Here, it is Christmas Eve, 2018. It seems the time has flown since we arrived here last month; it is perhaps a function of age or the fact that a lot has been accomplished in a relatively short period of time. When we arrived there were a bunch of items on the list, some small and relatively simple, some larger and more complex. All had one thing in common; we wnated them repaired or taken care of before Christmas so we could sail the Bay of Islands over the Christmas and New Years holidays. Actually, pretty much every marine related business closes down from about December 20th until January 15th or so, so if you are going to get stuff done it is either pre Christmas or sometime next year. Every item on the list was taken care of before Friday; then the weather went to hell. It has been pouring rain steadily since Friday evening and is expected to get worse before it starts to clear mid week. Most of the boats that had gone out to one of the dozens of beautiful anchor ages in the Bay, have come back to the marina. I beleive the theory is that a day or two in a rainy anchorage is really quite pleasant, beyond that cabin fever sets in and everyone gets antsy. At least in the marina one can get off the boat and go to a restaurant or other socially active place in order to reduce the fever. I have been asked, what do you do for Christmas? Well, we have some traditions that include Christmas dinner of BLT sandwiches, there is a small tree, decorated with local flavor (such as this years white faced sheep) and other tiny ornaments that could be used as earings if need be. We watch movies, usually a mix of some Christmas movies along with contemporary popular films that we think might be good. Sometimes they are and sometimes not. Then there are the calls to our loved ones. Though they may start on Christmas eve, it takes about three days to complete the calls. So, other than the complexities of the 1 day, +13 hour time difference we spend Christmas much like other people do. The notable exception is that family, friends and all the important people in our lives are half a world away. That is not to diminish the freindships we have made in this world cruising community we are part of, and their importance in our lives. Back to sailing the world for a moment. As mentioned at the beginning of this post we had a long list of mostly irritating things to fix when we arrived, along with a few significant items, some of which deserve mention. The most signifigant improvement we had to make was to reinforce the cockpit coamings around the genoa sheet winches. About 5 years ago we replaced the original manual winches with electric versions of similar size. Though electric winches make it possible for old guys to continue to sail, they pose a risk in that they are much more powerfull than their manual siblings. Pushing the button a bit more than necessary will break something. In our case nothing broke yet we noticed some signifigant flexing in the cockpit coaming where the winches reside. During our passage we used rolling hitches tied to the genoa sheet after the winch and led to a deck cleat to reduce the strain. The issue turned out to be some rotted core (marine plywood) which was caused by water ingress through the large hole required to attach the winch motor to the winch itself. We replaced the core with a local New Zealand hardwood and protected it with a fiberglass tube epoxied between the fiberglass outer skin and the inner skin, making water intrusion impossible. Actually a good idea for any penetration of cored fiberglass. There were two or three other issues of importance we fixed over the last month. The most interesting was the replacement of the oil pressure sensor, which had failed and been replaced by a self tapping screw, wrapped in plumbers tape. In our open ocean repair we had broken the tube from the engine block to the sensor, requiring the broken off peice of copper to be carefully removed with an "easy out". Readers of prior posts may recall the major issue with this particular part was the location under an engine mount. Tied to a marina slip it became relatively easy to repair. The generator was also a simple fix. Everything was working perfectly except it would not generate any electricity. On the generators control panel there is a circuit breaker designed to work after 10 seconds of over amperage. Since it has a 10 second delay the breaker has a mechanical spring which failed, keeping it in the Off position. A new breaker fixed that issue straight away. The third issue was the battens on the mainsail pushing through the batten pockets. The mainsail has 6 full length battens, all of which are held under tension in pockets. The tension helps the mainsail keep a proper shape. Tension also causes wear on the forward end of the sail, which in this case caused the batens to push through the sail cloth. It was not a result of poor design or construction of the new mainsail we had Doyle Sails build in Panama, it was the result of nearly 12,000NM of sailing with that sail. North Sails, here in Opua, repaired it and made it stronger by using stuff like Kevlar to reinforce the the edges of the pockets. Steve and Michelle, who sailed with us from Fiji to New Zealand had both made a list of observations for various items they noticedt needed attention. It included the above plus a number of other items such as leaking hatches and deck prisims to name but two. Needless to say all will be addressed before we embark on the next leg of our adventure. Where might might the next leg of this adventure take you some would ask. Austrailia? Indonesia? Closing the circle on a circumnavigation? All are possibilities, none are cast in stone.................more later