Wednesday May 1st  Port Abercrombie , Great Barrier Island,  New Zealand  South Pacific Ocean 36:09.035S 175:20.789E 

Today’s Blog by David (Time zone GMT+11.00; UTC +11.00)

Alright! Alright! Eeverything is OK.  I said  “May Day”  (for that is today’s date, Dummy) not “Mayday”, neither did I say m’aidez  …….. nor ( the better French as Daryl, my ‘new best friend’, tells me despite the historical relevance of  my lesser offering): “Aidez moi”.

May Day is conventionally a time for celebration -  and so it was for us. Doubly so because:

1                     To my complete surprise everything happened at once; trades all over the boat Monday and Tuesday culminating in the Boatyard (BoatSmith) mounting a mercy mission on a RIB at ‘Sparrows’ Fart’ to collect the repaired compass from the other side of the harbour (eliminating the anticipated rush hour crossing of the bridge) and fitting it  – done and dusted by 8.30AM  - allowing us to depart at a time which yesterday had looked impossible.   

2                     I was able to take a photograph I had been longing for:       

So at last we were on or way.

We had a pleasant day -  motoring for far too long until eventually the wind backed and picked up allowing is a spanking broad reach for a couple of hours before arriving at Great Barrier Island,  the fourth largest Island in the New Zealand archipelago. This is quite different again, remarkable rugged and pretty much unpopulated; notes of Chile and Norwegian Fjords? And the bird life …….. It’s good to be back.

Avid readers of Blogs passim (e.g. “Well, upon my sole!”  28/7/2011)  will recall the Frog on a loop of ribbon as a badge of office for watch keeper. It was originally given to us  by Charlotte and  grandchildren Phoebe and Tom as a good luck charm but we decided to  use  to designate who is on watch at any point in time.  Sadly, after 20,000 miles it has become rather delicate having been smashed in the cockpit many times over  and patched together with glue and sticky tape from time to time and  varying degrees of success.  It now occupies pride of place at the chart table rather than risk further damage.  How fortuitous is was then that Charlotte and family holidayed in Japan (sic) a few weeks ago (Yes, Japan?)  and happened across another small Frog which has now become the Badge of Office for the Watch Keeper.  Here it is modelled by Daryl, my new best friend:

Yes ‘Daryl’ ….. errrr,      or was that Darren?