment from the marina.  The Aucklanders are her in droves and it is fun watching them load and unload their boats on the weekends.  The marina staff are going nuts trying to police the place.   There are a subset a people that think that they can come into the marina and just grab any empty berth for a few hours or so to top up on water, get food, etc.  The problem is that they don’t ask permission; they just grab an empty berth, thinking that its OK, we’ll just be a little while.  The problem is that when the berth holder returns in their boat and their berth is occupied, it can cause a bit of a problem,  The current runs pretty fierce through here and when you are coming into your berth, you really only have one shot at it.  If you can’t get in, because, say another boat is there, you can easily end up pinned up against the pilings by the current.  Needless to say the marina staff are running around chasing people out.  They have a good sense of humour (they\d go nuts otherwise) and realize that this too will end once summer holidays wind down.

Boat Fun on Land

We hauled the boat out on the 30^th of December with big plans add a boot stripe along the waterline, paint the bottom, touch up the paint on the topsides where we removed the wind steering and generally make the boat tidy again. Surprisingly, it all worked out really well. We came out of the water Tuesday morning and by Tuesday night we had Tarun wet sanded, the keel covered in Primicon, and the water line taped and straightened. The rest of the work went well and we finished everything we planned to do yesterday afternoon. We are hoping to go back in the water today if the weather holds. The forecast is for 20-30 knots but at 08:00 there is not much so maybe we will be all right. It has been a treat doing the work here. They parked the boat right outside the toilets and shower so no long walk. They yard has proper scaffolding that you can use (for money of course), and the guy that is running the travel lift over the holidays (Val) is great. He’s been around for a long time and fills in on holidays. He takes great care of the boats and is generous to a fault. He is coming in today to launch us when it is rightfully his day off. I suspect he kind of half lives in the yard.

The boat looks great and I will post a few pictures of the new paint job on the blog as well. It’s been really quiet in the yard over the holidays. Most of the stands are empty and not many people are around.