15 December 2014 Whangarei, New Zealand
This weather is horrible. There’s a huge low formed to the north of us which is bringing heavy rain and strong gale force winds. The big gusts are making the mast and rigging vibrate so the whole boat is slightly rocking about all the time. Thank goodness that we’re not at sea or at anchor somewhere exposed.
My main job of the day was to remove the exhaust silencer from underneath the generator. Back in July, we had a major leak in one of the stainless steel end caps and I bodged it with some marine epoxy. I emptied out the cockpit locker, removed the dive compressor and opened up the hatch above the generator. I rented a chain block & tackle from the yard and rigged up a cross beam to lift the generator up.
It wasn't as bad a job as I first feared. I only had to reposition one cooling water pipe and disconnect the two diesel pipes - the rest of the pipes and electrical cables were long enough that I could lift the generator up a couple of feet without disconnecting them. Once I had the generator lifted, it took me 30 minutes of pushing, pulling and grunting to pull the two hoses off the silencer. It was a bit of a mess - the epoxy that I’d put on was loose and there‘s another weeping weld at the other end.
I put on my waterproof jacket and trousers, jumped on my bike and pedalled 4 miles in the driving rain to Whangarei Marine Services. After some discussion, Geoff and I decided that the end caps on the exhaust look okay - it’s just the welds on some extension pipework that seem to be leaking, so I've left it with Geoff to get it re-welded.
Meanwhile Glenys had ridden into town to get some things, so we were both like drowned rats by the time we got back to the boat. We had a hot shower and hunkered down for the evening.
16 December 2014 Whangarei, New Zealand
The weather was even worse today, so I couldn't be bothered to do any jobs on the boat and instead spent most of the day on my laptop, investigating guitar lessons, downloading new songs and messing about on my guitar.
Glenys was much more industrious and did some sewing in the afternoon - working on various covers including a new cover for our horseshoe buoy which was looking very sad.
There are only two more sleeps before we travel to the UK, so we’re definitely in “de-mob” mood now and can’t wait to get going.
17 December 2014 Whangarei, New Zealand
What a surprise, it lashed it down last night. At six o'clock, I heard the rumble of thunder, so I got out of bed and put our iPad and all of our back-up disks into our Faraday Cage (oven). This must have exhausted me because I slept in until nine o'clock.
By the time that we’d had breakfast, the wind had dropped and the rain had reduced to a light drizzle, so we dropped the dinghy from the davits and lifted it onto the foredeck, which is a safer place to store it while we’re in the UK. Of course, halfway through this operation the rain increased and by the end, we were like drowned rats.
Our new Rocna anchor was delivered this morning, so I fixed it on the anchor chain and lifted it up onto the boat. The head of it is much bigger than the old CQR, so it only just fits and is actually banging up against our pulpit, so I'm going to get a bigger bow roller made which should push it forward enough to clear the pulpit frame.
I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting out the bow thruster. I removed the propellers and then had the tedious job of removing the anti-foul paint from the tunnel. It’s so small that I had to use an industrial paint stripper, which was horribly corrosive – a very nasty job.
18 December 2014 Whangarei, New Zealand
We were up early because two guys started scraping our hull and the noise inside the boat was like someone dragging their fingernails over a blackboard.
I jumped on my bike and rode into town to pick up the Generator exhaust which had been re-welded and looked good. I also picked up the two new phosphor bronze sea cocks and fittings – a staggering £300 for the two of them.
We spent the rest of the morning preparing to leave the boat for a month, putting the bikes on deck and packing our bags. After lunch, “Scott Free” gave us a lift to the bus stop, so that we could get a bus to Auckland. The bus was an hour late arriving (this is not Switzerland), but the journey itself was a pleasant three hours.
The bus dropped us off across the road from the ferry terminal and we caught a ferry to West Park, where Horst from “Flow” picked us up and took us to his house. “Laragh” are staying in the nearby marina, so David and Katrina also came over for dinner.
19 December 2014 Whangarei, New Zealand
Karen took us on a lightning tour of the Auckland area. We called in at a dive shop and exchanged Glenys’s dive computer for a new one – a great deal only costing £40 even though it was four years old. We went to North Point which is an old naval base with gun emplacements to protect the Auckland harbour. There is a great view of the Auckland City skyline.
We then went into Auckland town centre where Glenys bought some hats and gloves made from Wombat fur as presents for people back in the UK. We had lunch at the fish market then visited some friends of “Flow” in the marina for sundowners.
20 December 2014 New Zealand to UK
Karen ran us to the airport and we started our flight back to the UK which was okay despite being ten hours to Singapore, a six hour layover and then fourteen hours to London. Singapore Airlines was very good with comfy seats, lots of tasty food and free wine - I watched eight movies on the journey. We arrived in Heathrow at 0530, picked up a car and were at our son Brett’s house by eight o'clock where we had a light breakfast and crashed out for six hours.
21 December 2014 to 14 January 2015 United Kingdom
We spent four weeks in the UK visiting family and friends. The UK was in full Christmas mode when we arrived and we spent a fun two days wandering around shopping centres, buying Christmas presents; including a cheap guitar for me and a cheap ukulele for Glenys, which we've left in the UK for our next visit.
Christmas Day was lovely. We spent it at our son Craig’s house along with his girlfriend Kristen, Brett and his girlfriend Tash. There were lots of presents to open, a huge lunch and we all dozed through the afternoon in front of the telly – magic.
After three days at Craig’s house, we started our two week UK tour, spending time with Glenys’s brother Gareth in the New Forest and my family up in Lancashire.
We also visited some friends – John from the yacht “Kika” (who we met in the Galapagos) lives near Conway in Wales and has returned back to life on his sheep farm. “Kika” is being shipped over to Holland by ship, so John’s looking forward to sailing her along the south coast of the UK this summer. Another friend was Joe Kunicki who we last saw in the late 1980’s. He was a skydiving buddy who we’d lost track of, but Joe had come across our website and contacted us – it was good to catch up on the last 25 years.
Our final weekend was spent at Centre Parcs with our sons and their girlfriends – we had a great time just chilling out. All too soon, our time was over and we had to go back to New Zealand.
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