35:43.82S 173:59.65W
01.-14. April 2014
Norsand Boatyard,
Whangarei, Northland,
New Zealand
Back in New Zealand!
After a great Christmas time in Germany,
I had joined Michael and Ally in Cape
Town, were we spent about 3 and a half wonderful months
together.
Ally is in second
grade now and it was wonderful sharing holiday and school time
with her.
My parents came rather
spontaneously for a visit! It was great seeing them so soon
again, too.
We've been back to Andromeda for 2
weeks now, and time - as usual - flies by.
We had a lot of work
done on her while we were gone, which is still going on. And
we are putting in our share in that, also.
We were scheduled to
go back into the water this Thursday, but the cyclone that
passed Vanuatu
and Queensland
might hit the Northland Tuesday morning.
Also, we might not
finish some of the jobs in time, so probably will stay on the
hard til after Easter.
It's not that bad here after all...
Once we are done with the biggest job, we'll do some trips to
explore the Northern Island with our car! We boat a very
comfortable Toyota Camry, from 2002, for only 2000$. A lot of
things are rather expensive here - but cars certainly aren't.
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Boatyard
romantic -fortunately, we have quite a
lovely spot here.
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Weird
to see her without her mast (in
maintenance).
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Taking
advantage of the nice weather and
cleaning out the front lockers.
Unfortunately, a little bit late, we
realised that the drainage holes are a
bit rotten away and water had gotten
into the balsa wood - not good... We had
them drying out with hair dryer and
electrical heaters for a few days -
unfortunately the rain came one day too
early and we couldn't fix it
and have to start all over again.
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Andromeda
looking weird without mast and the hulls
stripped of their antifouling paint and
epoxy barrier coat.
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Aaron
sprayed on three coats of epoxy barrier
coat ...
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...
and then two coats of antifouling. Great
technique with this spray thing - if it's not
windy. We had bits of little white and
black microdust on the deck and even on
the car (which we of course had moved a
bit away!).
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It
just looks so beautiful, smooth and
shiny, had to put in another pic.
We
also had the sides of the hulls painted
on the outside (the nice shiny part). I'm trying
to improve the looks of the old part a
bit with sand paper and buffer.
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Michael
working on the sail drives. We had the
old one on the gear on the starboard
hull serviced, as well as both
propellers. Michael is preparing them
for now paint.
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Also
nice and shiny, ready to get painted!
Gear oil is changed in both sail drives,
and tomorrow we'll
receive the serviced propellers.
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Though
most of the time we spend on the boat
and some doctors visits, we also had
some fun day. A great Maori dance group
at a cruisers meeting dinner.
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We
bought a car to explore at least a
little bit of this beautiful place. We'll spend a
few more weeks on the Northern Island,
while Michael is getting some treatment
every two weeks in Auckland.
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And
with that car we can also drive around
the different lovely parks and hiking
trails in Whangarei.
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It's all very
lovely done and wonderful to see some
green after days in the boatyard.
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