We have finally gotten ourselves out of Auckland and south to the marina where we will be hauling the boat out. It was a hard trip. The initial portion was is nice protected waters and it was a great sail. I was even finally able to get some dolphin shots (this was our 4th or 5th time seeing dolphins and every time there has been some reason I couldn't get a photo). I was pretty excited about it. Unfortunately they were clearly feeding and didn't swim with us very long.

Once we got out of the bay into open ocean the seas changed dramatically. Let's just say it was a very long night watch for me. Definitely seasick. The boat got a lot of water over the top - luckily our hard dodger kept me dry since we were close to land there was no going below to stay out of the cold.

We arrived very early. The currents where we had to go through can get very strong and we were supposed to come in at about 1:00 but because we wanted to ensure we would make slack tide we left early from Auckland which in turn put us in early. Mark and I assessed the situation and decided that the current wasn't as bad as the marina made it sound to be. We made it in fine but the marina still insisted on us going into our slip bow first. It would have been easier to go stern in. The bow thruster makes all the difference. We made it in, tied up, and took some naps. After which we registered with the marina and had dinner in the marina office before an early night to bed. We would have liked to explore the town but it was far to rainy to want to do anything else.