35:43.476S 174:19.605E

Whangarei, New Zealand

18.11.2013

We're here!!! After 6 days and 3 hours and approx 840nm, we arrived to NZ. The last days had been more relaxed, with pretty calm sees, some relaxed sailing and quite a few hours of motoring. 

Very happy and grateful we and the boat arrived safe and sound! We went alongside the custom's dock at Marsden Cove at about 19:00hrs, too late to clear in. So we were there and weren't there, as we could only step on the little concrete dock, closed off by a strong metal door with big warnings from the rest of the world. 

Kind of a funny feeling! So we enjoyed the beautiful scenery with rolling green hills and the smell of land all around us from our hammocks. A very nice customs officer came after all, as he had to come out for a big tanker and started the clearing in process. A very friendly and good humored guy, what a nice welcome!

The evening and the next morning we spent processing some more food, as the quarantine officer who came in the morning takes all fresh vegetable and fruit, eggs, meats if origin other than NZ - and beans. All my nice mung beans, black beans and kidney beans went into the bin, together with some other bug suspicious herbs. Fortunately, it wasn't too much and the lady was rather impressed with our pantry contents. 

All in all, it was a rather pleasant inspection.

After that, we continued up the Hatea river to our final destination at the Town Basin and explored the picturesque little city. Nice to have stores, restaurants and supermarket in walking distance for a change. And the nice hot showers in the marina are a real treat. 

We finished the evening with some champagne and ended up having our neighbors over - a German family from Hamburg! on SV Super Molly, a Jever green sloop. 

Seems we found a nice place to get organized and then to leave Andromeda.