Hi every-one. Just uploaded some pictures of our time at Great Barrier Island, they include some from the mussel fest; our trek via the Kauri dams (story of these dams is included see photos of signs) up to the summit of Mt Hobson , with its awesome scenery, crystal clear creeks , waterfalls and those 900 stairs (straight up) that you have to conquer in order to reach the top having already walked and climbed for 3 hours ! , as well as the results of some of our fishing trips (Leanne out fished me as you will see) so visit the photo gallery to check them out.

We are both good and had a great few weeks cruising the Hauraki Gulf area and enjoyed socialising with yachtie friends old and new. The weather here has been great, mostly fine with warm days and cool evenings not what I expected at all.

Migaloo has been at Gulf Harbour in the marina for a little over a week now. Since leaving Vanuatu Migaloo's steering has been causing us some concern as the rudder does not always respond to changes in course from both the helm and the autopilot. This problem has slowly gotten worse, and on the trip from Kawua Island to here the conditions were quite rough and Migaloo became difficult to steer. Having fiddled with the steering system several times over the last few months and being unable to remedy the problem I called in the experts when we arrived here. As I suspected the steering pump (which we rebuilt prior to leaving home last year) appears to be the source of the problem. So a new pump has been ordered and will be fitted. So Migaloo is out of action for the moment and as such we are going to be here for a couple of weeks at least.

We haven't decided yet whether we will hang around here or take off in the car and visit the South Island. We originally intended to do this in March but if it looks like we will be stuck here awhile waiting for the pump we might go sooner than planned.

John & Lyn of the ICA asked us to write an article for the ICA newsletter about how we came to be cruising and it featured in the February edition .If you would like to read just copy and paste the link below into your browser;

http://www.islandcruising.co.nz/newsletters/feb2010_cruisenews_email.pdf

Hope you are all healthy and happy and please remember to put your comments (messages) on the blog when you visit, we always check to see who is following our adventures and get a kick out of reading your entries.