May 16 – 27, 2010

Same old, same old!  During this time, we spent our days completing various boat projects and enjoying the company of Tony and Carol and Des.  The wind continued to howl and the seas were large outside of the harbour but we were always very comfortable at Whangaparapara.

We also took advantage of the assistance of a third person to do the complete rigging check.  Mary raised Paul up the mast using the electric anchor windlass and Des tailed the spinnaker halyard, which was tethered to Paul’s harness as a safety precaution.  Without the extra pair of hands, Mary would have to stop periodically, tie down the main halyard (the main line pulling Paul up the mast) and go to the starboard side at mid-ships and deal with the spinnaker halyard.  It is much easier with the third person.

A rigging check before an offshore passage is a must, as far as we are concerned.  It is during this check that we can, hopefully, identify and correct potentially dangerous breakages while at sea.  We recently were speaking with a couple that lost their forestay while crossing the Pacific and they were fortunate that the mast didn’t come down on top of them.  We got the sense while talking with them that a rigging check wasn’t something that was part of their routine, but will be now.

This time, Paul did find something that needed attention before going to sea.  The cover of the main halyard (the rope that raises and lowers the main sail) was frayed through to its core.  This would be a calamity if it broke and the ends stayed inside of the mast, as we would not be able to retrieve the ends.  Paul could not correct this at that time, so down he came after inspecting everything along his way.  Later, he spliced a loop on the opposite (and unused) end of the main halyard and then, after he was raised up the mast again, he switched the halyard end-to-end.  Again, we used Des’ help.  It was a tense time and we all held our breath as we threaded the opposite end of the halyard on a thin piece of very strong line through the mast.   If the small line broke, we would probably have lost the end of the halyard in the mast.  But we had success.

May 28 – June 3, 2010

With a predicted southeast wind of 25 knots and a change to west winds late in the afternoon and 1-2 metre swell, we set out early in the morning for Whangarei – a distance of approximately 50 miles.  The southeast wind lasted until we were just outside of the harbour and then came out of the west, almost the exact direction that we were heading.  Yuck!  The first hour was difficult as the seas were quite confused and our progress was slow.  We contemplated turning into Port Fitzroy at the northwest end of Great Barrier Island but we persevered and continued to motorsail.  The seas calmed as we passed Little Barrier Island and the ride became much more comfortable. 

At 1600h, we motorsailed into Whangarei Heads and continued on up the river with the rising tide.  Two hours later we were at anchor across from Norsand Boatyard and had a calm evening and night.  The next morning we went into the Town Basin Marina so that we could complete our provisioning for Tonga over several days.  It is much easier to get provisions back to the boat at a dock than when at anchor.

Just about every day we walked to Pack ‘n Save and loaded one or two shopping carts with provisions.  The first day we didn’t realize that we could take the carts back to the boat and then return the empty cart and we carried as much as we could ourselves.  After that, we were much smarter and the task became easier.  One of the days we walked a greater distance to Countdown and took a taxi ride back to the boat.

Putting a large amount of provisions away is daunting at normal times but now we were provisioning for a four-month stay in the tropics.  Mary first cleaned out all of the cupboards and reorganized the galley and pantry so that she could take a more accurate count of what they contained before we started packing new provisions away.  And just as when we went to the Louisiades, we looked at all storage space in the boat and tried to reorganize things differently.  This meant, for instance, that the shelves at the foot of our bed and in the guest cabin now became the home for Kleenex, soy milk, long-life regular milk, canned fruit and vegetables, chicken stock, and some cleaning products – whatever fit best in the space available.  And none of this would make any sense to us later if we didn’t keep accurate records of what was where and the quantity of each item, so we were diligent in our record keeping.

At high tide on June 3, with our provisioning basically completed (except for last minute items just before we leave for Tonga), we left the marina and anchored across from Norsand Boatyard.  We had a haulout booked for the next day.

June 4 - 19, 2010

The haulout went very smoothly.  After all, this was the third time in less than one year for us to be at Norsand Boatyard.  The first two times were for saildrive problems and not planned haulouts.  This time, because we needed a place to keep the boat while we go to Canada for our son’s wedding and we haven’t been pleased with the antifouling paint that we applied last August, we decided to take the boat out of the water.  We hauled the boat out two weeks before we were due to leave for Canada to complete various projects and scrape and paint the bottom with a different paint. 

Antifouling the boat bottom did not go as smoothly as anticipated due to the weather.  Four days before we were due to take the bus to Auckland; we still had the second coat of paint to apply.  There were several days when it showered continuously – one minute the sky would be clear and cloudless and the next, we were scrambling to get out of the rain.  And it is now winter – the mornings are very cold and the boat wet from dew until well into the morning.  This added to the painting difficulties.

We did manage to take some time off to enjoy the company of friends.  Melva and Hilton from Spindrift 11 had invited us to their home in Tutukaka for dinner and an overnight stay.  They also invited Bob and Leonie, owners of the chandlery in Whangarei, for dinner and they picked us up and drove us out to Tutukaka.  We had a very pleasant and relaxing evening.

June 19, 2010

It’s Saturday and the bottom painting is completed.  Most of the other items on our “to do” list are checked off and the rest will have to wait until we return from Canada.

We are off to Auckland tomorrow and then we fly to Nelson, British Columbia on Monday.  We’ll be back at the boat on July 8 and we will prepare for departure to the Kingdom of Tonga.