1 January 2012

Having sucked dry numerous vineyards in Waiheke and ravaged their bread bits and olive oil (acquiring 3 bottles of over-priced, but mighty tasty wine in the process), Jan & I reached in blustery 12 to 25 knot winds the 20 some odd miles back to Pier 21 yesterday morning in record time. Tidying up and resting before heading out to party would have provided the bulk of entertainment had our battery charger not expressed its general dissatisfaction by shutting down, issuing peremptory error messages and refusing to reset. This was handled with typical aplomb by utterance of amusing expletives, turning the (expletive deleted) thing off and departing.

A chance meeting with friends studying the Urban Turban's happy hour (misnamed as it extended from 4 until 7) menu resulted in the six of us stuffing ourselves with wine and tapas for a relative pittance. Dinner of traditional (somewhere?) lamb and fush 'n' chups at O'Hagan's then kept us out and awake until 2000. Setting the alarm clock for 2330 then allowed observation of the death of a year and one born anew eighteen hours before Cal (good natured, non-sailing regular foil for this blog). Happy New Year buddy and to all our friends wherever they may be. Hope this year is just as interesting without the turmoil of 2011.

Fireworks exploding from the Auckland Skytower were fantastic, probably. Low scud mostly hid the show, but rain held off until we returned to the boat. Sleeping in was no chore, but think tonight will end a touch earlier than last. This happy event is unlikely to diminish in any significant way a reprise of this morning.

By the way, due to chowderheads who inflict daylight saving time on us plus our unwillingness to wait an hour and thus miss the celebration, we rang in 2012 an hour too soon. Harrumph!

Jack