From Town Basin Marina, Whangarei, NZ
We are FINALLY waiting for weather to leave New Zealand for the season and head to Fiji. After 6 weeks of solid boat work, we're certainly ready for a change of pace! Plus, it's Fall here and the leaves are changing. It's actually quite unique in that there are fall colors but also big shrubs full of new blossoms like it's mid summer. We're eating rhubarb like crazy, along with new crop mandarin oranges & Fuji apples, but we keep buying avocados too. The market is heaped high with every kind of lettuce you can think of. There's winter squash too. I don't really get it but the farmers I've talked to say there is just a very long growing season here. We plan to head down the river to Marsden point today to wait for the magic words that we can go. We'll use a weather router- Bob McDavitt to help us since this area has pretty complicated weather systems and we hope not to get the same kind of beating we got coming down here, but fully expect we will!

The boat went back in the water like nothing- all was smooth and we really liked Norsand Boatyard. We got a lot done there and they run a pretty efficient business. This was the first boatyard we've ever been to where you have to collect all your gray water. So any sinks you use while living on the hard have hoses connected to jugs below that you have to empty every couple of days. There are so many sailors living there at any given time since we have nowhere else to live when our boats are hauled out that I can see why they have you recycling everything including your gray water. But, the place was spic & span and you didn't get that all too familiar toxic waste dump feel that you get in some yards. It was good to be out of there and back in the water.

Of course once we got launched, the projects just continued. A bunch of stuff broke as well, such that we spent the first few days just trying to keep up with what had broken that day. I mean, even the coffee maker burned up. We're now on our spare which is really scary since we can't get any 110 appliances here or anywhere for a long time. Jon reported that he just had a nightmare last night that the new coffee maker broke. He'd have to figure out how to fix it and deal with a cranky wife until he did! But now, we've got all the major projects done and everything is put back together- sails all aboard and on, new whisker pole on, mount for a prod to fly the spinnaker installed, the spinnaker is in the aft cabin along with our bikes (pretty full in there now!) and we are all provisioned. As they say in Kiwi, we're looking pretty "flash" with these latest improvements.

We drove to Opua yesterday to return the car and saw lots of friends. It felt so odd to be there where we first pulled in to NZ 6 months ago. So much has happened since then. The time flew though. We have pretty much decided that we'd like to come back here next season which says something for this place- it is an amazingly beautiful country with so much to offer in terms of wildlife and open space but also yacht services and just a great place to live for a bit. They actually fix things here too. It isn't a throw away society so when it comes to boats, it's a very good place to get things done. We've certainly made our donation to the economy and now we must get back to the islands where it's cheaper to live and you can't spend money fixing anything since there's nothing to fix it with! We'd considered staying through the winter here to work some and it almost happened but then the funding fell through for the contract Jon nearly got so now we think we'll try in earnest next season. It would be nice to make a few bucks here if it works out.

It is 1200 miles to Fiji which is 8 days and some of those will inevitably be difficult. But the bright side is we'll be headed back into the tropics and it will get warmer each day. Lots of boats are already there and they say it's been hotter than anything. Meanwhile, we've got the heat going here, wearing jeans and jackets if the sun isn't out. We're definitely ready to get out our dive stuff, do some fishing and get back into our cruising life again for a bit.