Footnotes from Water Music

The last week has passed in something of a blur as we have put the boat to bed and sought to balance this with some more fun things to do in one of the most beautiful parts of the world.

Stripping everything off the boat has been a major task and Water Music - for the first time since we bought her- has had everything removed to facilitate a lot of work that we need to do. In spite of throwing loads of stuff away (for reasons unknown, i did keep the spear gun), we ended up
filling most of the container that has been allocated to us in this delightful boatyard.

Finding Dave Blair has been something of a stroke of luck and he came highly recommended by Kiwi sailor Tony Whiting (who we met in French Polynesia and is brother of a girlfriend of mine from 43 years ago). When we met him, we knew straight away that we had landed on our feet and
he was just adding the finishing touches to a boat that has been in for a 6 month overhaul. The yacht is about 40 years old and is one that Dave built all those years ago. We took her place in the shed.

Around clearing up the boat, we spent a lot of time in the Opua Yacht Club - where they did a fantastic plate of oysters and Fish and Chips. That formed my diet for the best part of a week. Apart from that we drove extensively around the local area, visited a couple of wineries for lunch,
hired bikes to cycle down the railway track, went on hikes across beaches and through woods, played golf at the most scenic course imaginable (I played very badly), and even found somewhere to watch a dismal game of rugby. Finding somewhere to watch this match wasnt easy -
apparently none of the Kiwis around N Island have ever been interested in rugby. Cant think why that should be.

Thursday morning arrived and we were lifted out of the marina onto a truck at 0700. The next task was to take the mast out and then ship the convoy some 15 miles inland to Dave's yard for her well earned rest. The operation, expertly managed by Shelley, took about 3 hours from start to
finish, including trucking the boat to the shed and taking off the trailer once in place. Once out of the water, there were inevitable comments about the bite marks in the leading edge of the keel, caused by Flying Coral. The one at the bottom was easy to explain - if not the crack at back of
the keel - but the one we sustained near the top of the keel (in Tonga) was more difficult. Water Music is now in her shed on a small patch of land, surrounded by a herd of cows and, apparently, with a very good cheese shop on the other side of the road. Lets hope she enjoys her well
earned rest.

Having put the boat to bed, we took to the golf course. Alistair was initially disappointed that the buggy he had hired had a governor on it and would not allow us to go faster than walking pace, but did not let that spoil his steady, consistent play. It clearly did get to my golf, which started off
erratically and then became consistent but considerably worse.

The hotel we stayed in that night was right on the water front and so we could see Endeavour manoeuvering around in the bay, together with the 30+m long Maori war canoe that were due to be used to celebrate the 250 anniversary of Cook's arrival in NZ. We had learned all about that
on our visit to Waitangi the day before - so good to get a glimpse of the ship coming in.

After a long bus journey, we arrived in Auckland and went for drinks with Will & Wendy Roberts (Friends of Victoria's from Hong Kong). There was a bit of a gathering forming as their square all seemed to know that this would be the time that I would meet up with Debbie Whiting for the first
time in 43 years. None of us remember much about the evening - save that we ended up at the waterfront rather late. This morning gave us the opportunity to spend with other parts of the Whiting family and we had breakfast with Tony & Mags - who we hadnt seen since Raiatea in French
Polynesia. They showed us around through the morning and we are beginning to get our bearings in Auckland.

We have 2 more days of exploring, before Grace & I fly back to UK on Monday night and Al continues his journey through S Island.