Waitangi Day 2009

We sailed south to Auckland from Opua on Tuesday.  We left with a forecast of NE to E winds which although not ideal looked not too bad.  What the forecasters meant to say was ESE to SE winds, which became obvious after we rounded cape Brett and could barely make our course to weather.  We motor sailed in light winds and by 20:15, the winds strengthened enough for us to sail and we had a good sail to weather for most of the night.  The winds lightened again around 04:00 and we motor sailed ther rest of the way.  We were tied up in Westhaven by 13:00, a total of 27 hours from dock to dock and 139 miles.  Not too bad.  The marina here is a bit more spread out than Opua but surprisingly pretty quiet, considering we are in the middle of Auckland.  We do here city noises bit they are not intrusive.  Yesterday I took the bus back up to Opua to get the car.  I left at 08:30 and was back on the boat by 16:30.  The bus ride up was great, I got to see a lot more than when we drive, it was a nice tall bus!

We got up this morning, Waitangi Day, for you non NZers, the agreement that formed New Zealand, otherwise known as the Treaty of Waitangi, was signed in 1843.  It is a peaceful celebration of cultures coming together, at lease now it is.  There was a big due hosted by Auckland City Council and Ngati Whatua o Orakei.  We spent a few hours listening to music, wandering around and getting throroughly baked in the hot sun before we gave up and came back to the boat.  All in all a pretty busy week.  Cathy has a job interview on Wednesday and I am still chasing a job on the North Shore.  Hopefully we can get something happening sooner rather than later.  WINZ still has not seen fit to complete the process required to get the Unemployment Benefit.  Don’t really know what the holdup is but we have another meeting on Monday with the WINZ office here in Auckland and should get it straightened out then.