The sky was clear and the sun was beaming in a beautiful morning. We (I) awoke and rolled out of bed today with anticipation. Today was to be our first day of employment in New Zealand. Without trying, Laurence and I had somehow been offered jobs as sailing instructors and could think of no reason to say no. So we packed our lunch and drove the dinghy over to the sailing school, eager to meet our assigned students. We would each be taking a pair of adults out for two days of instruction aboard a couple of twenty foot sloops. With any success, we'd then turn the new sailors loose for 3-days of cruising in the Bay of Islands - alone. Laurence chose her boat and met here students - a French woman and her Australian boyfriend whose last name is coincidently Blakely. My students were a Scotsman and his English partner, Michelle, both now living in Wellington NZ. We each spent about an hour going over boat systems and safety equipment then kicked the dock to begin our lessons. The school concept is to put students at the helm right away and basically just coach them through everything - starting from scratch. It's mostly hands on from the get-go for them. But with terminology, sail handling, points of sail, tacking, jibing, reefing, anchoring, motoring and docking, we have our hands full. Luckily, we had eager and able students. The day flew by and we actually got paid to teach and sail for 7 hours in one of the most scenic and maritime rich environments on the planet. Cool! We'll see how tomorrow goes, but it's good to be at least making a little cash to supplement the cruising kitty. We're definitely getting our sailing in - racing Solings Friday, then Opti's yesterday and Davidson's today. I told my students today "this is like heaven to me." Now we've just gotta figure out a way to get some sailing in on Radiance soon. 