We spent most of April and May getting ourselves and the boat ready for the passage to Fiji. We got the majority of the items on our never-ending list of boat projects accomplished, and at a pace that did not leave us too breathless. That’s the good news – the bad news is, the time spent on the boat kept us from seeing many of the places we had hoped to visit in New Zealand, including the South Island. Oh well, there’s always next year (at least this time)!

Bright Angel was in the yard at Riverside Drive Marina in Whangarei for nearly three weeks. During that time we had the genset removed, fixed, and reinstalled (I had been struggling with overheating issues since Bora Bora). We also had the bimini lowered (the Mexico re-design did not allow the boom to come down low enough to get a decent furl on the mainsail), the bow pulpit straightened (after we were hit by a boat that drug anchor during a squall in Mo’orea ), and a crack in the Monitor wind vane bracket re-welded. Other projects included: replacing the two remaining stainless steel water tanks (that were beginning to leak) with custom made plastic tanks; re-bedding the chain plates and deck prisms; re-sealing the cockpit lockers and the coach roof hatches (that were leaking); waxing the hull; replacing the lettering on the boat name (that had suffered some heat stroke from the tropical sun); and many, many more projects, too numerous to list here. The work was mostly done by the various marine trades businesses on premises in the yard, or by ourselves, but we also had some help from an old friend from Olympia – Dave Ames, who used to work on our boats back home. It was like old times!

While the boat was “on the hard” we enjoyed the comforts of living in a really nice, recently renovated motel room; the motel was immediately adjacent to the Riverside Drive Marina parking lot and a two minute walk from the boatyard. We got our “TV fix” and Linda took advantage of the space she had to get some sewing projects done (with the aid of a transformer Dave Ames loaned us).

After we got Bright Angel back in the water, we had the rig professionally inspected and tuned, and then reinstalled the genoa, which we had taken to a sail maker for some re-stitching and new pennants. While all this was going on (and a few other projects – of course), Linda was busy buying and stowing provisions for our trip to Fiji. Originally, we had planned to go back to Tonga, then on to Fiji, before coming back to New Zealand in November. However, as we talked with more and more cruisers, many of whom had been to Fiji multiple times, they all said it was wonderful there, and impossible to see everything in one season. That convinced us to skip a return trip to Tonga with only an abbreviated season then in Fiji.

As we wrapped up our projects in Whangarei, we headed out to Marsden Cove, just “around the corner” from the Pacific Ocean, to await a weather window to “jump” to Fiji. There is a new, first class marina at Marsden Cove, with a fuel dock (the only one in the Whangarei area), and it is also an official port of entry, so you can clear customs there before leaving New Zealand – all very convenient. There were a number of our friends there, all doing them same thing, so it was anything but lonely (the one downside to Marsden is that it is so remote). A “weather window” and our last-minute preparations finally came together, and we took off for the 1200 nm passage to Fiji on May 30, 2013.