Got back yesterday from Oamaru just in time to finish up our yacht club presentation in the evening. In the US, a yacht club has a different connotation than many other places in the world. A yacht club here is usually a fairly small and informal social group of people who have sailboats and keep them here. The clubs are basic...a few pile moorings, maybe some slips and as in the case here, three small fixed wharf pontoons. If there's no more room, they make room by rafting up one boat to the next.

This is a very small yacht club albeit probably the oldest continuing yacht club in NZ founded in 1891. We anticipated maybe 10-20 people max which is evidently the norm. 65 people showed up! Evidently the mention of the talk in the newspaper article sparked the interest of several folks and no one had anything better to do on a Friday night in Dunedin. We got a free dinner out of the deal which was nice and the folks here were very receptive and welcoming...read that, no one fell asleep during the talk or threw rotten veggies.

The 3-5 day forecast for getting to the Chathams is not favorable so we'll stay another day or two until the window looks better.