After watching trains of low pressure systems blow thru our destination and our area of departure, Tanga HAS A WINDOW!! We are finally leaving New Zealand this morning. We have cleared out of the country with customs, paid our bill at the marina, and we are ready to go! Goodbye to the delicious meat pies, tasty white wines, cheeseburgers with carrots and beets (not our thing) and New Zealand sayings like "Good on ya", "No worries", and "Don't be cheeky."

We are heading to Suva, Fiji, about 1000+ miles north and slightly east of here. So, we are expecting it to take anywhere from 7 to 10 days to get there. As usual, we will try to update the website with our position as we sail along.

Tanga out!

We've been on the hard for almost a week, and we have just about everything checked off our "to do list". First off, was assessing the condition of the bottom paint. Once the hull was pressured washed, we saw several areas where the anti-foul paint had worn off. We had the option of doing touch up areas with new anti-foul or painting the entire hull with a fresh coat of anti-foul. We decided on option B, figuring we will glide through the water faster, it would help keep barnacles and other things from attaching to the hull, and it would just look better. So, after two days, the bottom paint was done.


New anti-foul paint on the hull.

Next on the list was having our transmission worked on. A few days before we moved to the boat yard, Tom started the engine, just to make sure the engine was running smoothly. Now, I should say, that we have been running the engine about once a week, again, just to make sure Ethel was happy. So, with the engine running, Tom stuck his head into the engine room, and noticed that we had a leak coming from the transmission. After doing some research online, he suspected that a seal needed replaced. It was a good thing that we already had our haul out scheduled, because the transmission work could only be done when Tanga was out of the water. So, Friday, Tom and another guy worked all day long on the transmission, taking it apart to access the seal. The hardest part of the job was trying to remove the corroded bolts and screws. A blow torch was needed. Now, the seal has been replaced , the transmission is put back together.

The last item on the list was installing our new transducer for the depth sounder. The thru-hull for the old transducer was bigger than the new one. So Tom filled the hole with epoxy and then waited a few hours for it to dry. Then, he drilled a 2 inch hole into the hull and sanded to it down so that it was flush on the inside and outside of the hull. A quick installation of the transducer, with a good coating of 5200, and it was done. Now, Tom needs to run the wire up to the cockpit and that job is done.


Tom sanding down the new thru-hull to make it flush with the hull.


New transducer installed, view from the outside of hull.


New transducer installed, view from the inside of hull.

So, with everything wrapping up today, we are hoping to be put back into the water tomorrow. We have just a few items to get done once we are back into a dock slip. We want to drop the jib and make sure the jib halyard has no chaffing points. We also want to add more markings on to our anchor chain. Once those are complete, we will be looking forward to leaving Whangarei and heading north to Opua. We will be clearing out of the country from Opua, obtaining some duty free diesel, and looking for a weather window to start our passage to Fiji!

One last thing to mention. It's getting cold here. We hear ads on the radio for buying firewood, we saw pumpkins for sale at the local hardware store, we are running our portable heater in the mornings and evenings and we learned yesterday, that New Zealand does daylight savings, we didn't know that. Yesterday was the end of daylight savings and we turned the clocks back one hour. Fall back!

We moved yesterday from The Town Basin Marina to living on the hard. Tanga was pulled out of the water during high tide, around 1pm. Here's a picture of Tom inspecting our hull and bottom paint right after being pulled out of the water. The hull had lots of dirt/mud and many barnicles attached to her.


Then we had the hull pressure washed so that we could see how the bottom paint looked.



Here's a picture of Tanga sitting on top of crates, wood boards and held tight inside a cradle.

While in spending many months in New Zealand, we really haven't posted much on the website, but since we haven't been sailing, we didn't think our land travels would be of interest on our sailing blog. Now that we are starting to watch the weather and make final preparations for our departure, we'll get back to posting regularly. So feel free to blow off your work and start reading our blog again.

We just received our brand new mizzen sail and it is installed. It is very white, crisp and sturdy. It made us realize that our mainsail is stretched out and used. I think we will be putting a new mainsail on our wish list for next season. We also ordered a new windlass. This was something we did not intend to spend money on, considering our current windlass was brand new when we left San Francisco and we used it for only one cruising season. But, after installing a new starter battery, which also powers our windlass, we discovered that the windlass was indeed dead, and we need a new one. Tom ordered it on Thursday with a promise that it would be couriered from Auckland by Friday afternoon. So, on Friday, Tom went to pick it up and was told that the courier didn't come up from Auckland today because there was a rugby game on. Funny, and we thought the fans of the NFL were fanatics! Anyway, today being Monday, Tom picked up the new windlass, installed it, and loaded our anchor chain through it.

Next big project will be our scheduled haul-out for April 2nd. Depending on how the bottom of Tanga looks, we may be removing the old bottom paint and putting on a new coat or maybe just doing some touch-ups. Also, we will have a new propeller and zincs installed, along with a new depth transducer. No longer will I have to stick our transducer that is currently attached to a pole, into the water to see what the depth is. This was a Mcgiver fix Tom rigged up quickly when we were in the islands last year. It worked great for a temporary fix, but we're both looking forward to it being properly installed in the hull.

We are hoping to only be living on the "hard" for a week and be back in the water quickly. Our plan is to take a few sails around the coast to re-learn all that we have forgotten during our land lubber time. There are a lot of small islands scattered across the New Zealand and we would like to check them out before leaving the country.

A small mention about driving on the wrong side of the road. We folks from the states, having driven on the right side of the road, are often intimidated by trying to drive on the left side in other countries. Our experience has shown it's not too bad, just odd.

Our next door neighbor, Brian, has been offering his car to us for quite some time. Tom went for a test drive, with Brian, about a week ago, to get the hang of sitting and driving on the other side of the road. Of course, passing the driving test with flying colors, it was time for us to borrow the car and go on our own. Brian's car is a stick shift so that added a small bit of difficulty and humor. The shifting gear is still in the middle of the car, with the same shifting pattern. The gas pedal was on the right and the clutch was on the left, just like we are used to. On numerous occasions, Tom found himself grabbing the window control in an attempt to shift with his right hand. Once we developed comfort in being on the wrong side of the car, we found the driving was easy. The only time Tom had any issues that required his full attention was when turning onto or off a road. Having driven his whole life on the right side, it was very instinctive to pull onto any road on the wrong side, but we were able to get through it without incident.

While we were enjoying our morning coffee and reading our books, we heard a knock on our boat. Tom goes up to the cockpit and is greeted by a census guy. We are told that today is Census Day and that we are to participate. Tom explains to the guy that we are Americans and that we are visiting the country for a few months. The guy again, explains that we are required to participate.

So, today, Tuesday March 5th is Census Day, it lasts just one day and happens every 5 years. The paperwork is pretty basic with two packets (written in Maori and English); one is the Dwelling Form and the second is the Individual Form. One particular question inside the Dwelling form is a question regarding what type of dwelling we live and one of the options is yes, a moveable dwelling, for example, caravan, boat, tent, etc. Other questions in the Dwelling packet were if we owned our dwelling, have the capabilites of heating our dwelling and whether we have a cell phone, telephone, fax or internet access.

The Individual Form asked for our names, ages, birthdate, nationality, when we arrived in New Zealand and our current address. Since we are not residents, most of the questions we did not have to answer regarding income amount, type of employment, religion, whether we have a disability, receive public assistance, what language we can converse in and how much education we have.

One last thing to mention about the census, we even heard on the radio that the census bureau handed out the packets to people on the cruiseships!