All our Bags are Packed, Ready to Go

No, we’re not Leaving on a Jet Plane, but we are leaving New Zealand today.

We’ve been here six months, its getting cold, and we’re ready to head to warmer places for a while, so its off to Fiji.

It is about a six-day trip, plus or minus a day.  It is a little over 1,000 miles from Northern New Zealand to Fiji.

We’d hoped to leave a little earlier but the weather has been a bit dodgy so we’ve had to wait.  So we’ve spent the last week saying our goodbyes, tucking the car away, making last-minute fixes on the boat and getting supplies and provisions.

I all of you a big pile of posts from New Zealand, I know.  More on the fun stuff we did, and more about all the boat work.  We didn’t actually explore much of the country by boat but we put many thousands of kilometers on the car while we were here and had some fantastic visits from family.  It really has been a nice time and the boat is in much better shape now than when we got here.

A brief list of what we did here includes:

• Painting the bottom
• Replacing the horrible Westerbeast generator with a shiny new one from Northern Lights.
• Pulling the main engine out, cleaning it up, fixing things like a rusted oil pan and making pre-emptive repairs.
• Replacing all the standing rigging but the backstay – the wires that hold up the mast.
• Replacing some of the lines and running rigging including the checkstays and a new outhaul.
• Repairing all the sails; re-doing some work we had done in French Polynesia, repairing ongoing wear and tear.
• Professionally overhauling the dinghy to finally fix all the damage caused by the dinghy dock from hell in Panama.
• Replacing all eight 12V batteries with 16 new 6V batteries with about 10% more capacity
• Replacing the freezer compressor with a more powerful one and fixing a leak in the line
• Replacing the old 12V battery charger
• and the old broken backup 24V battery charger.
• Upgrading to a new version of MaxSea, our navigation software
• Repairing the ship’s PC
• Conditioning the propeller with Propspeed to reduce fouling and growth
• Re-inspected and certified the Life Raft and updated much of the SOLAS safety gear.
• Rebuilt the clutch on the backup autopilot and re-installed it.

There was still more to do, but we already made a much larger contribution to the local economy than we had planned so we just had to scream “no more” and leave some things undone.  I promise some more gruesome detail and pictures in some other posts, but time is pressing now.

But the things that vexed us on the way here from Tahiti – except the wind and current of course – should not be a problem for a while!

We’re going to miss New Zealand, but new adventures await.  We are planning to return here at the end of the cruising season – which is a first for us since setting out in 2012.  When we come back though we will only be three, because some time in September we pack Will off for Southhampton Solent University in the UK where he will spend the next three years training to be a yacht designer.  Not only will we miss HIM because he is our kid and we like his company, but we will have to learn how to sail with a crew of three because we lose a very valuable crew member.

But that is for the future and I don’t want to think about it.

On to Fiji!  I’ll do my best to post here daily en route and let you know with it finally gets warm enough to put our shorts back on.