Our pit stop at Marsden Cove marina has turned out to be slightly longer than anticipated, as our electrical Warranty of Fitness check highlighted a couple of areas of concern.  There are few jobs on board that don’t involve the boat descending into total chaos (lockers emptied, floorboards up and tools everywhere), but now that we find ourselves away from the land of ‘make-do-and-mend’ we thought we’d take the opportunity to replace and upgrade.

So, after many frustrating hours feeding wires, conduit and pipe through the confines of Macushla’s bilge, we’re now the proud owners of a new calorifier/immersion heater, a new Victron charger/inverter combi and new battery monitoring instrumentation.  As we write, we await a final inspection and are confident of finally being fully compliant.

Although our main focus has been on boat jobs, we’ve managed to see a bit of the town of Whangarei whilst sourcing parts and meeting up with friends for a welcome break from chores.

The old and the lovely new:

Sights around Whangarei town.  It must get cold here; even the trees wear jumpers..: