Work is progressing slowly here at the yard. Unfortunately there are still a few fronts going through bringing rain and wind which is not helping the exterior jobs. The hull has been sanded now, ready for antifouling when there will be a dry spell. We are so glad that we didn't do it ourselves this time. It is such a messy and a very hard job.

For cosmetic reasons, Mike decided to have the stern re-gelcoated as it looked uneven since we removed the old self-steering gear and it turned out to be a blessing. Indeed, layers of gelcoat were seperating from each other due to the high pressure the backstay is applying when pumped tight under sail (this is to support the mast).

This could have been a potential disaster at sea of course and will now hopefully be consolidated and put right.

Our new fridge coolers have been installed on the hull and connected to the fridge and the freezer. We can't wait to be back in the water to get them to work. It should be so much more efficient that the old system and save us a lot of power consumption.

Little by little jobs are being ticked off from the "To Do" list.

We have been to a Welcome to New Zealand party for visiting cruisers on Monday. Looks like there is a large number of Dutch and German boats here this year.

Off next week with our car to the South Island. We are looking forward to that. It will be good to see all the friends we made during the previous cruising years. One in Auckland, one in Wellington and two lots of friends in Christchurch. And we are looking forward to the Peter and Roby's wedding on December 16th!

 

That's it for now. Hopefully the sun will be shining again next time we write!