Back in New Zealand.

Lady Kay has been hauled out, her bottom painted with antifouling, her topsides polished. We are now proud possessors of a new mainsail and sail bag, new batteries etc etc. The subsequent relaunch was uneventful. More cleaning and polishing to get rid of all the dirt and muck accumulated while we were in the yard. We did a safety audit, serviced the liferaft and found that we needed new life jackets. Our EPIRBs were sent off to get new batteries. An EPIRB automatically alerts Falmouth Coastguard of our position if it is activated either by us or going into the water. We discovered an incompetent technician can also do the same. The technician set off the alert. Falmouth immediately contacted Jackie's daughter but while they were on the 'phone in England a message came through from Auckland that it was a false alarm. At least we know the system works.

We did some small trips in the motorcaravan, including notably sitting out a Tsunami alert at Piha Beach. Piha is to the West of Auckland. On minute you are in Auckland's suburbs then you emerge into an area of hilly orchards and vineyards. The road narrows and steeply ascends high hills. Just as the views of Auckland disappear you see the harsher West Coast. Piha is a long dark sandy beach with pounding surf and curious rock formations standing out to sea. The sand stretches almost two miles along in front of a bank of sand dunes. Behind the sand dunes the road is dotted with mostly simple beach houses, Kiwis call them Baches. We camped on a park just behind the dunes. The atmosphere is very laid back and there is a feeling that nothing much has changed since the 1960's. On the Sunday we woke to a tsunami alert, caused by the Chilean earthquake. There was no time to return to the boat so we sat it out. Piha has tsunami evacuation points marked and sirens. None went off and being on the West Coast there was little risk. Officially the beach was closed but there was no sign of it and the lifeguards were still out watching the surfers. The alert passed without incident although there were unusual waves on the East coast. However, there was a bit of artificial media outrage the following day about the irresponsible surfers of Piha who kept on surfing.